Community, Economy and COVID-19: A Primer for Lessons from Multi-Country Analyses of a Global Pandemic

Macroservicing: a commentary on services as constructive engagement for sustainable peace, prosperity and well-being

“…An estimated five billion people have unmet justice needs, many of whom live entirely outside the rule of law, often because they do not have a physical address and thus lose access to services such as deliveries, medical care, disaster relief, voter registration or to obtain a driver’s license (Hao, 2018; World Justice Project, 2019). Obvious in the moment is a global pandemic, which ebbs and flows, wave after wave, from mutation to mutation; killing millions of people, the second most deadly pandemic in human history (Shultz et al , 2022b; World Health Organization, 2021). Chronic distresses and threats are especially troubling: inadequate shelter and hygiene, hunger, exploitation and working hazards, various other diseases (e.g., malaria and dengue), and violence to which the under-served are particularly vulnerable.…”

“…It articulates factors and reveals relations among them, that affect well-being. The framework is applicable to and can be adapted depending on research context and questions, and researcher interests, including, for example, sustainable well-being in Vietnam and the Lower Mekong River Basin (Shultz and Peterson, 2019); refugee well-being and host-country sustainability in Lebanon and the broader Levant (DeQuero-Navarro et al , 2020); multi-country analyses of well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic (Shultz et al , 2022b). The purpose of this commentary however is not to provide a detailed discussion of the framework; it is for the following reasons: to raise consciousness and to draw attention to or to highlight select factors particularly salient to facilitate well-being among under-served consumers and their communities; to add “Macroservicing,” which illuminates the importance of constructive engagement via services throughout the system; and to demonstrate our survival is ultimately dependent upon more fair, just and inclusive access to services for everyone. …”

“…It is so important that the latest update to the framework includes an explicit entrya Figure 2 UNESCO jDestruction in the ancient city of Aleppo, Syria spark of sorts at the nexus of macro and micro forcesto ignite/ inspire collaboration, even when actors in the system may not see immediate incentives or gain from engagementand coordinated institutional policy and behavior to enhance wellbeing. The red, jagged line surrounding "Constructive Engagement via Macroservicing" in the framework is a constant reminder of this indispensable spark for constructive engagement and to maintain a burning passion for the macroservicing integral to it (Shultz et al, 2022b).…”

“…Note that macroservicing is a systemic approach to services in a complex ecosystem, typically a marketing system comprising factors and their interactions for the purpose of services provisioning – consistently and reliably creating, coordinating and providing an array of beneficial services – to enhance well-being for stakeholders of the system, which in turn enables the ecosystem to flourish. To be most impactful, particularly in distressed or devastated ecosystems, macroservicing requires constructive engagement; that is, deliberate, cooperative collaboration among catalytic institutions – businesses, governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) – and their stakeholders to enhance multi-win outcomes and mutual well-being, especially when institutions and stakeholders are adversarial and/or engaged in some form of harmful conflict (Shultz, 2007; Shultz et al , 2022b).…”

Socially Responsible Marketing (SRM): Broader, Deeper, and Ever Greater

“…Both SRC and SRPP have been captured or addressed in systemic frameworks intended to assess, and to help predict and manage complex marketing systems, for the purposes of enhancing and sustaining individual quality-of-life, societal well-being (e.g., Shapiro and Stanton 2022;Shultz et al 2012Shultz et al , 2017 and the ecosystems requisite for such outcomes (e.g., Shultz et al 2022). The immediate and existential challenges confronting Homo Sapiens reveal clearly, in our view, the necessity of informed, cooperative, coordinated, sustainable and thus socially responsible markets, marketing, public policy, and consumer behavior; this systemic activity moreover requires proactive, constructive engagement, which must occur locally, globally, and over time and space.…”