Professor of Operations Management Mark Davis, whose research demonstrates the relationship between waiting times and customer satisfaction, has been awarded the 2017-2018 Mee Family Prize for “a lifetime of research excellence.”
Professor Davis is a world-renowned scholar in service operations research. A research paper he published in Decision Sciences was among the first to use operations management and marketing to examine how waiting for service affects a customer’s satisfaction. The research provided a framework for stores to provide better customer service.
Davis’ widely cited research has been published in high-quality journals including The Journal of Operations Management, Decision Sciences, The Journal of Services Marketing, The Journal of Business Forecasting, OM Review, The International Journal of Production and Operations Management, The Euro-Asia Journal of Management and The International Journal of Service Industry Management. He is the co-author of four books, including Operations Management: Integrating Manufacturing and Services, and Managing Services: Using Technology to Create Value.
Davis is routinely invited to be a keynote speaker and visiting scholar in the United States and abroad. As a visiting professor, Davis has taught courses in service operations at Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration; Instituto de Empresa in Madrid, Spain; Groupe HEC, in Paris, France; and Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. He served as president and was named a fellow of the Decision Sciences Institute. He was also elected president of the College of Service Operations in the Production and Operations Management Society.
Davis is also a respected leader in the service operations community known for his ability to link research with practice. The Art & Science of Service Conference, which he initiated and has run for more than 10 years, attracts academics and industry practitioners to focus on the service delivery process and the service systems that support it. These conferences have established Bentley University as an academic hub in the service operations community.
A recognition of excellence in research
Established by Bentley alumnus Michael Mee (’66) and his wife, Judy, to encourage and recognize excellence in research, the $25,000 Mee Family Prize is presented each year to a senior member of the Bentley faculty to honor outstanding, internationally acclaimed scholarship and exemplary contributions to Bentley’s faculty, students and alumni.
The Mee family established the prize with an endowed gift in 2012. Davis joins past Mee Prize recipients including Dr. M. Lynne Markus, Dr. W. Michael Hoffman, Dr. Jean C. Bedard, Dr. Gesa Kirsch, and Dr. Jane Fedorowicz.
Before Bentley, Davis worked as a manufacturing engineer for GE and he is a graduate of its Manufacturing Management Program. He was also a programs manager for the U.S. Army Natick Research Laboratories, where he focused on the design of military foodservice systems.