Guest editorial: Rethinking service complexities: insights from Latin America for advancing services marketing research

The study of complexity has become increasingly relevant as contemporary societies navigate intensifying social, technological and geopolitical tensions. Prior literature has conceptualized complexity in service domains as a factor that influences the benefits and drawbacks of adopting a servitization strategy (Benedettini and Neely, 2012; Raddats and Easingwood, 2010). Similarly, complexity has been described as a system of systems that significantly influences the probabilities of subsequent events (e.g. Amaral and Uzzi, 2007; Sargut and McGrath, 2011). In contrast, Badinelli et al. (2012) explain that complicated and complex systems are distinct. A complicated system has many components and interconnections but operates according to linear, well-defined cause-and-effect relationships. Complexity, by contrast, arises when relationships among entities generate interactions that are incomprehensible to most agents and produce unexpected outcomes that cannot be predicted simply by analyzing the individual parts, thereby leading to indeterminacy.

Moreover, Badinelli et al. (2012) argue that complexity is not absolute but relative to the observer, meaning that the same observed phenomenon (i.e. resource integration and service exchanges) can be complex for different observers depending on their capabilities. Building on this understanding of complexity, Benedettini and Neely (2012) organize service complexities into five dimensions: (1) Markets and Products, encompassing high service individuality, heterogeneous customer needs, uncertain demand timing and information asymmetry between provider and client; (2) Technologies, involving the use of new, sophisticated or rapidly developing technologies and integrating diverse knowledge bases and skills; (3) Production Processes, characterized by high customer involvement and co-production, complex delivery networks with multiple direct and indirect ties and processes requiring intensive intellectual human labor; (4) Administration and Management, marked by intensive investment requirements, complex commercial arrangements (such as penalty clauses) and performance-based contracts under which management assumes responsibility for the entire task; and (5) Ecosystem, referring to the wider network of stakeholders, including managing relationships with numerous actors and navigating a demanding regulatory environment.

Despite the growing recognition of service complexities as catalysts for the evolution of service ecosystems (Anzivino et al., 2025), service marketing theory has not fully accounted for forms of complexity that emerge when institutional stability, formal markets and predictable governance cannot be presumed. Latin America provides a particularly relevant context for addressing this gap, as service ecosystems in the region foreground institutional instability, informality, hybrid market arrangements and uneven access to resources as constitutive rather than exceptional conditions (Del Giudice et al., 2023; Del Giudice et al., 2025). In this special issue, rather than treating the region as peripheral, we approach it as a critical site for revisiting universalist service marketing theories developed primarily on assumptions of institutional stability, formal market structures and predictable governance arrangements associated with developed economies. This reframing is increasingly pertinent as contemporary social, technological and geopolitical tensions have unsettled service ecosystems around the world, making them more volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous.

Latin America serves as a theory-informing context for understanding service complexities, as the region remains heavily dependent on buyer–seller relationships dominated by informal institutions (Reynoso, 2022; Del Giudice et al., 2023). Factors such as grey markets, criminal activity, technological skill gaps, gender imbalances, social discrimination and vulnerability to climate change have shaped distinctive patterns of service consumption in the region (Bailey et al., 2022; Barrios et al., 2023). Notwithstanding these constraints, reducing LATAM’s service context to structural limitations would overlook its transformational capacity. The region provides a rich setting for examining how emerging service ecosystems, in which communities and organizations mobilize strength-based strategies, drawing on local capabilities, social ties and situated knowledge, develop adaptive and resilient practices that enhance their quality of life and wellbeing (Barrios et al., 2025; Del Giudice et al., 2025).

Consequently, examining how service actors adapt to and operate within Latin America offers a productive basis for refining existing service theories. The five papers in this special issue do more than illuminate a regional service context; they generate transferable insights for practitioners and academics seeking to understand service complexities in other contexts marked by comparable forms of structural complexity. Next, we present the contributions of these papers around two dimensions of service complexity that are central to contemporary debates in both practice and academia: (1) Business, Society and Transformative Change and (2) Technology Adoption and Digital Transition.

