scholarly journals Billions of impoverished people deserve to be better served

2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond P P. Fisk ◽  
Laurel Anderson ◽  
David E. Bowen ◽  
Thorsten Gruber ◽  
Amy Ostrom ◽  
...  

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to create a movement within the service research community that aspires to help the billions of impoverished people across the world achieve better service from each other, from their communities, from corporations, from their governments, and from nongovernmental organizations. The authors believe every human being is worthy of being served properly. To achieve this purpose, understanding and learning from this huge low-income segment of society known as the base of the pyramid (BoP) is essential. There are myths about the BoP that need to be dispelled and there is a fundamental lack of service research on this important problem. Design/methodology/approach – The existence of an extensive BoP literature combined with service research priorities has called attention to drafting research agendas. Human service systems are explored historically and systems theory provides a perspective for understanding and reducing poverty. Transformative service research, service design research, and community action research are presented to illustrate three research approaches that can contribute to understanding and then better serving the needs of the neglected billions of humanity. Findings – First, the authors present a practical and meaningful call to action by making the case for the service research community to contribute to poverty alleviation with the creation of fresh ideas and research agendas. Second, the authors describe the ample opportunity for conducting service research in and with the BoP and thereby expanding service knowledge about the BoP. Third, the authors suggest a number of approaches for service researchers to join this new movement and help improve the well-being of billions of impoverished people. Social implications – Most existing service research comes from highly developed Anglo-Saxon countries and concerns the service problems of customers in affluent societies. Therefore, there is a fundamental lack of service research at the BoP. The social implications are truly global. Poverty is a global service system problem that can be reduced. Effective poverty alleviation solutions in one part of the world can be adapted to other parts of the world. Originality/value – This paper is a new and very original call to action to the service research community. First, with the exception of a few previous manuscripts calling for research on the BoP, this is the first time a collaborative effort has been made to start systematically changing this knowledge gap. Second, the service research community has never worked on a project of this magnitude. The authors hope to offer a role model to other academic communities as to how to marshal their resources to have a collective, positive impact on the well-being of the world’s impoverished.

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mattias Elg ◽  
Ida Gremyr ◽  
Árni Halldórsson ◽  
Andreas Wallo

Purpose Conducting research that is both practice- and theory-relevant is important for the service research community. Action research can be a fruitful approach for service researchers studying the transformative role of service research and wanting to make contributions to both the research community and to practical development. By exploring the current use of action research in service research, this study aims to make suggestions for enhancing the contribution to theory and practice development and to propose criteria for research quality for action research in service research. Design/methodology/approach This study builds on a systematic literature review of the use of action research approaches in service research. Findings The study makes three main contributions. First, it posits that any action research project needs to consider the four elements of problem identification, theorization, creating guiding concepts and intervention. Second, based on these elements mirrored in service action research, it outlines and analyzes three approaches to action research (i.e. theory-enhancing, concept developing and practice-enhancing). Third, it suggests a move from instrumental to a more conceptual relevance of the research and elaborates on the criteria for research quality. Originality/value This study contributes to the understanding of how action research may be applied for conducting high-quality collaborative research in services and proposes measures to enhance research quality in action research projects focusing services.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond P. Fisk

Purpose This commentary seeks to enable service researchers in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) regions and those in other regions to pursue service research that addresses the many difficult service system problems in the MEA. Design/methodology/approach This commentary is based on more than 40 years of service research experience and unique insights from a service research pioneer. The commentary addresses what service systems are and why they are important to human progress. Findings Three service wisdoms are offered to enable service researchers. Serving Human Needs focuses on the essential role of service because all human economies exist to serve human needs. It also provides the aspirational goal of improving human well-being by transforming service systems. The topic of Designing New Service Rules urges service researchers to design new service systems based on the win-win logic of mutualism. Collaborating With Each Other is the third service wisdom. With more than 7 billion humans living today, mutually beneficial collaborations are one of the best strategies for improving human well-being and the well-being of our crowded planet. Practical implications Practical ideas are offered for improving the human condition through collaboratively serving each other’s needs. Social implications Because service systems are both nonmonetary and monetary solutions to human needs, their social implications are profound. Human life itself depends on service systems. Originality/value This commentary offers service researchers guidance in understanding services, in designing better services, and in pursuing collaborative solutions to service system problems.


2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 615-635 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond P. Fisk ◽  
Linda Alkire (née Nasr) ◽  
Laurel Anderson ◽  
David E. Bowen ◽  
Thorsten Gruber ◽  
...  

