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The purpose of this viewpoint essay is to examine deathcare leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic and recommend innovations to employ a more human-centric approach.

This viewpoint essay uses scholarly and popular literature to explore deathcare practices during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and to identify limitations of existing mass fatality management policies.

Deathcare leadership in the USA lacks a human-centric approach. Rationalistic mass fatality management during COVID-19 left families struggling with grief and mourning because many burial rituals could not take place. This essay suggests a humanistic approach to death management through leadership innovations as a remedy to this problem. Such leadership innovations can improve responses to deathcare during this ongoing pandemic and future public health emergencies.

This essay offers practical improvements to make deathcare more human-centric.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of service flexibility in addressing consumer vulnerability for chronically-traumatized consumers within the funerary context.

Using phenomenological philosophy and a grounded approach, data was collected and analyzed through 12 depth interviews with funeral service providers, coupled with observations and photographs of three second-line funeral processionals.

Study results include the following three primary roles of service providers in supporting chronically-traumatized consumers: the role of service fluidity in addressing trauma, mitigating vulnerability via service providers as community members and alleviating suffering through compassionate service. Service flexibility and value co-creation efforts were executed through an expansive service ecosystem of vendors.

When consumers experience vulnerability that demands reliance upon service industries, service providers can intentionally implement fluidity and agility in service design, adopt understanding and altruistic practices, and operate with empathy and compassion to orchestrate mutually-beneficial service outcomes.

Rooted in transformative service research, providers are advised to consider modifying services to improve well-being and mitigate vulnerability for chronically-traumatized consumers via fluidity, community and compassion.

This study contributes originality to the body of service marketing literature by illustrating how service providers alleviate vulnerability for chronically-traumatized consumers through three adaptive service strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to make employers aware of the unique characteristics of the baby boomer generation in the workforce, the causes of boomer behavior and how employers might respond to those unique circumstances. A review of some books and articles is included as documentation of the phenomena.

As this is not a research paper, there is no specific design or methodology. The approach used was to write an assessment based on the authors’ nearly 50+ years’ experience in the recruiting and talent management field and Sparzo’s academic experience teaching in an MBA program.

Employers should be mindful that employees who are members of the baby boomer generation are not generally performing or retiring in ways that are similar to previous generations of workers. Recommendations are made as to how to manage this cohort, how to integrate this generation with the members of an employer’s workforce who belong to other younger generations and how the accommodations suggested may be applicable into the future, even after the last boomer retires.

The authors believe that the emerging trends and patterns of baby boomer behavior offer both challenges and opportunities to employers. The authors’ unique view as to how to understand the source of these trends and manage this workforce’s accumulated knowledge, while using the period of longer work-spans to “catch up” in developing strategies to capture, manage and redeploy their knowledge before they leave the employment scene.

This paper offers key methodological insights for scholars new to qualitative transformative service research (TSR).

The paper offers ten lessons on conducting qualitative TSR that the authors have gleaned, across more than 30 years (combined) of qualitative inquiries and engagement with other scholars conducting and publishing what may be now termed TSR.

The key lessons of conducting qualitative TSR work include: displaying ethics in conducting and presenting qualitative TSR; preparing for and understanding the research context; considering design, mechanics and technical elements; being participant-centric; co-creating meaning with participants; seeking/using diverse types of data; analyzing data in an iterative fashion, including/respecting multiple perspectives; presenting evidence in innovative ways; and looking inward at every stage of the research process.

The paper provides implications for addressing the vulnerability of both research participants and researchers with the aim of improving research methods that lead to improved service research and well-being outcomes.

Clearly, the complexity and importance of the social problems TSR scholars investigate – poverty, war, disaster recovery, inadequate healthcare – requires preparation for how to engage in transformative service research. Importantly, the paper fits with recent persistent calls within the broader literature of services marketing to: use service research and design to create “uplifting changes” within society and broaden the paradigmatic underpinnings of service research to include dynamic, process-oriented approaches, which capture the dynamic and relational aspects of service ecosystems.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine whether the massive spreads and fatalities of the COVID-19 pandemic in the USA, the country with the most advanced medical technology in the world, are symptomatic of leadership failure. The authors posit that when political leaders, such as the President of the USA, in conjunction with a group of state governors and city mayors, employed conspiracy theories and disinformation to achieve their political goals, they contributed to the massive spreads and fatalities of the virus, and they also undermined the credibility of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the health-care professionals in providing the pertinent control guidelines and true scientific-based medical information.

