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This paper aims to introduce International Digital Collaborative Autoethnographical Psychobiography (IDCAP).

This paper describes how IDCAP was developed to answer research questions about what it takes and what it means to recover from mental illness. During its development, IDCAP combined the diverse and intersectional experiences, knowledge and interests of an Anglo-Swedish research team with what could be found in different publications concerning the experiences and the mental illnesses of the musicians Syd Barrett, Peter Green and Brian Wilson.

IDCAP combines features of autoethnography and psychobiography to offer a novel qualitative research method.

Whilst IDCAP was created to focus on recovery from mental illness and musicians, it can be applied to other areas of research. It shares the same limitations as autoethnography and psychobiography, although some of the features of IDCAP may go some way to mitigate against these.

IDCAP is a novel research method that is offered to other researchers to develop and enhance further through application.

IDCAP is a collaborative research method that encourages the involvement of a wide range of researchers from different countries and cultures. It can be used to give voice to marginalised groups and to counter discrimination and prejudice. Recovery from mental illness is a topic of great personal and social value.

IDCAP is a novel research method that, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, has not been explicitly used before.

Hazel Kyrk, one of the first women economists at the Economic Department of the University of Chicago and author of A Theory of Consumption (1923), conducted groundbreaking research for the Bureau of Home Economics of the US Department of Agriculture and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Kyrk made a considerable contribution to the development of standards for a “decent living,” the Consumer Price Index, and the conceptualization of what would later turn into the definition of the poverty line. This chapter evaluates Kyrk’s use of eugenic notions of gender and race that were widely used in Kyrk’s day. This chapter shows that eugenic reasoning impacts Kyrk’s theoretical work only superficially but does structure her research on consumption standards through her focus on the white middle-class family as the unit of analysis for consumer behavior. This chapter also makes clear that the American Institutionalist approach to consumer behavior, rather than marginalized and side-tracked due to a lack of theoretical progress, was relegated to the margins of economics science together with the research of women economists into Home Economics departments and policy research at government institutions.

A small group of pioneering founders led the creation and early evolution of the service research field. Decades later, this article shares timeless service wisdom from ten of those pioneering founders.

Bowen and Fisk specified three criteria by which to identify a pioneering founder. In total, 11 founders met the criteria (Bateson, Berry, Bitner, Brown, Chase, Edvardsson, Grönroos, Gummesson, Parasuraman, Schneider and Zeithaml) and were invited to join Bowen and Fisk – founders that also met the criteria as coauthors. Ten founders then answered a set of questions regarding their careers as service scholars and the state of the field.

Insightful reflections were provided by each of the ten pioneering founders. In addition, based on their synthesis of the reflections, Bowen and Fisk developed nine wisdom themes for service researchers to consider and to possibly act upon.

The service research field is in its fifth decade. This article offers a unique way to learn directly from the pioneering founders about the still-relevant history of the field, the founders' lives and contributions as service scholars and the founders' hopes and concerns for the service research field.