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This study aims to systematically review and conceptualise service-related research on refugees to identify gaps in the literature, derive future research avenues and stimulate interdisciplinary research and practice to improve well-being of refugees.

This study uses a systematic literature review (SLR) of 102 journal articles published or available online from 2010 to 2020.

Ten themes are identified across the three phases of the refugees’ service journey (entry, transition and exit). Most of the articles focus on the exit phase. One-third of the literature analyses refugees’ access and adaptation to health-care services. The dearth of research on other refugee services reflects the failure to attend to all aspects of service provision across all phases of the refugee service journey.

While the ten themes across the three phases require scholars’ and practitioners’ attention, different aspects of the SLR’s findings necessitate further investigation. To reinvigorate research and practice, and stimulate interdisciplinary collaboration, a novel Communities of Practice approach is suggested.

Practitioners and policymakers should place more focus on the entry and transition phases of the refugee service journey.

Lack of research and engagement with the first two phases of the refugee journey might come at the expense of refugees. More service support is needed to buffer the journey from homeland to host country.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this SLR on refugee-related services is the first of its kind from a service research perspective.

The overarching goal of this paper is to increase awareness among researchers and practitioners that refugees are disproportionally impacted by COVID-19, which increases their suffering. Second, it extends a recently introduced transformative refugee service experience framework by integrating and conceptualizing refugees' resource and service inclusion during a pandemic. Third, it explores lessons learned and implications from the COVID-19 pandemic for the future of service research and practice.

This study synthesizes approaches on refugees, resources and transformative service research to develop an extended framework for addressing one of society's pressing issues during and after pandemics.

Recognizing refugees as providing resources rather than just needing or depleting resources can enable more inclusion. It facilitates refugees' integration into society by drawing on their skills and knowledge. This requires hospitable refugee service systems that enable service inclusion and opportunities for refugee resource integration.

This article focuses on one vulnerable group in society. However, the extended framework presented warrants broader application to other contexts, such as subsistence marketplaces.

Managers of service businesses and public policymakers should create more inclusive and hospitable service systems for refugees. This may result in redesigning services, changing consumer behavior and reformulating public policy.

Better inclusion and integration of refugees and their resources should increase their individual well-being, reduce social issues in society, increase overall societal well-being and productivity.

This article presents a novel extended framework for service scholars and service providers to increase resource and service inclusion of refugees in a disaster context.

This article explores the impact of crises, such as the coronavirus pandemic, on service industries, service customers, and the service research community. It contextualizes pandemics in the realm of disasters and crises, and how they influence actors' well-being across the different levels of the service ecosystem. The paper introduces a resources–challenges equilibrium (RCE) framework across system levels to facilitate service ecosystem well-being and outlines a research agenda for service scholars.

Literature on disasters, crises, service and well-being is synthesized to embed the COVID-19 pandemic in these bodies of work. The material is then distilled to introduce the novel RCE framework for service ecosystems, and points of departure for researchers are developed.

A service ecosystems view of well-being co-creation entails a dynamic interplay of actors' challenges faced and resource pools available at the different system levels.

Service scholars are called to action to conduct timely and relevant research on pandemics and other crises, that affect service industry, service customers, and society at large. This conceptual paper focuses on service industries and service research and therefore excludes other industries and research domains.

Managers of service businesses as well as heads of governmental agencies and policy makers require an understanding of the interdependence of the different system levels and the challenges faced versus the resources available to each individual actor as well as to communities and organizations.

Disasters can change the social as well as the service-related fabric of society and industry. New behaviors have to be learned and new processes put in place for society to maintain well-being and for service industry's survival.

This paper fuses the coronavirus pandemic with service and well-being research, introduces a resources-challenges equilibrium framework for service ecosystem well-being and outlines a research agenda.

This study aims to investigate whether the antecedents of co-creation influence braggart word-of-mouth (WoM) in a participative leisure context, theorising the concept of co-created food well-being and highlighting implications for interactive experience co-design.

A sequential mixed-method approach was used to test a theoretical model; 25 in-depth interviews with cooking class participants were conducted, followed by a post-experience survey (n = 575).

Qualitative results suggest braggart WoM is rooted in active consumer participation in co-designing leisure experiences. The structural model confirms that participation in value co-creating activities (i.e. co-design, customer-to-customer (C2C) interaction), alongside perceived support from service providers, increases consumer perceptions of co-creation and stimulates braggart WoM. Degree of co-creation and support from peers mediate some relationships.

