Professor Emeritus

James Barnes

Areas of Expertise

Marketing

Personal Profile

James G. (Jim) Barnes graduated from Memorial University of Newfoundland in 1966 with a B.Comm. (Hons.) and a BA (Hons.) in Economics and Political Science. He received his MBA from the Harvard Business School in 1968 and joined the faculty of Memorial University that year. He went on to complete his PhD in Marketing from the University of Toronto in 1975. Dr. Barnes became the first Dean of the Faculty of Business Administration at Memorial University in 1981. He was named Professor Emeritus in 2010.

He is a thought leader in the area of customer strategy, the development of meaningful customer relationships, and the delivery of impactful customer experiences. He has delivered keynote presentations to management audiences and academic conferences around the world and provided customer insight and strategic direction to leading national and international brands. He has served as a board member of three publicly-traded companies and was Chairman of the board of a Canadian crown corporation. He served as a Member of a Sectoral Advisory Group on International Trade (SAGIT) from 1987 to 1991, advising the Government of Canada on negotiations relating to the North America Free Trade Agreement.

Dr. Barnes has been a Visiting Professor at Queen's University at Kingston, Canada (1974-75), University of Bath, England (1982‑83), University College Dublin, Ireland (1995), Macquarie University, Australia (1998-2000), and Reims Management School, France (1999). He has served as a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Retailing, the Journal of Customer Relationship Management, Managing Service Quality, and the Journal of Service Research.

Dr. Barnes was a recipient of the inaugural Leaders in Management Education award from the Financial Post in 1997. He was Elected a Fellow of the Professional Marketing Research Society of Canada (now the Canadian Research Insights Council) in 1999 and was inducted into the Canadian Marketing Hall of Legends in 2011.

Research Interests

Areas of specialization

• Customer Relationships and Engagement
• Customer-led Growth
• Measurement of Customer Relationship Quality
• Development of Customer Strategy

Research Highlights

Selected Publications

Books

• Marketing: a customer-centric approach.  11th edition, Montrose S. Sommers and James G. Barnes, Toronto: McGraw‑Hill Ryerson Limited, published February 2007, previous editions dating from 1973. The publisher estimates that, since its first publication, this textbook was used by more than 500,000 students at universities and colleges in Canada.

• Build Your Customer Strategy: a guide to creating profitable customer relationships.  James G. Barnes, Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2006.

• Secrets of Customer Relationship Management:  It’s All About How You Make Them Feel. James G. Barnes, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001.

Articles

• "The Special Case of Marketing Taken-for-Granted Services," presented at the Annual Conference of the Administrative Sciences Association of Canada, Windsor, Ontario, June 4, 1995 (with Donald P. Barnes).
  
  
• "A Methodology for Measuring the Quality and Depth of Customer Relationships," presented at the Annual Conference of the Marketing Education Group of the United Kingdom, Bradford, July 5-7, 1995.

• “The Creation of Meaningful Customer Relationships: how companies and brands can mean more to their customers,” presented at the 2003 American Marketing Association, SERVSIG Services Research Conference, Reims, France, June 12-14, 2003.

• “Creating Meaningful Customer Experiences: the role of customer insight and context in the development of successful customer experience strategies for shopping centres,” presented at the 1st International Colloquium on Place Marketing and Branding, Brunel University, West London, UK, September 24-25, 2009.

• “Closeness, Strength and Satisfaction: Examining the Nature of Relationships between Providers of Financial Services and their Retail Customers,” Psychology and Marketing, vol. 14, no. 8, December, 1997, pp. 765-790.

• “The Almost Customer: a missed opportunity to enhance corporate success,” Managing Service Quality, vol. 14, no. 2/3, 2004 (with Brian R. King and Gordon A. Breen) — Recognized by Emerald Literati Network as one of the 50 best management articles published world-wide in 2004.

• “Cultivating the Customer Connection: a framework for understanding customer relationships,” in Managing Relationships: a strategic framework, 2^nd edition, by Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, John Wiley and Sons, 2011.