Business and societal activities frequently unfold through hybrid configurations that combine formal and informal economies, community-based initiatives, public and private actors and entrepreneurial adaptation. These arrangements shape how organizations create, deliver and negotiate value, while also revealing how service systems can become sites of social transformation. Muñiz-Martínez’s (2026) paper advances this perspective by conceptualizing cities as complex service ecosystems in which value co-creation can support urban regeneration. In doing so, the study shows how urban service subsystems and their actors can reconfigure public and private service exchanges. Similarly, the paper of Zamora-Ramos et al. (2026) deepens how universities’ entrepreneurial ecosystems can foster the adoption of sustainable business practices among university entrepreneurs, providing actionable insights for policymakers, educators and entrepreneurs seeking to strengthen sustainability-driven practices. Finally, the paper of Barros-Arrieta et al. (2026) extends this discussion by examining relational practices among SMEs and demonstrates how interorganizational collaboration can either facilitate or hinder value creation within SME ecosystems in emerging and hybrid markets.

• How do businesses, communities and consumers co-create value in service ecosystems characterized by informality, institutional instability and uneven access to resources?

• How do organizations operating in emerging and hybrid markets balance commercial objectives with social, cultural and transformative responsibilities?

• What strength-based strategies do individuals and communities mobilize to enhance wellbeing and activate transformational mechanisms under conditions of structural constraint?

• How do hybrid market arrangements reshape relationships among businesses, public institutions, communities and civil society actors?

• How can service research better theorize transformative change in contexts where vulnerability, inequality and institutional uncertainty are persistent features of service life?

Digital technologies are transforming service ecosystems, but their adoption does not occur under neutral or uniform conditions across emerging markets. In contexts marked by digital divides, technological skill gaps, infrastructural limitations, informal economies, data asymmetries and uneven institutional capacity, digital transition can simultaneously expand access, reproduce exclusion and generate new forms of dependency or vulnerability. The paper by Bianchi and Saleh (2026) examines how older adults adopt digital technologies in contexts characterized by socioeconomic disparities, limited connectivity and distinct cultural settings. The authors identify the factors shaping the acceptance of online shopping among consumers aged 65 and over, offering practical guidance for digital service providers, retailers, managers and policymakers seeking to promote digital inclusion and reduce the digital divide among older consumers in contexts with similar characteristics. Likewise, the paper of Guiñez-Cabrera et al. (2026) examines how organizational legitimacy shapes customer experience during digital integration, focusing on corner shops’ transition to online delivery platforms in emerging and hybrid market contexts. Their findings show that functional continuity alone is insufficient to sustain customer loyalty and a sense of belonging when ethical and cultural alignment is weakened by sociocultural change. The study highlights the importance of preserving symbolic elements, ensuring transparent communication and maintaining relational proximity as key mechanisms for mitigating legitimacy loss during organizational transitions, rebranding processes and platform integrations.

Possible research questions for the future.

How do individuals and communities adopt, adapt, resist or reinterpret digital technologies in service ecosystems marked by inequality, informality and infrastructural limitations?

• How do digital platforms reshape access to services, market participation and value co-creation in emerging and hybrid markets?

• What role do trust, digital literacy, institutional capacity and perceived risk play in shaping technology adoption and digital service use?

• How can organizations design digital services that reduce exclusion rather than reproduce existing social, economic or technological inequalities?

• How do digital transitions transform relationships among consumers, service providers, platforms, governments and communities in contexts of structural complexity?

To advance research on service complexity, the field should theorize from contexts in which complexity is embedded in everyday service life. Latin America offers a particularly powerful setting because informality, institutional instability, hybrid market arrangements and uneven access are constitutive features of its service ecosystems. By foregrounding these conditions, this special issue positions Latin America as a theory-informing context for understanding how service systems evolve, adapt and transform under structural uncertainty. This perspective is increasingly relevant as social, technological and geopolitical tensions unsettle service ecosystems globally, exposing the limits of theories built primarily on assumptions of stability, formality and institutional predictability. We therefore call on service researchers to broaden the empirical and theoretical boundaries of the discipline by examining service phenomena in contexts where informality, instability, hybridity and uneven access are not peripheral deviations but central features of service life. These contexts are where much of the population lives.