PRME Working Group on Service Systems for Humanity
ServCollab collaborates with the United Nations Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) to create the PRME Working Group on Service Systems for Humanity. This international initiative seeks to bring together scholars, educators, and practitioners to advance research, teaching, and practice that transforms service systems to serve humanity and the living planet wisely.
The idea for the working group emerged from discussions among ServCollab researchers on major global service system challenges, including the refugee crisis. These conversations highlighted how failures across service systems can impose permanent human vulnerability. These discussions reinforced the need for stronger collaboration among scholars, educators, and practitioners seeking to redesign service systems to better serve humanity. We recognized that collaboration with PRME and its global network of business schools, researchers, and students is a great opportunity to accelerate progress in this work.
Why Service Systems for Humanity?
Humans live within interconnected service systems that shape everyday life. These include families, communities, organizations, nations, and ultimately, the living Earth.
However, many service systems fail to truly serve humanity. At the macro level, the Earth can be understood as a fragile shared service system that requires responsible stewardship to sustain all forms of life. At the meso level, organizations and institutional structures can create barriers that limit access to essential services and resources. At the micro level, individuals and communities often experience suffering and reduced well-being because of service failures at higher system levels.
Global challenges, such as the refugee crisis, illustrate how failures across service systems can create profound human vulnerability. These challenges call for new forms of scholarship and collaboration that focus on redesigning service systems to support well-being, justice, and sustainability.
Purpose
The PRME Working Group on Service Systems for Humanity seeks to enable research, teaching, and practice that transform service systems for the well-becoming of humanity and the living planet.
Goals
The working group focuses on three core goals:
Cultivating serving humanity scholarship
Encouraging interdisciplinary research that advances understanding of how service systems can relieve suffering, improve well-being, and enable well-becoming.
Cultivating serving humanity teaching and pedagogy
Developing teaching materials, pedagogical tools, and curricula that support transformative service thinking and responsible management education.
Facilitating serving humanity communities
Bringing together students, scholars, practitioners, NGOs, and policymakers to collaborate on advancing service systems that better serve humanity.
Activities
The working group engages in a range of collaborative activities, including:
Research collaborations and scholarly publications
The working group encourages collaborative research on serving humanity from diverse disciplinary perspectives. These research collaborations seek to advance understanding of how service systems can relieve suffering, improve well-being, and enable well-becoming. The outcomes of this work are shared through academic journals, conferences, and other scholarly platforms.
Development of teaching materials and educational resources
The working group supports the creation of teaching and pedagogical resources focused on serving humanity. This includes developing curriculum modules, teaching cases, and implementation toolkits that can be used by business schools and organizations seeking to advance responsible management education.
Webinars and workshops on serving humanity
The working group organizes webinars, workshops, and other learning opportunities that bring together scholars, students, and practitioners. These events foster dialogue, share emerging ideas, and strengthen the global community working to transform service systems.
Academic conference sessions and presentations
Members of the working group present research and ideas at academic conferences and organize conference sessions dedicated to serving humanity and transforming service systems. These activities help expand scholarly conversations and engage the broader research community.
Engagement with scholars, practitioners, and policy communities
The working group facilitates collaboration among scholars, practitioners, NGOs, policymakers, and students interested in advancing wiser service systems. Through these engagements, the group builds connected communities of practice and supports shared initiatives that advance the science and art of serving humanity.
Why Collaborate?
ServCollab and PRME share a connected priority: Building the foundations for wiser service systems. Through collaboration, the working group and ServCollab support connected communities of practice and shared initiatives that advance the science and art of serving humanity.
This initiative aligns with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), PRME’s mission to advance responsible management education, and ServCollab’s mission to serve humanity through research collaborations that catalyze reliving suffering, improving well-being, and enabling well-becoming.
We invite scholars and practitioners who share this commitment to join and collaborate with us.
Learn more about the working group:
https://www.unprme.org/working-group/prme-working-group-on-service-systems-for-humanity/
Join the PRME Working Group on Service Systems for Humanity:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfQwZyof2g-hhnapCgCwU34kZhfmHmvpYQi7yakPevxeTs2iw/viewform