Service Marketing for Good

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Introduction

Society is just seven years away from the aim to achieve the 17 Sustainability Development Goals (SDG) adopted by all United Nations Member States in 2015 and coming into effect in 2016 (UN, 2023). While the 17 SDGs are deemed an important shared blueprint for people and the planet (UN, 2023), being mid-way to 2030, it appears that individual countries and sub-groupings of nations struggle to come to clear agreements on how to best protect the planet and its climate (DW, 2023). While much more coordinated effort amongst countries is needed to achieve the SDGs, academics in the marketing and service domains have joined the quest to contribute to “the betterment of society and our planet” as these disciplines play “a critical role in shaping consumer behaviour and influencing societal norms” and have the “potential to create significant social and environmental impact” (ANZMAC, 2023).

Particularly, the service discipline has signalled its motivation to work on improving people’s and planet’s wellbeing with the introduction of novel concepts that strive to improve human lives and the life on our planet (Anderson et al., 2013). While the necessity of using service and service marketing for good to contribute to the wellbeing of people and planet has been highlighted in recent research (Donthu et al., 2021), this requires more effort and exploration. A particular focus on bettering the lives of people or entire geographical regions marginalised or underserved is necessary, such as refugees (Finsterwalder et al., 2021), members of the LGBTIQA+ community (Rosenbaum et al., 2021), people at the bottom of the pyramid (Fisk et al., 2016) or developing countries (Donthu et al., 2021). Moreover, leveraging community to co-create wellbeing for people and planet requires further exploration (Chen et al., 2021; Willmott et al., 2022) as does the provision of services in hostile or challenging environments (Kabadayi et al., 2021). More focus is also required on a systems approach to wellbeing (Finsterwalder & Kuppelwieser, 2020), not only centring on its human aspects but also on its ecological facets.

Focus of the Journal of Service Theory and Practice (JSTP) special issue: - The special issue relates to the Australian and New Zealand Marketing Academy (ANZMAC) 2023 Conference track Services, Retailing and Customer Experience. ANZMAC has a long standing collaboration with JSTP in publishing work derived from submissions to the ANZMAC Services track. - The special issue call for papers is also an open call and not restricted to conference track submissions only but invites the community of service researchers to submit their latest work on service marketing for good and bettering society and environment through service.

List of Topic Areas

We encourage submissions of conceptual and empirical papers which focus on the areas of services, retailing and customer experience but with the above mentioned aim of bettering planet’s and / or people’s wellbeing. We invite papers on pioneering and thought provoking research taking a wide range of theoretical lenses and methodological approaches with a preference for papers that infuse theories from other disciplines into the service domain, such as Conservation of Resources (COR) Theory (Loh et al., 2022). We would also like to see manuscripts which use novel methods, such as innovative qualitative mixed method combinations (Dodds et al., 2018), or methods focused on specific contexts, such as vulnerable people (Dodds et al., 2023). Furthermore, we encourage the submission of work that showcases implementation projects. Moreover, we would like to stimulate submissions that show cooperation across disciplines or highlight joint work by academics and practitioners. We welcome papers that cover, but are not limited to, the following topics: 

• emerging concepts and developments in transformative service research
• generative artificial intelligence (AI) technology and its role in bettering people and planet 
• human-robot interactions and hybrid service encounters 
• B2B, B2C and C2C services and experiences for good 
• wellbeing co-creation 
• sustainable services and service ecosystems 
• services and customer experiences for vulnerable groups, such as refugees, LGBTIQA+, bottom-of-the-pyramid or developing countries 
• actor-to-actor engagement and wellbeing 
• design of services, experiences and retail scapes for wellbeing 

Authors should have engaged with extant literature published in JSTP related to their topic before submitting their paper.

Submissions Information

Submissions are made using ScholarOne Manuscripts. Registration and access are available here. 
Author guidelines must be strictly followed. Please see here. 
Authors should select (from the drop-down menu) the special issue title at the appropriate step in the submission process, i.e. in response to ““Please select the issue you are submitting to”. 
Submitted articles must not have been previously published, nor should they be under consideration for publication anywhere else, while under review for this journal.

Key Deadlines

Opening date for manuscripts submissions: 01/05/2024 
Closing date for manuscripts submission: 31/05/2024