Jana Holthöwer wins AMA SERVSIG Best Dissertation Award

The Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB) is proud to announce that Jana Holthöwer has won the AMA SERVSIG Best Dissertation Award for her dissertation titled ‘Robots to the rescue? Shaping service experiences in healthcare and beyond'. The award recognizes outstanding doctoral research in service marketing or related fields.

In her dissertation, Holthöwer focused on how consumers can be stimulated to be more accepting, satisfied of and compliant with service robots in frontline settings, especially in health and elderly care. Robots are often seen as a solution to staff shortages, yet our understanding of how they work in real-world organizational settings still lags significantly behind the pace of technological development. Holthöwer obtained her PhD degree in October 2024 and was supervised by Professor Jenny van Doorn and Professor Koert van Ittersum.

Her research contributes to a better understanding of how robot characteristics and contextual factors can influence the service experience and enhance interactions with service robots. This is essential to ensure the successful integration of service robots in the health realm. Holthöwer: “Robots aren’t just tools anymore - they shape how people experience care, support, and service. The key is not using them everywhere, but finding the moments where they truly add value.’’

Previous awards

Holthöwer’s research has received widespread acclaim. In 2025, she received the Nicolaas Mulerius Foundation Dissertation Prize 2024 for the best University of Groningen dissertation defended in 2024 and the Best PhD Thesis Award 2024 from FEB. Furthermore, she was also a finalist at the EMAC-Enginius Doctoral Dissertation Competition that supports and celebrates excellence in doctoral research.

AMA SERVSIG Best Dissertation Award

The annual AMA SERVSIG Best Dissertation Award recognizes outstanding doctoral research that demonstrates excellence in originality, rigor, and contribution to service research. The award includes a cash prize, a plaque and spotlight features in the SERVSIG community. The award was initiated and sponsored by Maastricht University between 2016 and 2025. For 2026 and 2027, the award is sponsored by the Center for Professional Sales and the Marketing Department at Texas State University. SERVSIG is a special interest group of the American Marketing Association (AMA, focused on services research. Since its foundation, SERVSIG has sponsored numerous panels and sessions at the AMA Educators’ Conference while also hosting its own international conference and annual SERVSIG Doctoral Consortium.

Questions? Please contact Jana Holthöwer.