The purpose of this study is to extend current understanding of disabling marketplaces by substantiating embodied interaction, between service providers and disabled consumers, as interlinked multimodal activities in a material environment. The study is based on three extensive datasets on service production and provider-consumer interactions, gathered from several public sector markets containing private service providers. Using different qualitative and semi-ethnographical methods, the study makes three contributions: i) a more embodied construct of disability, materialised in a conceptual typology of embodiment and materiality, advancing research into what disables consumers from being active members of marketplaces; ii) identifying themes of disabling marketplace interactions which contribute a more fine-grained understanding of the relationship between embodiment and how consumers experience vulnerability – an explanation of how consumers with disabilities appropriate space and ascribe meanings to a place; and iii) substantiating previous research into ‘bodily dys-appearance’.

Under de senaste åren har vi sett ett ökat behov av att engagera aktörer från de ekosystem vi studerar. I denna presentation utforskade vi strategier för hur dessa aktörer framgångsrikt kan involveras under olika faser av forsknings- och projektgenomförande.

Vi inledde med en genomgång av varför det är viktigt att engagera ekosystemets aktörer och vilka fördelar det medför för både forskning och praktik. Därefter presenterade vi tre fallstudier där vi framgångsrikt hade samarbetat med ekosystemaktörer. Varje fall belyste olika metoder som hade använts för att främja engagemang: från samarbete vid projektansökningar, involvering under genomförande och fältarbete, till fullt engagemang från idéstadiet till implementering.

I den avslutande delen av presentationen ledde vi en diskussion kring utmaningarna med att uppnå meningsfullt engagemang från ekosystemaktörer. Deltagarna delade med sig av sina egna erfarenheter, och vi bidrog även med exempel på utmaningar vi stött på för vidare diskussion.

The Transformative Service Research (TSR) movement has focused a growing number of service researchers on the topic of improving human well-being in service experiences and service systems. Recently, ServCollab (a human services nonprofit based on the logic of TSR) expanded its mission: “to serve humanity through research collaborations that catalyze reducing suffering, improving well-being, and enabling well-becoming” (servcollab.org). Well-becoming is the process of becoming prepared to experience well-being in the future. A recent Journal of Service Research Service Research Priorities article selected “Services for disadvantaged consumers and communities” as one of its research priorities (#7) and proposed the sub-themes of “addressing inequities in service provision and outcomes” and “putting humans first.” In this paper, we propose the new concept of “enabling marketplaces” to enumerate transformative aspects of marketplaces that actively work with consumers to enable well-becoming and inclusion; that put humans first. 

Consumer vulnerability has been a frequent research topic. The prevailing perspective on consumer vulnerability is deficits-based. Such a perspective focuses on what a person lacks instead of focusing on the marketplace circumstances that create vulnerability. Adopting a strengths-based approach to vulnerability, we choose instead to “consider the strengths that consumers bring to an experience of vulnerability” focusing on the embodied resources consumers use to deal with such situations. We will outline these embodied resources as a key part of enabling marketplaces. Previous research argues consumers who experience vulnerability are not just passive recipients of the bad things that come their way. They may be just as well active, instrumentally acting in relation to different forms of vulnerability. Forthcoming TSR inspired research on digital inclusion also takes a strengths-based perspective. 

Based on an extensive dataset, gathered from multiple mobility service contexts for disabled consumers, using different qualitative and semi-ethnographical methods, our study makes several contributions to our current understanding of a strengths-based perspective for enabling marketplaces. In particular, we identify three forms of embodied resources consumers bring to an experience of vulnerability. First, we identify re-framing as consumers’ action complexes taken in relation to changes in service provision. Second, relating, centers on consumers’ modes of activities concerning their interdependence with service provides. Third, consumers’ modes of activities taken to manage their emotions is defined as regulating. All three forms of embodied resources indicate agency, an ability to handle the situation in a way that enables well-becoming; to become prepared to experience well-being again. In addition, our study also provides managerial implications related to providers’ opportunity to co-create services with consumers; processes that adopt a strengths-based perspective for enabling marketplaces and thereby consumers’ well-becoming.

Research on circular product development has gained popularity in recent years. While such approaches focus on the product's design phase to create environmental and economic value, they lack in understanding the co-created and dynamic nature of a multifaceted system of actors important for the transition to circularity. The purpose is to explore how multi-level institutional re-configuration patterns influence resource integration and its associated value co-creation during circular product development in a service ecosystem. Responding to the need to address the applicability of Service-Dominant Logic to managerial practice, the paper relies on a single case study of circular product development involving B2B actors in a supply chain for workwear garments in healthcare. Data was collected using participant observation during an innovation project lasting 1,5 years. The data, which was supplemented by semi-structured interviews and online queries, was analysed through coding, condensation and interpretation. The findings demonstrate the importance of interdependencies between institutional re-configuration patterns and the interrelatedness of the micro, meso and macro levels in a service ecosystem as these enable value co-creation opportunities during circular product development. For practitioners, the paper provides an understanding of how to manage enablers and barriers arising during circular product development through institutional work.