The authors conducted a review of current studies that address the handling of global infectious diseases to build a better understanding of the issue of pandemics. They then employed a theoretical framework to link the massive spreads and fatalities of the COVID-19 pandemic to political leaders, such as President Trump and the group of obsequious state governors and city mayors, who propagated conspiracy theories and disinformation through social media platforms to downplay the severity of the virus. The authors compared the massive spreads and fatalities of the COVID-19 pandemic in the USA under President Trump to President Obama who handled H1N1, Ebola, Zika and Dengue. More importantly, the authors compared President Trump's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic to other political leaders in advanced countries where there were no concerted efforts to spread conspiracy theories and disinformation about the health risks of COVID-19 pandemic.

The authors' theoretical analysis alluded to the fact that political leaders, such as President Trump, who are engulfed in self-deceptions, self-projections and self-aggrandizements would engage in self-promotion and avoid accountability for their missteps in handling global pandemic shocks. In contrast, political leaders in other advanced countries did not downplay the severity thus their ability to curtail the spreads and fatalities of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The theoretical viewpoints presented in this paper along with the derivations of the spreads–fatalities curtailment coefficients and the spread–fatality upsurge coefficients under Presidents Obama and Trump, respectively, may not be replicable. Given this plausible limitation, future research may need to provide a deep analysis of the amplifications of conspiracy theories and disinformation because they are now deeply rooted in the political economy of the USA. Furthermore, since scientists and medical professionals may not be able to forecast future epidemics or pandemics with pin-point accuracy nor predict how political leaders would disseminate health risks information associated with different pathogens, it is imperative that future research addresses the positive or adverse effects of conspiracy theories and disinformation that are now easily propagated simultaneously through different social media platforms, which are currently protected under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The multiplier effects of conspiracy theories and disinformation will continue to amplify the division about the authenticity of COVID-19 pandemic and the emergence or reemergence of other pathogens in the foreseeable future.

The authors derived the unique spreads-fatalities curtailment coefficients to demonstrate how President Obama used effective collaboration and coordination at all levels of government in conjunction with medical experts to curtail the spreads and fatalities associated with H1N1, Ebola, Zika and Dengue. They further derived the spreads-fatalities upsurge coefficients to highlight how President Trump contributed to the spreads and fatalities of COVID-19 pandemic through his inability to collaborate and coordinate with state governors, city mayors and different health-care agencies at the national and international levels.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the important role of cross-sector partnerships and collaboration in global emergency management, relevant in situations such as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and grand global challenges.

The paper utilizes exploratory historical methods and examines cross-sector partnerships from three key emerging markets – Pakistan, Turkey and Nigeria. The context of the emerging markets is important given the institutional fragility such markets encountered.

The authors offer a conceptual discussion that explicates the vital role of such partnerships in global emergencies. The authors also highlight the instrumental role of adaptive learning in cross-sector partnerships, which can help multiple stakeholders create and deliver value in response to an emergency like a global health pandemic caused by the COVID-19. Along with the conceptual discussion, the authors further offer practical examples of cross-sector partnerships in emerging economies of Pakistan, Turkey, and Nigeria – undertaken in response to the recent pandemic – emphasizing that such partnerships are crucial to mitigate the emergencies and their consequences on society. Finally, this paper offers theoretical and practical implications for cross-sector collaboration and partnerships in response to the global crisis.

This research is limited to emerging markets context and further research is needed on this important topic.

This paper is relevant given the current global pandemic caused by the COVID-19. There are relatively limited research studies on the cross-sector partnerships and their role in global emergencies, grand challenges and global crisis, thus this paper offers important insights on cross-sector partnerships and their value creation in global crisis situations.