PurposeElevating the human experience (HX) through research collaborations is the purpose of this article. ServCollab facilitates and supports service research collaborations that seek to reduce human suffering and improve human well-being.Design/methodology/approachTo catalyze this initiative, the authors introduce ServCollab's three human rights goals (serve, enable and transform), standards of justice for serving humanity (distributive, procedural and interactional justice) and research approaches for serving humanity (service design and community action research).Research implicationsServCollab seeks to advance the service research field via large-scale service research projects that pursue theory building, research and action. Service inclusion is the first focus of ServCollab and is illustrated through two projects (transformative refugee services and virtual assistants in social care). This paper seeks to encourage collaboration in more large-scale service research projects that elevate the HX.Practical implicationsServCollab seeks to raise the aspirations of service researchers, expand the skills of service research teams and build mutually collaborative service research approaches that transform human lives.Originality/valueServCollab is a unique organization within the burgeoning service research community. By collaborating with service researchers, with service research centers, with universities, with nonprofit agencies and with foundations, ServCollab will build research capacity to address large-scale human service system problems. ServCollab takes a broad perspective for serving humanity by focusing on the HX. Current business research focuses on the interactive roles of customer experience and employee experience. From the perspective of HX, such role labels are insufficient concepts for the full spectrum of human life.


2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald C. Barnes ◽  
Jessica Mesmer-Magnus ◽  
Lisa L. Scribner ◽  
Alexandra Krallman ◽  
Rebecca M. Guidice

PurposeThe unprecedented dynamics of the COVID-19 pandemic has forced firms to re-envision the customer experience and find new ways to ensure positive service encounters. This context has underscored the reality that drivers of customer delight in a “traditional” context are not the same in a crisis context. While research has tended to identify hedonic need fulfillment as key to customer well-being and, ultimately, to invoking customer delight, the majority of studies were conducted in inherently positive contexts, which may limit generalizability to more challenging contexts. Through the combined lens of transformative service research (TSR) and psychological theory on hedonic and eudaimonic human needs, we evaluate the extent to which need fulfillment is the root of customer well-being and that meeting well-being needs ultimately promotes delight. We argue that in crisis contexts, the salience of needs shifts from hedonic to eudaimonic and the extent to which service experiences fulfill eudaimonic needs determines the experience and meaning of delight.Design/methodology/approachUtilizing the critical incident technique, this research surveyed 240 respondents who were asked to explain in detail a time they experienced customer delight during the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyzed their responses according to whether these incidents reflected the salience of hedonic versus eudaimonic need fulfillment.FindingsThe results support the notion that the salience of eudaimonic needs become more pronounced during times of crisis and that service providers are more likely to elicit perceptions of delight when they leverage meeting eudaimonic needs over the hedonic needs that are typically emphasized in traditional service encounters.Originality/valueWe discuss the implications of these findings for integrating the TSR and customer delight literatures to better understand how service experiences that meet salient needs produce customer well-being and delight. Ultimately, we find customer delight can benefit well-being across individual, collective and societal levels.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Veronica Ungaro ◽  
Laura Di Pietro ◽  
Maria Francesca Renzi ◽  
Roberta Guglielmetti Mugion ◽  
Maria Giovina Pasca

PurposeThis study aims to investigate the consumer's perspective regarding the relationship between services and well-being, contributing to the knowledge base in transformative service research (TSR). More specifically the aim was to understand consumers' perceptions of the relationship between services and well-being and their views about how companies can contribute (directly and/or indirectly) to achieve the well-being.Design/methodology/approachTo reach the research aim, the study adopts an explorative inductive design, carried out through a qualitative approach and grounded in 30 in-depth interviews with consumers.FindingsService sustainability represents the fundamental characteristic that determines the service ability to be transformative, requiring the implementation of the triple bottom line dimensions: social, environmental and economic. It emerged that, in the consumer's mind, the service categories that present a stronger relationship between service and well-being are as follows: healthcare, financial and transport.Originality/valueThe paper proposes a conceptual framework to describe the consumer perspective of the services' transformative role in promoting well-being, providing a theoretical lens for conducting future research and continuing to expand transformative service research (TSR).


