Service management focuses on the design, delivery, and improvement of services, creating value for customers and the organization by optimizing processes and resources. Service management is uniquely positioned to generate positive social impact, directly linking service design and delivery to the well-being of individuals, communities, and society. Services are the primary means through which people access healthcare, education, housing, labour, social support, and other essential resources. By enhancing equity, accessibility, and efficiency, service management research can address "grand challenges" such as poverty, the refugee crisis, public health crises, and inequality.

Historically, service management research has focused on organizational outcomes, for example, profitability, satisfaction, value and efficiency, but this scope is too narrow to tackle complex social issues. Given the important role that service organizations have to play in these grand challenges, expanding this perspective to include socially beneficial outcomes opens up opportunities for service management researchers to contribute beyond organizational benefits. Business researchers are increasingly recognising the importance of social impact of research with many opportunities to contribute conceptually and empirically.

Social impact is not the dissemination of research findings, nor is it translation or knowledge transfer. Rather, social impact of business research is the "creation of value for people through business scholarly activities resulting in intentional improvement in micro, meso or macro economic, human and environmental phenomena over time with the market and organisations leading, partnering, supporting or yielding (to) change". Thus social impact in service management research is the creation of value for people in a service management context that has occurred as a result of research. This means for the special issue, we are interested in actual change in service management phenomenon rather than intentions or formative insights, with a focus on mode 2 (applied) research.

Recent global crises, including the pandemic and climate change, highlight that societal resilience is fundamentally a service system challenge with pragmatic solutions required. Citizens globally rely on service mechanisms for access to essential resources, making equitable and inclusive service delivery central to public welfare. While management literature has strongly prioritized "Grand Challenges", and some high-level special issues have emerged, the problem to be addressed by service management research are the mechanisms, processes through which service management can drive social change and how to measure this social impact.

This special issue will emphasize practical, service management frameworks and processes to translate macro-level challenges into actionable service management strategies. Specifically the special issue will examine how service management research can address grand challenges and creates social impact. The issue adopts a strength-based approach to vulnerability (leveraging assets) and authors are requested to use this lens rather than a deficit perspective.

Potential topics

• What processes and features of service management are effective in creating social impact and addressing grand challenges?
• What are appropriate metrics and evaluation methods for service management research that addresses grand challenges and create social impact?
• How can service design methodologies be applied to service ecosystems to enhance equity and inclusion for marginalized groups and customers experiencing vulnerability?
• What governance structures and operational mechanisms are necessary to build resilient, multi-stakeholder service systems capable of effective mobilization during societal crises (e.g., pandemics, climate disasters)?
• What processes and strategic alignments are required to successfully scale up locally proven social service innovations into sustainable, regional, or national solutions?
• How can the optimization of processes and resources (efficiency) within service organizations contribute to the grand challenges?
• What new frameworks are needed for the design and improvement of services when the primary goal broadens beyond creating organizational value (profit) to maximizing societal well-being and addressing systemic social problems?
• In what ways must the organizational function and governance of service management change to enable effective cross-sectoral delivery of services among diverse actors (e.g., government, non-profit, and private firms) to tackle complex grand challenges?

Timeline

• January 12, 2026: Opening date for manuscripts submissions
• March 30, 2027: Closing date for manuscripts submission