Purpose

In aging societies all over the world, an increased understanding of age and age-related insights is critical to theory development, generalizations, model adaptations and managerial insights. Researchers and managers mostly rely on chronological age for adapting their approaches; they assume chronological age as a customers’ characteristic and neglect differing behaviors between individuals of the same age. When motivations enter the fray, chronological age as an individual’s attribute becomes indiscriminate. Consequently, findings adopting this age concept differ widely.

Design/methodology/approach

This special issue of the Journal of Services Marketing consists of ten articles that focus on different aspects of aging.

Findings

The articles change perspectives on age when describing ageing from an individual’s perspective. The articles also comment on social needs and discuss well-being in later life stages.

Originality/value

The authors offer a broad view on age and ageing to promote age-related research.

中文翻译：

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客座社论：年龄是一种建构，而非特征

目的

在全世界的老龄化社会中，对年龄和与年龄相关的见解的深入了解对于理论发展，概括，模型适应和管理见解至关重要。研究人员和管理人员大多依靠时间顺序来适应他们的方法。他们将按年龄划分的年龄视为客户的特征，而忽略了相同年龄个体之间的不同行为。当动机进入竞争状态时，按时间顺序排列的年龄作为一个人的属性就变得不分青红皂白了。因此，采用这种年龄概念的发现差异很大。

设计/方法/方法

这本《服务营销杂志》的特刊由十篇文章组成，着重于衰老的不同方面。

发现

从个人的角度描述衰老时，文章改变了对年龄的看法。文章还评论了社会需求，并讨论了以后生活的幸福感。

创意/价值

作者提供了关于年龄和衰老的广泛观点，以促进与年龄有关的研究。