2005 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 108-111
Author(s):  
Faheem Jehangir Khan

Poverty is one of the most depressing global problems in the world today. Therefore, there is a growing consensus among development organisations that poverty alleviation should be the primary goal of cooperation between the rich and the poor countries. This consensus is due to the awareness that a widening international income gap threatens the well-being of people in the rich countries. In this volume, the author, Philip Kircher, offers a comprehensive study on the evolution, the content, the different national accentuations, and the problem of the international consensus on poverty alleviation, and provides a systematic analysis of today’s donor strategies for development cooperation for poverty reduction. The study focuses specifically on the strategic positions of the World Bank, the Department for International Development (DFID) of the United Kingdom, the Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) of Germany, and the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA), as well as the positions presented by the governments of these countries in regard to development.


Author(s):  
Lance Fortnow

This chapter explores two separate paths that led to the P versus NP question. In the end it was Steve Cook in the West and Leonid Levin in the East who would first ask whether P = NP. Science does not happen in a vacuum, and both sides have a long history leading to the work of Cook and Levin. The chapter covers just a small part of those research agendas, the struggle in the West to understand efficient computation and the struggle in the East to understand the necessity of perebor. Both would lead to P versus NP. Today, with most academic work available over the Internet and with generally open travel around the world, there is now one large research community instead of two separate ones.


2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (6) ◽  
pp. 633-642 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebekah Russell-Bennett ◽  
Raymond P. Fisk ◽  
Mark S. Rosenbaum ◽  
Nadia Zainuddin

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to discuss two parallel but distinct subfields of marketing that share common interests (enhancing consumers’ lives and improving well-being): social marketing and transformative service research. The authors also suggest a research agenda. Design/methodology/approach The paper offers a conceptual approach and research agenda by comparing and contrasting the two marketing fields of transformative service research and social marketing. Findings Specifically, this paper proposes three opportunities to propel both fields forward: 1) breaking boundaries that inhibit research progress, which includes collaboration between public, private and nonprofit sectors to improve well-being; 2) adopting more customer-oriented approaches that go beyond the organizational and individual levels; and 3) taking a non-linear approach to theory development that innovates and co-creates solutions. Originality/value This paper presents the challenges and structural barriers for two subfields seeking to improve human well-being. This paper is the first to bring these subfields together and propose a way for them to move forward together.


2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-138
Author(s):  
Raechel Johns

Purpose While social marketing (SM) literature has increasingly incorporated service literature into the field, social marketers have paid limited attention to transformative service research (TSR). Similarly, transformative service researchers have neglected to incorporate the more traditional body of literature – SM – into their research. This paper aims to provide an extensive literature review and comparison of the bodies of literature, cautioning researchers to consider both fields of research or risk their work not being as relevant as research incorporating both literature bodies. Social value co-creation is considered as a middle-ground between the two bodies of literature. Design/methodology/approach This paper expands on the conceptual discussion of TSR and the more advanced empirical academic literature on SM. Framed within a context of anti-smoking, this paper explores the differences between SM and TSR, within the service ecosystem. Findings This paper highlights three key differences between SM and TSR. Firstly, SM focuses on changes only within a not-for-profit context, while TSR focuses on changes which may be related to both not-for-profit and for-profit objectives. Secondly, SM broadly appears to take a behavioural change from implementation perspective, with an upstream approach; while in contrast, TSR focuses more on interaction for consumer and employee well-being. Finally, when considering the service ecosystem, SM and TSR both operate at all three levels (micro, meso and macro) but may focus on different levels, depending on the initiative. Originality/value With the emergence of TSR, further understanding of this body of literature is necessary; otherwise, social marketers may risk their research losing ground to other bodies of literature.


2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (6) ◽  
pp. 797-808
Author(s):  
Heini Taiminen ◽  
Kimmo Taiminen ◽  
Juha Munnukka

Purpose This study aims to understand how online weight loss services could help customers achieve a durable change. The particular focus is on exploring the roles of value co-creation and well-being outcomes in reinforcing the transformative value potential, which is argued to be realized as customers’ intentions to continue a healthier lifestyle after the service period has ended. Design/methodology/approach Data was collected from the participants of an online weight loss service (n = 498), and a conceptual research model was tested using structural equation modelling. Findings The results imply that compliance with the guidelines and social support are two value co-creation activities that can influence the well-being outcomes of transformative services (i.e. perceived behavioral control and satisfaction with one’s achievements). These well-being outcomes help attain the transformative value potential of online weight loss services. However, the actual weight loss affected the transformative value potential only through customers’ satisfaction with their achievements as a subjective well-being outcome. Originality/value This study provides insight into the transformative value potential of services in the weight loss context. This study contributes to the transformative service research by focusing on the role of online services in reinforcing a durable change through the co-creation of value and improvements in customers’ well-being.


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