In June, Martin Mende (Associate Professor of Marketing, Florida State University) proposed that interesting avenues to novel scholarly ideas emerge at the intersection of services research and the public policy realm. Martin presented his talk “Public Policy & Services: A Match Made in Research Heaven!” at the Marketing & Public Policy Conference (MPPC) Doctoral Symposium in San Luis Obispo, CA. This 3-day workshop offered 24 participating doctoral students (who were selected from more than 50 applicants) the opportunity to hear talks, receive feedback on research, interact and socialize, and identify new research ideas and directions along with faculty researchers and mentors.
Illustrating his core proposition, Martin highlighted the emergence of “Transformative Service Research” (TSR), which is service research that aims to create uplifting changes in the well-being of people (e.g., employees and customers), communities, society, and the environment (for more detail on TSR, see Anderson et al. 2013 or the corresponding Special Issue of the Journal of Service Research (JSR) published in 2015). On a more specific note, Martin briefly discussed aspects related to coproduction and well-being, big data in services (e.g., health care), and sustainable services (e.g., green energy services).
To get potential research projects jump-started, Martin encouraged students to consider support from service research centers with a dedicated interest in TSR (e.g., the centers at Arizona State University, Karlstad University in Sweden, or Loughborough University in the U.K.). Similarly, he invited the students to explore other resources about service research (e.g., SERVSIG’s website) as an additional platform for a supportive network of like-minded scholars and further research inspirations.
