Narratives of ‘The New Brighteners’, a litter picking collective in New Brighton, a coastal town in England, UK are intended to provide further insights into the complexities of communities of practice regarding litter picking waste management and related transformative services. Such communities would benefit more support and ongoing efficacy as they take the reins of waste management and aspects of creative services marketing regarding the places they live, work and visit. Acts of transformative services and the advent of related service/place making processes lead to novel approaches for the health and wellbeing of people and place. Guiding questions of this qualitative Transformative Service Research focuses on perceptions of strengths, priorities and opportunities of The New Brighteners and their honourable and good works linking both service and place. Perceptions from a range of participants are analysed via text mining software, which offer other communities and stakeholders shared perceptions and generalisable insights for the good of improving their own services. Such volunteering communities have become unexpected stewards to creating cleaner, litter-free places, and as proactive service providers to host communities and for visitors, alongside sectors they complement regarding waste management, including public, private, and other voluntary organisations.

Exploratory studies into transformative services and place making leading to cleaner, litter-free places are important for our global communities’ intentions and goals for sustainable and responsible development. Perceptions and practice in this study are informed by lived experiences of a litter-picking community and represents a range of experiences and choices to manage litter whilst at the same time providing a range of knowledge and practice exchange opportunities for each other and those who encounter them, especially formal waste management organisations, local authorities, and destination marketing organisations. These studies inform strategic decision making and management of services regarding litter and related waste management challenges.

Future studies could strengthen debate and action regarding the efficacy of similar communities of practice which transcend just picking litter, in other words transformative service provision. The research supports potential to support such honourable approaches to transformative service and place making. Outcomes can inform public and private waste management and health and wellbeing policies whilst generating awareness for a broader audience who should be involved in the challenges highlighted by this study.

Such communities of practice regarding litter picking have not been explored in the Transformative Service Research context. Therefore, this study critically explores previously unknown dimensions of such a group as ‘The New Brighteners’ and how they contribute to service ecosystems and an important dimension and nexus of theory and practice in these influential schools of thought and practice for individual and societal health and wellbeing.

Managers can make better use of narratives of such communities, for more informed approaches to transformative service, place management and marketing, and associated service innovation, design and development. A key contribution of this study is the nexus of Transformative Service Research and place making, implications of such important work often initially overlooked by key stakeholders and investors from public and private sectors across service ecosystems.

The world is characterized by migration and ethnic diversity, giving rise to ethnic minority consumers who are considered a vulnerable consumer group. Meanwhile, the world is affected by environmental and social challenges, resulting in calls for engaging consumers with initiatives focused on sharing underutilized resources. Despite considerable attention to drivers of consumer engagement with these sharing initiatives, little is known about the influence of ethnicity. This is an important limitation, as a number of studies demonstrate that ethnicity, which reflects the state of belonging to a group with shared national and/or cultural origins, represents a significant determinant of consumer engagement.

To address this gap, we investigate how ethnicity affects consumer engagement with sharing initiatives, whilst paying attention to the underlying mechanisms. Specifically, we draw upon Social Exchange Theory to examine the role of perceived value and perceived trust for engaging ethnic minority (vs. majority) consumers in Western countries with sharing initiatives. To this end, we rely on survey data gathered in the car sharing context as personal mobility has detrimental environmental (e.g. CO2 emissions) and social impacts (e.g. health concerns).

The results suggest that ethnic minority consumers perceive more environmental value of car sharing and less trust in car sharing. Moreover, perceived value and perceived trust act as important mediating mechanisms, but other mechanisms might be at play following the negative direct relation that is observed between ethnicity and non-behavioral manifestations of engagement. For behavioral manifestations of engagement, the mediating mechanisms are even more important as no direct effect of ethnicity on behavioral manifestations of engagement is detected.

This research contributes to the sharing economy literature by exploring the role of not only perceived value but also perceived trust as mechanisms for engaging ethnic minority and majority consumers with sharing initiatives. Additionally, this research contributes to the transformative service literature by unraveling the mechanisms through which ethnic minority consumers engage with sharing initiatives. Indeed, our investigation of sharing initiatives in relation to consumers who experience vulnerabilities because of their ethnicity gives insight into improving individual and societal well-being. For practitioners and policymakers, the findings provide guidance for engaging consumers who belong to different ethnic groups with sharing initiatives.

