Viewpoint: wisdom-enabled business research: a scholar-activist framework for social impact

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present a scholar-activist framework for social impact based on wisdom-enabled business research. Humanity’s complex service systems are explored, encompassing interactions among customers, employees, colleagues, society and the planet. Design/methodology/approach The scholar-activist framework is based on three phases: designing collaborative wisdom into business research problems, redesigning service institutions to better serve humanity and co-designing social impact solutions for the human experience. Findings Humanity lives in service systems that fail to serve everyone well. Business schools and scholars are well-positioned to take a leading role in supporting wisdom-enabled business research that expands beyond serving profit-seeking organizations to serving the needs of human service systems. Social impact is presented as one of three human experience outcomes: reducing suffering, improving well-being and enabling well-becoming. Originality/value This paper presents an original synthesis of Transformative Service Research and ServCollab research to encourage scholar-activism for wisdom-enabled business research.