“The Emotional Burden and Uplift of Service Experiences: Designing Tomorrow’s Human‑Centred Services”
DETAILS
Call for Papers – Special Issue: “The Emotional Burden and Uplift of Service Experiences: Designing Tomorrow’s Human‑Centred Services”
Journal: Journal of Services Marketing
Publisher: (Emerald Publishing)
Submission deadline: 31 July 2026
Overview
This special issue calls for human‑centred, emotion‑attentive research on service experiences in an era of AI‑driven, hyper‑personalised, and digitally dominant service systems. Moving beyond traditional cognitive‑focused approaches (e.g., satisfaction, perceived quality), the issue foregrounds discrete emotions (stress, anxiety, joy, pride, awe, anger, sadness, disgust) and well‑being impacts—both positive and negative—across physical, digital, and hybrid service encounters.
The goal is to advance scholarship that helps design empathetic, supportive, and psychologically responsible services that acknowledge customers and employees as emotionally complex, vulnerable, and meaning‑seeking actors. Research is invited from a transformative service research (TSR), consumer‑psychology, and design‑thinking perspective.
Core Themes
1. Emotional burden, anxiety, and coping
How service failures, friction, or excessive automation generate stress, anxiety, and frustration for customers.
Coping mechanisms and compensatory journeys after negative service encounters.
Physical and digital barriers that increase emotional load (e.g., complex interfaces, opaque decision rules, perceived surveillance).
2. Discrete emotions and service outcomes
The role of specific emotions (e.g., pride in self‑improvement, awe in travel, anger in complaint handling) as explanatory mechanisms for:
Service adoption vs. abandonment.
Loyalty, word‑of‑mouth, and advocacy.
Long‑term well‑being and psychological health.
3. Transformative service experiences
Services that shift identity, values, or life trajectories (e.g., financial counselling, health‑coaching, education, therapy, social‑impact services).
Positive emotional trajectories (e.g., hope, pride, awe) versus negative emotional risks (e.g., shame, guilt, disempowerment).
4. AI, automation, and human connection
How AI‑driven and automated services (chatbots, recommendation engines, gamified apps) can:
Reduce customer anxiety through clarity, transparency, and control.
Or instead heighten cognitive load, mistrust, and alienation.
Design principles for emotionally intelligent AI interfaces that balance efficiency with empathy.
5. Frontline employees and emotional labour
How frontline service employees’ discrete emotions (e.g., compassion, frustration, burnout) shape customers’ emotional states and well‑being.
Emotional labour and psychological burden on employees in physical and AI‑mediated service encounters.
6. Servicescape and design for emotional experience
How physical and digital servicescapes (layout, aesthetics, flow, feedback cues, rhythm of interaction) can be intentionally designed to evoke desired emotions (calm, joy, reassurance) and mitigate stress.
Cross‑channel design that harmonises emotional tone and pacing across touchpoints.
7. Anticipatory emotions and engagement
The impact of anticipated emotions (excitement, dread, hope, fear of loss) on service adoption, usage, and abandonment.
Ethical implications of emotion‑driven nudges and “frictionless” design that may exploit psychological biases.
8. Gamification, psychological manipulation, and burden
How gamified elements (points, badges, streaks, pressure to engage) create psychological burden or manipulation, especially for vulnerable users.
Frameworks for ethically gamified services that enhance motivation without undermining autonomy.
9. Vulnerability and digital‑first services
How vulnerable consumers (e.g., low‑digital‑literacy, elderly, economically precarious, neurodivergent) experience emotional strain or empowerment in digital‑first or app‑only service ecosystems.
Design tactics to reduce anxiety, increase trust, and restore agency.
10. Mental health and digital surveillance
The mental‑health consequences of prolonged digital‑service engagement (e.g., social‑media platforms, screen‑based health tools, always‑on connectivity).
Emotional impacts of data surveillance, profiling, and algorithmic decision‑making on trust, control, and well‑being.
11. Methodological innovations
New methods for measuring and theorising emotional service experiences, including:
Experience‑sampling, micro‑biometric data, facial‑coding, text‑based sentiment analysis, diary studies, and other mixed‑method approaches.
Integrating psychological and neuro‑cognitive insights into mainstream service‑marketing research.
Submission Details
Submission platform: ScholarOne Manuscripts for Journal of Services Marketing:
https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jsmktgSubmission window: 9 February 2026 – 31 July 2026.
When submitting, select the special issue title: “The Emotional Burden and Uplift of Service Experiences: Designing Tomorrow’s Human‑Centred Services” from the dropdown menu.
Follow the journal’s author guidelines:
https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/journal/jsmSubmissions may be qualitative, quantitative, mixed methods, conceptual, review, or methodological papers.
All work must be original and not under review elsewhere.
Guest Editors
Rory Mulcahy, University of Southern California (Australia), Australia
Kate Letheren, Australian Catholic University, Australia
Why This Issue Matters
Services are increasingly embedded in people’s everyday emotional and psychological lives, yet much research still treats emotions as secondary.
By foregrounding emotional burden and emotional uplift, this issue encourages scholars and practitioners to design services that protect mental health, restore agency, and foster meaningful human connection in an age of AI and digital saturation.
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