Editorial: bringing socially unacceptable services into services marketing
ISSN: 0887-6045
Article publication date: 23 September 2020
Issue publication date: 30 November 2020
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to define the term “socially unacceptable services” and call for novel research in these under-researched service industries.
Design/methodology/approach
Personal reflections.
Findings
Service offerings exist that, despite their ability to create value for customers, clients or partners, many in society at large deem to be offensive, inappropriate or harmful for a variety of reasons. Service researchers have ignored the existence and impact of socially unacceptable services on consumers and society for too long.
Research limitations/implications
Given the expanding role of the transformative service research (TSR) paradigm in the services marketing domain, especially given its emphasis on exchanges that influence consumer and societal well-being and the reality that many socially unacceptable services profoundly influence consumer and societal welfare in both positive and negative manners, the time is opportune for service researchers to begin exploring socially unacceptable services from a TSR perspective.
Practical implications
Given that buyers and sellers who enter socially unacceptable exchanges often seem satisfied by doing so, the authors encourage researchers to unearth how consumers obtain value from these exchanges and to explore whether consumers enter these exchanges with full information to make informed decisions.
Originality/value
This viewpoint is one of the first to provide authors with an impetus to begin research program in socially unacceptable services and offers researchers a list of potential research topics in this new area. The authors believe that socially unacceptable service research may emerge as a separate research paradigm.
Keywords
Citation
Rosenbaum, M.S. and Russell-Bennett, R. (2020), "Editorial: bringing socially unacceptable services into services marketing", Journal of Services Marketing, Vol. 34 No. 7, pp. 885-887. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSM-07-2020-0295
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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