The Critical Incident Technique in Service Research

Abstract

The Critical Incident Technique (CIT) has been used in a variety of service contexts in recent years to explore ser-vice research issues and has been instrumental in advanc-ing our understanding of these issues. Despite the popularity of this methodology, no published research syn-thesis systematically examines this research. The primary purpose of this study is to review the use of the CIT method in service research to (a) help current and future research-ers employing the CIT method to examine their method-ological decisions closely and (b) suggest guidelines for the proper application and reporting of the procedures in-volved when using this method. The study provides an overview of the CIT method, reports the results of a re-search synthesis conducted of 141 CIT studies appearing in service marketing and management publications, dis-cusses implications for service research, and suggests guidelines for researchers employing this method