Johns and Davey (2021) identify key themes service scholars use to address marketplace problems for consumers experiencing vulnerabilities. These are to “embed humane service systems and processes, prioritise resilience and strengths-based solutions, incorporate and expand Transformative Service Mediator (TSM) roles and responsibilities, facilitate service design principles (holistic, human centred) into organisation processes and innovations, and enable consumers to be agentic by understanding well-defined needs” (p. 687). In particular, the TSM concept (Johns & Davey, 2019) is underpinned by a strengths-based perspective that from its social work origins, is the positive and empathetic relationship that “seeks out strengths and constructive resources within the client and the environment…mobilizing those” (Rapp, Saleebey, & Sullivan, 2005, p. 82). However, drawing on service marketing concepts, service systems (structures, design, processes and relationships) can hinder value co-creation and resource integration. Since “resources only have value when they are deployed in resource integration...their potential can be realized or negated by either supportive or competing actors’ activities, service systems and role expectations” (Davey & Gronroos, 2019, p. 690). Identifying the assets that individuals, communities and systems possess, combined with practices and activities of TSMs, can nurture strengths and capabilities leading to diminished experiences of vulnerability (Avelino et al., 2020). This research explores how strengths-based and TSM practices among Indigenous Australian (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) students in higher education lead to transformative outcomes.

Data collection comprised surveys (n = 19), interviews (n = 25) and a subsequent series of three co-creation workshops (11 participants). All data collection was conducted as part of a commissioned project by a University’s Indigenous Taskforce Group, established to provide a greater understanding on Indigenous student recruitment, retention and completions/ success. Although led by non-Indigenous academics, the research design had the support of a team of Indigenous staff and the support of the University’s Elder in Residence. Indigenous staff were consulted prior to ethics approval. The team used Indigenous Research Assistants in the initial interviews.

Bringing the findings together, we propose an interactive framework of individual agency and TSM activities extending the understanding of TSMs in a multi-actor service system. In particular, we suggest a bridge between service provision and the realisation of learning and wellbeing outcomes. Individual capabilities for value co-creation are built on the dimensions of being self-sufficient, being self-reflective, and being self-directed. These interact dynamically with the TSMs’ activities and processes of: being embedded within the participants’ context and the service context, recognising their communities of interest, and maintaining connectedness. Along with a sense of continuity, these key practices reinforce the TSM’s responsiveness to consumer needs and wellbeing outcomes in higher education. Managerial implications, recommending service co-design with indigenous students that balances hedonic (satisfaction) outcomes with eudaimonic (realisation of potential) wellbeing, are provided. Using strengths-based TSM activities, service co-design strategies that increase peer to peer support strengthen indigenous student’s capabilities, leading to improved student recruitment, retention and completions/success. More broadly, these findings can be extended to other communities, providing opportunities for risk reduction, adaptation, and coping.

Resources are central to service research and service praxis. For instance, users interact with and employ resources in service contexts to achieve desired goals or realise value (Kleinaltenkamp et al., 2012). Resources are thus also central to the notion of sustainable consumption, as both the nature of resources and users’ praxis of deploying resources shape the degree to which sustainable futures, by way of sustainable service ecosystems (Field et al., 2020), become possible.

Despite the relevance of resources and users’ praxis around resources, past research has only marginally examined the role of users for sustainable service ecosystems, particularly in view of the emerging circular economy. Extant research, and its underpinning theoretical frames, often implicitly assume consumption occurs in a linear fashion, i.e., a take-make-waste model. Resource usage is here considered in the pursuit of a singular, finite beneficial outcome. However, the adoption of a circular economy lens decouples economic activity from the consumption of finite resources and encourages consumers to keep resources in use for as long as possible to maximise their value potential, and thus, regenerate natural systems. (Ellen McArthur Foundation, 2013).

Pursuit of a circular economy has largely been considered at a societal, organisational, or other system levels, with frequent calls for relevant policy and legislation, private sector investment in circular economy infrastructure, the design of more circular business models, adoption of product stewardship models, and new technologies to support a circular approach (Huang et al., 2021). However, at a micro-level, sustainable consumption is often narrowly conceived of the minimization of resource usage (e.g., voluntary simplification), rather than broader circularity principles and implications. Thus, the role and responsibility of users in circular consumption remains relatively under-explored and under-theorized (cf., Giesler and Veresiu, 2014; Luchs, Phipps and Hill, 2016).

Acknowledging heightened user responsibility in circular consumption, this paper introduces and advances the concept of user circular resource stewardship. Product stewardship, or extended producer responsibility, recognises that whoever designs, produces, sells, or uses a product takes responsibility for minimising the product's environmental impact throughout all stages of the resource’s life cycle (Planet Ark, 2021). That is, users as stewards of resources, are motivated to care of and preserve resources beyond self-interest, feeling ownership of and moral responsibility for the common good (Schepers et al., 2012). Advancing firm and employee-centric perspectives of stewardship in marketing/service research (e.g., Schepers et al., 2012), this study progresses our conceptual understanding of circular resource stewardship from a user perspective.

In so doing, we propose a user circular resource stewardship framework that helps systematise resource praxis such as saving, repairing, upscaling or reselling resources to preserve or amplify them in view of more sustainable living. Additionally, we consider multiple theoretical lenses such as stewardship theory and conservation of resources theory to inform a future service research agenda around user circular resource stewardship, developing a solid foundation of users serving our future as caretakers through circular resource praxis.