Why this international conference?
Hospitality and Tourism, healthcare and wellness, education & edtech, retail and e-commerce, creative industries, management consulting and also legal services are labour-intensive sectors with multiple actors that significantly affect three levels of analysis – people, teams & the firm and the planetary eco-system.
These industries are faced with multiple challenges: There is an increase in the global burden of depression (now classified as a disease by WHO), challenges to jobs posed by artificial intelligence, climate disruptions the world over, a shift in tourist and consumer expectations and more fragile labour markets. For example, the hospitality and tourism sectors are grappling with the reimagining of service work under digital disruption, mental health challenges and ecological fragility (Kakarougkas & Stavrinoudis, 2025; Talukdar & Sawon, 2026). In this context it is vital that the service sector reconsiders its purpose and future direction. What was once seen as a sector defined primarily by service and experience has now become a space where emotional well-being, tech-savviness, environmental responsibility and community resilience intersect in profound ways.
Management scholarship has so far has been centred around the triple bottom-line perspective of profit, people and planet (Żak, 2015), stakeholder theory (Freeman, Wicks, & Parmar, 2004) and also conscious capitalism that advocates service‐oriented leadership (Sisodia, 2009). Many questions arise, including whether the existing conceptual perspectives still hold relevance or need to be realigned to the tectonic shifts that industries are undergoing, where reinvention, innovation, creativity and resilience seem to hold the key.
This international conference aims to host eminent scholars and industry leaders for vibrant discussions on existing research and practices, with the goal of inspiring transformative research directions in service ecosystems. It is being organized in collaboration with the prestigious Academy of Management (AOM), the leading professional association for management and organization scholars worldwide, with a membership of about 21000 scholars spanning 110 countries.