The aim of this study is to identify the impact of the personal beliefs of the elderly on their attitude toward using online public services. To test hypotheses regarding the determinants and background of technology readiness, questionnaires were administered to the elderly in Japan and in the UK, countries with a well-developed online public services infrastructure and an aging population. After structural equation modelling analysis, the research identified that aging satisfaction is the strongest factor in terms of influencing online public services usage, and this is developed through social interaction. Additionally, the research identified similarities and differences stemming from the cultural background of the respondents regarding their fear of using ICT. Our findings contribute to an understanding of the elderly's personal beliefs in terms of online technology usage and relevant social support, which may pave the way for determining an elderlyfriendly social policy for diffusing new technology and services.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to develop a process model for the role transformation of vulnerable consumers through support services.Design/methodology/approachThe study is based on four years of participant observation at a community-based support service and in-depth interviews with the consumers. Visual ethnography was used to document the process of the consumers' role transformation through service exchanges.FindingsThe main outcome of this study is a consumer transformation model, describing consumers' role transformation processes, from recipients to generic actors. The model demonstrates that vulnerable consumers will transform from recipients to quasi-actors before becoming generic actors.Social implicationsVulnerable consumers' participation in value cocreation can be promoted by providing social support according to their dynamic roles. By enabling consumers to participate in value cocreation, social support provision can become sustainable and inclusive, especially in rural areas affected by aging and depopulation. Transforming recipients into generic actors should be a critical aim of service provision in the global challenge of aging societies.Originality/valueBeyond identifying service factors, the research findings describe the mechanism of consumers' role transformation process as a service mechanics study. Furthermore, this study contributes to transformative service research by applying social exchange theory and broadening service-dominant logic by describing the process of consumer growth for individual and community well-being.

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To solve the “wicked problems” of sustainability, education for sustainable development (EfSD) that raises the young generation to become change agents is necessary. For this purpose, fieldtrips that educate students in the real world about other stakeholders are effective, but since sustainable issues do not have clear solutions, cooperative learning (CL) in which students learn from each other is useful. The purpose of this study is to clarify the influence of the learning process on learning outcomes and their influence on learning objectives in real-world EfSD using CL. A hypothesis model consisting of seven hypotheses was set up, and a questionnaire survey of high school students who participated in the real-world EfSD was conducted. Results of the structural equation modeling of data from 2441 respondents supported all seven hypotheses. Implicit learning as a learning process promotes knowledge acquisition as a learning outcome, while explicit learning enhances self-efficacy. Although knowledge acquisition promotes citizenship development as the learning objective of EfSD, self-efficacy does not promote citizenship development. Self-efficacy affects knowledge acquisition more than implicit learning. This study contributes to EfSD research by clarifying the difference in the effects of the learning process.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the style of work. In adapting to the changing work environment, human augmentation technologies (HAT) can provide employees with new options to support their work. However, the agenda for research and development of HAT for the new normal is still unclear. In this study, we set two research questions: (i) what type of technology demand has emerged among employees due to the COVID-19 pandemic; and (ii) what is the nature of job satisfaction experienced by employees during the COVID-19 pandemic? This study aims to clarify the technology demand and job satisfaction of employees during the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyzed data from in-depth interviews with employees based on a grounded theory approach to answer the research questions and proposed an agenda for the research and development of HAT to enhance employees’ wellbeing in this new normal based on the crosspoint of technology demand and job satisfaction. The theoretical contribution of this study is the development of models of technology demand and job satisfaction of employees during the COVID-19 pandemic. The practical contribution is the development of a crosspoint framework to enable the development of HAT to support work while considering their impact on employees’ wellbeing.

Solving important social problems and promoting sustainable development requires solutions involving multiple stakeholders. Nevertheless, previous social marketing studies were limited to individual behavioral changes and lacked a perspective to involve surrounding stakeholders. This study focused on education for sustainable development (ESD) on a field trip and clarified the factors that promote students’ knowledge diffusion from the viewpoint of network externalities. A questionnaire was distributed, and responses from 1950 high school students were collected. This study used factor analysis to unveil the factors related to students’ features and field trip experiences and clarified how these factors promote driving network externalities and expanding the network through regression analysis. The findings indicated that the experiential value obtained from visiting a site with actual social problems has a large positive effect on driving network externalities and expanding the network. Therefore, encouraging driving network externalities and expanding networks by providing ESD on a field trip can contribute to solve social problems and achieve sustainable development.

To enhance the sustainability of local communities in an aging society, older people have begun independently organizing community activities as social support services. The knowledge created by the community-dwelling older people for these community activities is a valuable resource. Although many studies have addressed the motivations of older people to participate in social activities, few studies have explored motivations toward knowledge creation in community activities. The present study investigates how older people are motivated knowledge creation in community activities from the perspective of services marketing. We conducted in-depth interviews with older individuals participating in community activities and identified four scenes (reminiscence, resonance, reuse, and rewarding) by content analysis. These four scenes are associated with specific contexts describing how older people are motivated knowledge creation in community activities. We interpreted these scenes from the axes of the source of motivation (intrinsic and extrinsic) and approaches for psychological well-being (affiliation and power) and developed the 4R model. Our findings add insights to services marketing to enhance the sustainability of local communities through community activities.