Service Industries

'It contains an impressive array of important and useful material that should be familiar to anyone interested in economic growth and change. . . the potential value to be gained from these collected works is great.' – James E. Pratt, Growth and Change Service activities are now acknowledged as key players in economic development, societal change and public policy worldwide. This exciting Handbook not only contributes to ongoing conceptual debates about the nature of service-led economies and societies; it also pushes back the frontiers of current critical thinking about the role of service activities in urban and regional development and the important research agendas that remain to be addressed. Drawing on both theory and case studies, the contributors are international experts who have written original and stimulating chapters from a number of different disciplinary perspectives. Each chapter seeks to raise awareness of, and to provoke debates about, the opportunities and challenges presented by the shift to service employment. Providing a truly interdisciplinary analysis, The Handbook of Service Industries will be invaluable to scholars specializing in services research, as well as students and researchers in the areas of economics, geography, business and management, sociology, public policy and planning. The policy-making community will also find the Handbook a relevant and useful resource.

'. . . the main benefit of the Growth of Service Industries is that it deals with one of the key issues in the modern economy. Policymakers struggle with the problematic question of whether to limit public service budgets as costs for their provision rise. Economists are perplexed by the interplay of slow service and fast goods productivity growth and wonder why the demand for services is so persistent. In that respect at least, the Growth of Service Industries is intended for use by both policymakers and economists and serves as a useful introduction to service productivity analysis.' - Frederic Jallat, International Journal of Service Industry Management 'This book includes a collection of articles that every student of the dynamics of growth of service industries in industrialized economies will want to read.' - Rene Durand, Economic Systems Research Problems arise if budgets for services are held constant whilst prices rise. Education, cultural activities and health services are under constant budgetary pressure. the authors argue that the price of commodities is linked to demand and price increases would therefore seem to threaten the very existence of these services. the paradox of these services is that in spite of their exploding costs, demand persists.

This open access book is an outcome of several years of research, practice, and teaching experience of the authors on the challenges that underpin the successful switch to services for manufacturing firms. Ideal for a student as well as a practitioner, the book describes the industrial services ecosystem, the barriers and challenges, and a roadmap for building service excellence. Curated cases are used to describe the current approaches in practice to overcome the barriers. The book also provides several tools, each with a short introduction, that the authors have used successfully in projects to help overcome the servitization barriers. Many of these tools are from management, design thinking, or service design. The service excellence roadmap is based on the development methodology and helps current and future business leaders to create their own individual roadmaps.

The service sector in most advanced economies accounts for up to seventy percent of employment and GDP and, given its growing importance, has received much research attention over the last two decades. However, not very much attention has been paid to the relationship between this sector and both its territorial impact and regional effects. The main objective of this book is to offer a comprehensive approach to these aspects, focusing particularly on the location factors of service industries and the importance of some specific services, such as business services and knowledge and information services. The contributions have been prepared by well-known experts in the field from a wide number of countries. The focus of all contributions is not only on theoretical aspects, but also provides empirical analyses on specific countries and topics such as the geographical concentration, globalization impacts, foreign direct investments, and innovation.