Roland  Rust, PhD

Roland Rust, PhD

University of Maryland, Robert H. Smith School of Business

Distinguished University Professor | David Bruce Smith Chair in Marketing | Executive Director, Center for Excellence in Service & Center for Complexity in Business

Expertise: Marketing ResearchEconomicsMarketing StrategyAdvertising

Roland T. Rust is Distinguished University Professor and David Bruce Smith Chair in Marketing at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, where he is founder and Executive Director of the Center for Excellence in Service. He is also Visiting Chair in Marketing Research at Erasmus University (Netherlands) and an International Research Fellow of Oxford University’s Centre for Corporate Reputation (UK). 

His lifetime achievement honors include the AMA Irwin McGraw-Hill Distinguished Marketing Educator Award, the EMAC Distinguished Marketing Scholar Award, Fellow of the INFORMS Society for Marketing Science, the Paul D. Converse Award, Fellow of the American Statistical Association, as well as the top career honors in service marketing, marketing research, marketing strategy, and advertising, and honorary doctorates in economics from the University of Neuchatel (Switzerland) and the Norwegian School of Economics.  He was one of the inaugural honorees in the American Marketing Association’s Marketing Legends video series, and one of the inaugural AMA Fellows.  He has won best article awards from five different journals, including four best article awards from the Journal of Marketing, as well as the Berry/AMA Book Award for the best book in marketing.  He served as Editor of the Journal of Marketing, founded the annual Frontiers in Service Conference, was founding Editor of the Journal of Service Research, and served as Editor of the International Journal of Research in Marketing (IJRM). 

He has consulted with many leading companies worldwide, including such companies as American Airlines, AT&T, Comcast, Dow Chemical, DuPont, Eli Lilly, FedEx, Hershey, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, NASA, NCR, Nortel, Procter & Gamble, Sears, Sony, Starwood, Tata, Unilever, and USAA.  A national class distance runner in his collegiate days, he has been inducted into the DePauw University Athletic Hall of Fame. He has coached one age group world champion and several age-group national champions in track and triathlon.  

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UMD Smith Launches Center for Artificial Intelligence in Business

A research and teaching initiative from the University of Maryland’s business school will bolster AI-enabled design and governance frameworks for businesses and policymakers.
03-May-2024 02:05:07 PM EDT

Tech Layoffs Signal ‘Feeling Economy’ Shift

UMD Smith expert explains the wave of tech job layoffs as a sign of a broader, labor market shift to where “humans need to recalibrate and capitalize on strengths beyond pure intelligence—like intuition, empathy, creativity, emotion and people skills.”
13-Feb-2024 08:05:24 AM EST

Pandemic Recovery Trends in Hotel Service

Maryland Smith service expert Roland Rust explains why guests should prepare for room rate and fee increases and more service automation as hotels grapple with a labor shortage.
14-Jul-2021 02:50:38 PM EDT

Frontiers in Service Conference to Explore ‘Service in the World of AI and Digital Technologies’

The world's leading service experts, including high-ranking executives and prominent academics, will meet, virtually, July 9-10 to discuss service industry developments related to AI and digital technologies.
05-Jul-2021 01:05:51 PM EDT

The Feeling Economy: How AI is Creating the Era of Empathy

As machines are trained to “think,” many tasks that previously required human intelligence are becoming automated through artificial intelligence. However, human workers have a competitive advantage: It is more difficult to automate emotional intelligence.
21-Jan-2021 08:15:22 AM EST

How Technological, Socioeconomic and Geopolitical Forces are Altering Everything We Know about Marketing

A new study examines technological, socioeconomic and geopolitical forces altering the marketing industry -- including deepening consumer relationships -- and the implications for marketing managers, educators and researchers.
06-Aug-2020 03:50:40 PM EDT

“The bottom line is that a lot of small businesses haven't gotten their money yet, due to logistical problems”

- Large chains securing small business relief loans spark backlash, calls for reform

“Economists tend to think about the economy as being numbers on a computer screen but really the economy is people. What we are seeing right now is a lot of individual people and individual mom and pop service retail locations being completely hammered.”

- Newswise Live Expert Panel for April 29, 2020: COVID vs. Re-Open, Business Experts Debate the Pros and Cons

“What’s happening right now is that the people at the very bottom of the income and wealth distribution are the ones that are being completely hammered by this, worse than anybody else. That is very much of a concern.”

- Newswise Live Expert Panel for April 29, 2020: COVID vs. Re-Open, Business Experts Debate the Pros and Cons

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