COVID-19 and the Future of the Service Industry Post-Pandemic

Call for Chapters (Springer):

“COVID-19 and the Future of the Service Industry Post-Pandemic: Insights and Resources“

Deadline(s): 5 May 2020 (250-w proposal); 31 May 2020 (full chapters)

Editors: Spring H. Han and Jungwoo Lee

The COVID-19 pandemic has many life-altering effects. The most affected sector seems to be service industries such as accommodation, catering, warehousing, leasing, architecture, transportation (Huang, Lin, Wang, & Xu, 2020). The service sector has been hit the hardest with mandatory lockdown and social distancing across the globe. Impacts seem to be vast and not yet predictable for the near and longer-term future of the service industries (Beine et al., 2020). The vulnerability of the service sector is critically exposed at this time of the pandemic. Thus the COVID-19 is expected to bring the era of “new normal” to the service sector. All of the service operations such as airlines, hotels, restaurants, and theaters are experiencing severely disruptive and destructive impacts on the nature of their businesses, and these impacts are expected to be lasting ones (Baldwin & Mauro, 2020). For example, it is predicted that the digital transformation of the service sector will be exacerbated post-pandemic (Kingsly, 2020). People are scared of contacts, and ‘untact marketing’ may become the new normal in every aspect of services (Lee & Lee, 2020). There are many potential changes and severe alterations in service theories and service practices.

This book aims to analyze current economic and political situations related to COVID-19 and predict how the service industries have changed and will be changing in the future. As the nature of service is deeply embedded in the fabric of our society and life, the implicit and explicit rules and institutions of our community seems to be also changing. COVID-19 has originated from China. As Asian countries have experienced the COVID-19 crisis earlier than other parts of the globe, this edited book welcomes the insights and resources from these early sufferers.

Thus, we invite you to submit insights, frameworks, cases, and other resourceful contributions concerning the post-pandemic changing nature of services and service industries. The scope and scale of this edited book will only be shaped by the imaginations of author contributors and their creative ideas to the future of services. The proposal is open to different investigative approaches, including conceptual, organizational, technological and/or procedural case studies. Submissions of manuscripts dealing with interdisciplinary issues across domains and industries are strongly encouraged.

Topics include (but are not limited to):

[Services]
– The immediate transition of service processes and products
– Operational continuity during and after the pandemic
– How to do the digital transformation
– Changes in health care services
– Changes in retailing provisions
– Airlines service transformation
– Hotels and accommodations services
– Hair salon business

[Service Workers and Work]
– Virtualization of service work
– Virtual teams
– Untact marketing
– Smart education for service workers
– Call center workforce management
– New work processes and structure, emerging patterns of work in service industries
– Digital mediation, Computer-mediated communications in and out of service contexts
– Alternative work arrangements, flexible time, and/or mobile work in the service industry
– Future of service professions

[Service Experiences]
– Customer experience management
– Customer engagement
– Online customer experiences and behaviors
– Service design
– Service system and process
– Service quality and improvement
– Service recovery
– Smart Service Innovation
– Newly emerging product-service systems
– Servitization

Submission Procedure
Academics and practitioners are invited to submit a brief chapter proposal (250 words) clearly outlining and explaining the area of focus, objective, and content of the proposed chapter to c4workscience@gmail.com. Authors of accepted proposals will be notified about the status of their proposals. All submitted chapters will be going through a rapid review process on a rolling basis. Contributors may also be requested to serve as reviewers.

Schedule (with rapid review process – chapters will be considered as they are received)
Proposal due: May 5, 2020 (250 words)
Acceptance: May 10, 2020 (or sooner)
Full chapter: May 31, 2020 (min 5,000 up to 12,000 words)
Review: June 15, 2020
Revision due: June 30, 2020
Publication: Summer/Fall 2020
This book is scheduled to be published by Springer. The book is anticipated to be released in Summer/Fall 2020.

References
– Baldwin, R. and B. W. d. Mauro (2020). Mitigating the COVID Economic Crisis: Act Fast and Do Whatever. London, UK, Centre for Economic Policy Research Press.
– Beine, M., et al. (2020). “Economic effects of Covid-19 in Luxembourg.”
– Georgiadou, A., et al. “Special issue CALL FOR PAPERS Inclusion/Exclusion in the Digitalized Workplace.”
– Huang, Y., et al. (2020). “Saving China from the Coronavirus and Economic Meltdown: Experiences and Lessons.” Available at SSRN 3570696.
– Kingsly, K. M. (2020). “Economic Implications of COVID-19 and Key Lessons for Policymakers.”
– Lee, S. M. and D. Lee (2020). ““Untact”: a new customer service strategy in the digital age.” Service Business 14(1): 1-22.
– Özatay, F. and G. Sak “What Can We Do to Manage the Economic Consequences of COVID-19?”

More info here.

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