Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T22:43:13.089Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Transformative Service Research as an Exemplar for Humanitarian I-O Psychology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 August 2017

Mahesh Subramony
Mahesh Subramony*
Affiliation:
Department of Management, College of Business, Northern Illinois University
*
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Mahesh Subramony, Department of Management, College of Business, Northern Illinois University, Barsema Hall 245H, DeKalb, IL 60115. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The focal article (Gloss, Carr, Reichman, Abdul-Nasiru, & Oesterich, 2017) highlights the neglect of individual and societal well-being concerns in I-O psychology theory and practice. A similar concern is currently being articulated within the interdisciplinary field of services (i.e., service management, services marketing, and service science) with the identification of critical underrepresented issues including economic disparities in healthcare, food deserts in poor urban locations, racial-ethnic discrimination in retail, discriminatory practices in lending, lack of access to basic quality-of-life services among poor “base of the pyramid” populations, and the underemphasis of employee and consumer health in service design and delivery (e.g., Fisk et al., 2016; Rosenbaum et al., 2011). Originating in a call for improving consumer well-being through academic research (Mick, 2006), transformative service research (TSR) is now recognized as a key research priority in services (Ostrom, Parasuraman, Bowen, Patricio, & Voss, 2015). Indicators of the scholarly interest in this topic include but are not limited to the following: (a) a seminal article in this research stream (Anderson et al., 2013) has been cited an average of 40 times each year since its publication, (b) multiple special issues have appeared in service-related journals (Journal of Business Research and Journal of Service Research), and (c) special conferences have been organized to examine transformative issues. It can be argued that a humanitarian or POSH agenda in I-O psychology can be informed by TSR while deriving its sustenance from our time tested scientist–practitioner traditions. Some of the key lessons that can be learned from the current trajectory of TSR evolution are discussed in this article.

Type
Commentaries
Information
Industrial and Organizational Psychology , Volume 10 , Issue 3 , September 2017 , pp. 385 - 388
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson, L., & Ostrom, A. L. (2015). Transformative service research: Advancing our knowledge about service and well-being. Journal of Service Research, 18, 243–249.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, L., Ostrom, A. L., Corus, C., Fisk, R. P., Gallan, A. S., Giraldo, M., . . . Williams, J. D. (2013). Transformative service research: An agenda for the future. Journal of Business Research, 66, 1203–1210.Google Scholar
Blocker, C. P., & Barrios, A. (2015). The transformative value of a service experience. Journal of Service Research, 18, 265–283.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cascio, W. F., & Aguinis, H. (2008). Research in industrial and organizational psychology from 1963 to 2007: Changes, choices, and trends. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93, 1062–1081.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fisk, R. P., Anderson, L., Bowen, D. E., Gruber, T., Ostrom, A., Patrício, L., . . . Sebastiani, R. (2016). Billions of impoverished people deserve to be better served. Journal of Service Management, 27, 43–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gloss, A., Carr, S. C., Reichman, W., Abdul-Nasiru, I., & Oesterich, W. T. (2017). From handmaidens to POSH humanitarians: The case for making human capabilities the business of I-O psychology. Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice, 10 (3), 329–369.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Good, D. J., Lyddy, C. J., Glomb, T. M., Bono, J. E., Brown, K. W., Duffy, M. K., . . . Lazar, S. W. (2016). Contemplating mindfulness at work. Journal of Management, 42, 114–142.Google Scholar
Hobfoll, S. E. (2002). Social and psychological resources and adaptations. Review of General Psychology, 6, 302–324.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lusch, R., & Vargo, S. (2014). Service-dominant logic: Premises, Perspectives, possibilities. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mick, D. G. (2006). Meaning and mattering through transformative consumer research. Advances in Consumer Research, 33, 1–4.Google Scholar
Ostrom, A. L., Bitner, M. J., Brown, S. W., Burkhard, K. A., Goul, M., Smith-Daniels, V., . . . Rabinovich, E. (2010). Moving forward and making a difference: Research priorities for the science of service. Journal of Service Research, 13, 4–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ostrom, A. L., Parasuraman, A., Bowen, D. E., Patrício, L., & Voss, C. A. (2015). Service research priorities in a rapidly changing context. Journal of Service Research, 18, 127–159.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paterson, T. A., Luthans, F., & Jeung, W. (2014). Thriving at work: Impact of psychological capital and supervisor support. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 35, 434–446.Google Scholar
Pyrko, I., Dorfler, V., & Eden, C. (2016). Thinking together: What makes communities of practice work? Human Relations, 70, 389–409.Google Scholar
Rosenbaum, M. S., Corus, C., Ostrom, A. L., Anderson, L., Fisk, R. P., Gallan, A. S., . . . Williams, J. D. (2011). Conceptualization and aspirations of transformative service research. Journal of Research for Consumers, 19, 1–6.Google Scholar