This article conceptualizes and presents a research agenda for the emerging area of transformative service research, which lies at the intersection of service research and transformative consumer research and focuses on well-being outcomes related to service and services. A conceptual framework provides a big-picture view of how the interaction between service entities (e.g., individual service employees, service processes or offerings, organizations) and consumer entities (e.g., individuals, collectives such as families or communities, the ecosystem) influences the well-being outcomes of both. Research questions derived from the framework in the context of financial services, health care, and social services help catalyze new research in the transformative service research domain.

Purpose This commentary aims to introduce a collection of articles that highlights the experiences, needs and challenges of vulnerable consumers within a variety of service contexts. As a research collection, the investigations reveal that service researchers have overlooked how service design and processes affect vulnerable consumers. Design/methodology/approach The commentary is a conceptual perspective based on the investigations put forward in this special issue, extant literature and the editors’ perspectives. Findings Many consumers enter service contexts in some type of vulnerable condition. These conditions may include those relating to deafness, hearing impairments, older age, sexual orientation, immigration status and acculturation, participation in sexual exploitation, geographical remoteness, mental health challenges, obesity, natural disasters, language barriers and being the brunt of service provider discrimination. Research limitations/implications Service researchers are encouraged to consider how the service marketing’s foundational theories, frameworks, concepts and axioms generalize among vulnerable consumers. Practical implications Service practitioners need to realize customers often enter service contexts owing to some type of vulnerable condition that influences their expectations and perceptions of service quality. Originality/value This special issue expands the discipline’s understanding of vulnerable consumers and exposes an array of conditions that affect their experiences and journeys within service settings. Service organizations dedicated to enhancing consumer well-being must understand how they can help remedy, or lessen, the consequences associated with vulnerable conditions.

Purpose This study aims to explore the lived experience of vendors as they enact street vending practice that emerges as transformative entrepreneurship and service where they live and work. Design/methodology/approach This research qualitatively explores street vending in a multi-cultural, multi-local study to understand how these businesses operate to positively impact individual, collective and societal well-being. Findings This research reveals street vending is a creative, transformative entrepreneurial activity that improves individual and collective well-being. The research exposes multiple forms of habitual and transformative value delivered by vendors, resulting in improved eudaimonic and hedonic well-being that ripples out from vendors to families, communities and society. Research limitations/implications A framework of street vending practice is provided to guide service designers and policymakers as they seek to support street vendors as they move from informal to formal and from survival to growth business modes. Originality/value This research extends existing conceptualizations of transformative entrepreneurship beyond prior focus on economic transformation and prior limitations of transformative entrepreneurship to business in growth modes.

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Purpose This study aims to explore how the attitudes, motivations and practices of informal entrepreneurs, who choose service exclusion, prevent them from recognizing and taking advantage of transformative opportunities and embracing change. Design/methodology/approach The authors conducted a two-year study to explore five types of informal entrepreneurs (musicians, street vendors, artists, owners of informal smoke shops and street food vendors). The authors used semi-structured interviews and applied thematic analysis (ATA) of popular music and narratives to shed light on their attitudes, motivations and practices. Findings The study shows how potential service participants freely exclude themselves from services and transformative service initiatives, preventing them from realizing opportunities and embracing change that can improve their well-being. The study also demonstrates that to serve human needs fairly, service designers need to recognize that some actors require more attention and resources than others to achieve their potential. Originality/value The study challenges the notion that any population experiencing vulnerability wants help and chooses to participate in transformative service initiatives. Service participants can, in fact, exclude themselves from services and transformative service initiatives by free will, demonstrating that service exclusion is a multidirectional phenomenon, not unidirectional. Additionally, the paper analyzes narratives gathered from aesthetic expressions, using principles of ATA, introducing music thematic analysis as a research approach.