guest article by the committee of the SERVSIG Emerging Service Scholar 2016 (granted by dml @ UMass Boston)
Customers get confused when they have too much choice?! How glad that this does not apply for service researchers! We had a lot of choice, but rather than being confused we were very impressed.
For us, Mike Brady, Bård Tronvoll, Rod Brodie, last years winner Lisa Brüggen and Sabine Benoit (Chair) it was an absolute pleasure and honor to be asked to form the committee for selecting the SERVSIG Emerging Service Scholar 2016 (granted by dml @ UMass Boston). Recipients of the SERVSIG Emerging Service Scholar Award should have their doctoral degree up to 10 years prior to the year of the award or be nominated for the award in the last two years, which leads to being eligible 12 years after the PhD. It should be a researcher that has impact and will substantially advance service research in future. Thus, having a lot of choice means that these nominated young scholars and thus the next generation of service researchers is performing exceptionally well and they have chosen our field to also become theirs.
Having a time window of approx. ten years after PhD makes a lot of sense, because we all know that it takes time to become a really independent scholar and make a contribution to the field. Against that background we were particularly impressed that some nominated candidates only just recently did their PhD and were still absolute able to compete with the ones that had more time to contribute and “impress”. These candidates are surely in standby for the coming years for this award. Beyond that we were particularly impressed by some of the applicants that have become so independent and successful in their ten years after their PhD that they obviously already thought about how they can give back and support younger scholars. It is wonderful news that the service community is such a welcoming and supportive environment, in particular for younger scholars. Further, we were very pleased to see that the applicants came from all across the world. This shows how truly international our community is, which was one of the reasons for choosing an international committee that spans across multiple continents and included the US, Norway, New Zealand, Netherlands and the UK.
All the above reasons to be impressed made us happy and proud and we felt it was reassuring that the service community is on the right track. Even though we didn’t let the choice confuse us, we were torn. In the end, we had to choose one winner. We feel that we have chosen a very, very worthy winner, but that was not easy. For all those that have not made it, be happy about your achievements because the fact that you were nominated means that for someone you are the SERVSIG Emerging Service Scholar 2016 and maybe you will be a future one. For the one that has made it, it will be my pleasure as a Chair to look into your happy face at Frontiers in Service Conference in Bergen. I’m sure the community looks forward to share this moment of happiness with you!
Yours
Sabine, Bard, Lisa, Mike, and Rod
