12 June 2024 | Bordeaux

The Science-to-Business Marketing Research Centre is proud to announce the participation of two of its PhD candidates, Judith Helmer and Katrin Uude, at the 13th SERVSIG Conference held in Bordeaux from June 5th to 8th, 2024. Hosted by KEDGE Business School, the event, themed "Service for Humanity," brought together service researchers from around the globe. The conference, hosted in the picturesque city of Bordeaux, renowned for its wine, gastronomy, and quality of life, provided an ideal backdrop for scholars to explore the theme of service's role in addressing global challenges. Judith Helmer and Katrin Uude are both pursuing their PhDs in collaboration with the University of Adelaide in Australia. They contribute to the field of service research through their studies, each with a different focus.

Judith Helmer's research paper, which she presented at the conference, focuses on "Collaborative Market-Shaping between Human and Non-Human Actors" and takes an agent-based modelling approach to simulate interactions between human market actors and Generative AI and observe emerging systemic patterns arising in the transformation of service systems. Following this novel methodological approach in service research, the study outlines and compares 9 different simulations to draw out diverging collaboration patterns arising from the actors' interactions. With this, the study not only conceptualises the prevailing role of Generative AI influencing value cocreation in systems but specifically expands the understanding of collaborative market-shaping involving these non-human actors.

Katrin Uude presented her second PhD paper on the conference entitled "A Typology of Actor Engagement Roles within Collaborative Settings." The paper delves into the concept of actor engagement within collaborative contexts, emphasizing its potential to drive the success of collaborations, particularly in service innovations. Katrin Uude's research addresses the dearth of knowledge concerning the diverse roles actors play in fostering or impeding engagement within collaborations. Through qualitative analysis of 32 semi-structured interviews, Katrin Uude identified eight actor engagement roles, categorized into three overarching categories: resource investment leaders, impeding resource investors, and activated resource investors. This typology expands existing literature in the field of actor engagement and contributes to a better understanding of engagement dynamics in collaborative settings.

Judith Helmer and Katrin Uude not only successfully presented their PhD papers but also engaged in numerous stimulating discussions with fellow researchers during the conference on how to redesign services to have a positive impact on the world. Throughout the conference, there was a recurring emphasis on the importance of academics recognizing that our world is in crisis due to climate change and that scientists must do their utmost to contribute to combating this crisis. Both scholars, Judith Helmer and Katrin Uude,  are striving to achieve exactly this with their PhDs.