To wait or not to wait is not the question. Rather, it's how — and to what extent — an imposed delay affects our enjoyment of consumer products. W. P. Carey School of Business marketing professors take a closer look at delays and consumer opinions.

As the Center for Services Leadership at the W. P. Carey School of Business enters its third decade, its founders recall a time when they faced off with skeptics who doubted the importance of services in business education.

A marketing professor at the W. P. Carey School of Business examines the client-supplier relationship in a recent research survey.

Steve Phillips is vice president and chief information officer for Avnet, Inc.

Social isolation in the U.S. has been on the rise for decades, according to research conducted in 2006 by sociologists.

Companies like IBM, PetSmart and Marriott have been proving that enormous success, and enormous profits, can be found in services. Yet services have always been difficult to get your arms around — difficult to understand.

"There is no arrival at customer service excellence," said Terry Cain, vice president of operational excellence at Avnet, Inc.

One-third of U.S. adults are obese, and another third are overweight, according to data recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Marketing scholars Naomi Mandel, Andrea Morales and Steve Nowlis have been investigating what influences our decisions about diet.

"Please hold — your call is important to us."If you've ever heard that sentence then you know what it's like to be "on hold" for customer service.

James Champy is the author of "Outsmart! How to Do What Your Competitors Can't." Champy profiles eight highly-successful firms as he develops his thesis that the key to outsmarting the competition is to focus on the external environment — including the customers.