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Introduction
This Special Issue aims to explore how the major forces shaping today’s world (i.e sustainability, digitalisation, and geopolitical-social conflict), are transforming service interactions among customers, service providers, and other actors across commercial, non-profit, and public sectors. Operating in increasingly complex and uncertain environments, driven by disruptive markets and the rising agency of consumers (Heinonen, 2024), services are under pressure to adapt, innovate, and contribute meaningfully to societal well-being.
The simultaneous convergence of environmental and social degradation, technological disruption, and global conflict is creating unprecedented scenarios, altering consumer expectations, behaviours, and vulnerabilities, and disrupting the continuity and equity of service provision. In this regard, considering the strong link between vulnerability and service design (Finsterwalder et al., 2025), the global challenges call for a rethinking of service design and delivery to ensure greater inclusivity and foster both individual and collective agency.
At the same time, as highlighted by several authors (i.e. Brodie et al., 2021; Mele et al., 2023; Di Pietro et al., 2024), understanding how self-adjustment processes within service ecosystems can be triggered becomes essential to respond to disruptive forces and enable the reconfiguration of roles, resources, and interactions toward new, more resilient forms of value creation.
Against this backdrop, this Special Issue offers a novel contribution by examining how these disruptive forces interact and what this means for service design, delivery, and experience. It aims to generate new theoretical and practical insights into how services can respond to disruption while actively contributing to social resilience and sustainable transformation.
This Special Issue wants to offer a systemic and integrated lens on service transformation, consistently with emerging research trajectories that emphasize human-centred, context-sensitive, and ethically grounded service research (e.g. Ostrom et al., 2021; Fisk et al., 2020). By exploring how services can become agents of positive transformation in times of disruption, the issue contributes to advancing the service research agenda and increasing its societal relevance.
We invite conceptual and empirical contributions that examine how emerging tensions and opportunities are influencing value creation, trust, access, inclusion, and power dynamics in service interactions. We also encourage investigations into how service systems evolve, innovate, or fracture under the strain of digital transformation, instability, and social and environmental responsibility imperatives.
Contributions from different sectors and are welcome to offer interdisciplinary perspectives and practical implications.
From a societal perspective, this Special Issue attempts to support the achievement of several UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being), SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities), SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), and SDG 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions).
List of Topic Areas
- Transformative service and consumption
- Sustainable service design and provision
- Service design for vulnerable consumers (i.e. refugees, elderly, etc.)
- Service inclusion
- Technology-driven services for inclusion and sustainability
- Sustainable and regenerative service ecosystem
- Self-adjustment in service ecosystem
- Service interaction and value co-creation
- Non-profit and public services
- Social and environmental impacts of service
Submissions Information
Submissions are made using ScholarOne Manuscripts. Registration and access are available here: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jsmktg
Author guidelines must be strictly followed. Please see here: https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/journal/jsm
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: 30/09/2025
Closing date for manuscripts submission: 15/12/2025
Guest Editors
Laura Di Pietro, Department of Business Studies, Roma Tre University, Italy, laura.dipietro@uniroma3.it
Roberta Guglielmetti Mugion, Department of Business Studies, Roma Tre University, Italy, roberta.guglielmettimugion@uniroma3.it
Maria Francesca Renzi, Department of Business Studies, Roma Tre University, Italy, mariafrancesca.renzi@uniroma3.it
Veronica Ungaro, Department of Business Studies, Roma Tre University, Italy, veronica.ungaro@uniroma3.it
References
Brodie, R.J., Ranjan, K.R., Verreynne, M.L, Jiang, Y. and Previte, J. (2021), “Coronavirus crisis and health care: learning from a service ecosystem perspective”, Journal of Service Theory and Practice, Vol. 31 No. 2, pp. 225-246, doi: 10.1108/jstp-07-2020-0178.
Finsterwalder, J., Anderson, L., Corus, C., Giraldo, M., Kabadayi, S., McColl-Kennedy, J.R., Mende M., Mick, D.G., Ostrom, A., Rosenbaum, M.S. & Russell-Bennett, R. (2025). Novel Perspectives on Transformative Service Research. SMR-Journal of Service Management Research, 8(2), 52-73.
Fisk, R. P., Dean, A. M., Alkire, L., Joubert, A., Previte, J., & Robertson, N. (2020). Design for service inclusion: Creating inclusive service systems by 2050. Journal of Service Management, 31(6), 1181–1205. https://doi.org/10.1108/JOSM-05-2020-0146
Heinonen, K. (2024), "Editorial: Embracing the future of services marketing", Journal of Services Marketing, Vol. 38 No. 10, pp. 66-69. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSM-08-2024-0384
Mele, C., Tuominen, T., Edvardsson, B. and Reynoso, J. (2023), “Smart sensing technology and selfadjustment in service systems through value co-creation routine dynamics”, Journal of Business Research, Vol. 159, 113737, doi: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2023.113737.
Ostrom, A. L., Parasuraman, A., Bowen, D. E., Patrício, L., & Voss, C. A. (2021). Service research priorities: Managing and delivering service in turbulent times. Journal of Service Research, 24(3), 329–353. https://doi.org/10.1177/10946705211022146
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