Limited by cross-sectional data from one experiential consumption format, the results nevertheless demonstrate the role of active participation in co-design and C2C interactions during value co-creation. This implies that co-created and co-designed leisure experiences can intensify post-consumption behaviours and potentially enhance food well-being.

The results highlight that integrating customer participation into service design, while also developing opportunities for peer support on-site, can stimulate braggart WoM.

Extends burgeoning literature on co-creation and co-design in leisure services. By encouraging active customer participation while providing support and facilitating C2C interactions, service providers can enhance value co-creation, influencing customer experiences and food well-being. Accordingly, the concept of co-created food well-being is introduced.

The pandemic has accelerated the use of virtual learning spaces and led to rethinking post-pandemic course delivery. However, it remains unclear whether students’ online engagement in e-servicescapes can influence attachment to a place, i.e. a physical servicescape. This study conducted an exploratory study to inform place attachment and actor engagement literature in an online service context.

Quantitative survey design was used and 98 usable responses were collected from undergraduate and postgraduate students at a major New Zealand university during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The questionnaire consisted of 23 items relating to three dimensions of online student engagement and 19 items referring to six dimensions of campus attachment.

Results of the exploratory study indicate that classmate community in online lectures, referring to student–student interactions, can positively influence five of the dimensions of campus attachment, including place identity, place dependence, affective attachment, social bonding and place memory, even though students are physically not on campus. However, it cannot influence place expectation. Moreover, instructor community (student–instructor interaction) and learning engagement (student–content interaction) in online lectures have insignificant impact on campus attachment.

This study emphasises the social dimension when interacting in e-servicescapes. Person-based interactions are more influential than content-based interactions for student engagement. Educational service providers should integrate the e-servicescape and the physical servicescape by encouraging more student–student interactions to contribute to service ecosystem well-being at the micro, meso and macro levels.

This study indicates that customer-to-customer interaction serves to integrate customer engagement across the digital and physical realms for process-based services like education.

People are responsible for their wellbeing, yet whether they take ownership of their own or even others' wellbeing might vary from actor to actor. Such psychological ownership (PO) influences the dynamics of how wellbeing is co-created, particularly amongst actors, and ultimately determines actors' subjective wellbeing. The paper's research objective pertains to explicating the concept of the co-creation of wellbeing and conceptualizing the dynamics inherent to the co-creation of wellbeing with consideration of the influences of all involved actors from a PO perspective.

To provide a new conceptualization and framework for the dynamics of wellbeing co-creation, this research synthesizes wellbeing, PO and value co-creation literature. Four healthcare cases serve to illustrate the effects of engaged actors' PO on the co-creation of wellbeing.

The derived conceptual framework of dynamic co-creation of wellbeing suggests four main propositions: (1) the focal actor's wellbeing state is the intangible target of the focal actor's and other engaged actors' PO, transformed throughout the process of wellbeing co-creation, (2) PO over the focal actor's wellbeing state is subject to the three interrelated routes of exercising control, investing in the target, and intimately knowing the target, which determine the instigation of wellbeing co-creation, (3) the level of PO over the focal actor's wellbeing state can vary, influence and be influenced by the extent of wellbeing co-creation, (4) the co-creation of wellbeing, evoked by PO, is founded on resource integration, which influences the resources–challenges equilibrium of focal actor and of all other engaged actors, affecting individual subjective wellbeing.

This article provides a novel conceptual framework that can shed new light on the co-creation of wellbeing in service research. Through the introduction of PO the transformation of lives and wellbeing can be better understood.

This study aims to understand the engagement between an indigenous social service provider and marginalised clients deemed “hard-to-reach” to gain an insight into how to improve the client’s engagement and well-being through transformative value co-creation.

The exploratory study’s findings draw on primary data employing a qualitative research approach through document analysis and in-depth interviews with clients, social workers and stakeholders of the focal social service provider in New Zealand.

The findings indicate that there are inhibitors and enablers of value or well-being co-creation. The lack of client resources and a mismatch between client and social worker are primary barriers. Other actors as well as cultural practices are identified as enablers of well-being improvement.

This research reports on a single social service provider and its clients. These findings may not be readily transferrable to other contexts.

Findings indicate that social service providers require a heightened awareness of the inhibitors and enablers of social service co-creation.

Both the integrative framework and the findings provide a sound critique of the prevailing policy discourse surrounding the stigmatisation of members of society deemed “hard-to-reach” and the usefulness of such an approach when aiming at resolving social issues.

This is the first exploratory study that reports on the engagement between a social service provider and its clients in a dedicated Māori (indigenous) context by employing an integrative research approach combining transformative service research, activity theory and engagement theory.