Founded in 2018 by Ray Fisk, ServCollab is a product of the realization that humans have always lived in service systems and that our previous conceptualizations of service had missed a larger truth: in addition to the corporations and their customers that were the primary focus in the past, service researchers realized that ancient human systems such as families, tribes, villages, cities, and nations were all service systems.

This realization means that academic disciplines in the social sciences and in business are only studying parts of the human experience. Such fragmentary understanding of human needs undermines our ability to find solutions to the many urgent problems in today’s human service systems. A more unified understanding of human service systems is needed. 

Therefore, ServCollab was created because we need new research approaches that transcend the artificial boundaries of academic disciplines, which is why ServCollab is named from the phrase “Serving Humanity through Collaboration.”

ServCollab seeks to serve humanity by elevating the human experience. This requires recruiting and organizing the people, projects, and perspectives necessary to engage in creating large scale service solutions for today’s many human service system problems.

Emerald strongly believes in ServCollab’s mission and we feel like they’re doing exceptionally important work by getting researchers involved in humanitarian efforts. These efforts are something that we want to be shining a light on. That’s why Emerald and ServCollab are working collaboratively to disseminate ServCollab’s research to a wider audience by making their research freely available for everyone to read, for limited time periods. As a founding signatory of the UN SDG Publisher Compact, Emerald believes wholeheartedly in creating a sustainable future and utilizing research to create real world impact.

Part of this collaboration is the Free Access to the recently published in the Journal of Services Marketing Special Issue titled “Broadening and Reinvigorating the Service Discipline to Reduce Human Suffering and Improve Well-Being”. Free Access is granted to all, editorial, commentaries, and articles of the Special Issue until January 30th, 2023.
 

Guest Editors: Sertan Kabadayi and Rodoula H. Tsiotsou (2022).

Special Issue: “Broadening and Reinvigorating the Service Discipline to Reduce Human Suffering and Improve Well-Being” Journal of Services Marketing, Vol. 37 Issue 7