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SERVICE ECONOMY

Sociologyindex, Sociology Books 2012

Service economy is contrasted with a goods-producing economy and refers to an economy based largely on the provision of service rather than manufactured goods.

These services may include medical service, accounting, social work, teaching, design, consultancy, short order cook, waiting tables, driving taxi.

The shift to a service economy is sociologically interesting because it appears to be associated with different labour market demands, differing educational requirements, and differing wage structures.

The service economy: 'wealth without resource consumption'? 
Stahel, W. R. - adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1997RSPTA.355.1309S

Research and Development in a Service Economy - Gault, F.D.
Abstract: Canada has a service economy and R&D in Canada is mainly a service sector activity. This paper examines the sectoral distribution of expenditure on R&D performance, with emphasis on the business sector in Canada and with international comparisons. The principal observation is the key role played by service industry firms in the performing and commissioning of R&D. - ideas.repec.org/p/fth/stacst/12.html

Globalization and the territorialization of the new Caribbean service economy - Beverley Mullings
Abstract: With the increasing role of services activities in the economic growth of industrialized countries, and the failure of the manufacturing sector to create sustainable forms of development, many Caribbean policymakers have become interested in the role that these activities might play in the region's development. It is hoped that by designing ‘service-based’ industrialization and trade strategies Caribbean economies might be able to re-create the comparative advantages lost in the manufacturing sector. At a time when the islands of the Caribbean are orienting their economies towards the export of services, it is important to examine whether these new forms of economic activity are more likely to become embedded and territorialized in the region than the failed manufacturing industry. This paper argues that although technology has created greater opportunities for island services to be internationally traded, these industries are highly constrained by the institutions that govern transnational organizations. In a world of increasingly harmonized rules regarding trade and industry and given the highly contestable nature of the markets for traded services, these new industries are even more vulnerable to becoming spaces of exclusion and exploitation than was ever the case with manufacturing. - joeg.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/4/3/275

Using the Service Economy to Relieve the Double Burden 
Female Labor Force Participation and Service Purchases 
R. S. OROPESA, Pennsylvania State University 
Using a national survey conducted in 1990, this article examines how wives' labor force participation affects the extent to which families use the market economy to provide goods and services that have traditionally been produced by women. The specific purchases examined are help with housecleaning, meals at restaurants, and meals delivered to the home. Findings are discussed within the context of hypotheses about the roles of household resources, personal resources, gender ideologies, role overload, and the specific benefits that different family members receive from the provision of each service. - jfi.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/14/3/438

Women Marketing Students and the Service Economy: A New Majority 
Barbara B. Stern, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Women marketing students, nearly the majority, are likely to work in services: 84% of all women and most mangers and entrepreneurs are in service industries. Business programs' responses to women students include course development and nonsexist language. A women-related resource appendix for educators is included. - jmd.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/10/3/62

The Service Economy, Final Report of the Business and Industry Policy Forum on Realising the Potential of the Service Economy 
Services are transforming OECD economies on a massive scale, but are still impeded by regulations and policies that stifle innovation and competition. Comprehensive reforms need to be pursued internationally as well as in individual OECD countries. These are the principal conclusions reached by participants in a Business and Industry Policy Forum organised by the OECD on 28 September 1999. The Forum was organised by the Industry Committee, partly to address the mandate of the OECD Ministerial to explain the differences which have emerged in growth performance among OECD countries. It brought together senior government officials, experts, and business and trade union leaders from 30 countries to address issues related to “Realising the Potential of the Service Economy: Facilitating Growth, Innovation and Competition”. 
The Forum traced the evolution of the service economy, particularly in knowledge-based areas, and examined how it affects business and society. With manufacturing slipping to less than 20% of GDP and the role of services rising to more than 70% in some OECD countries, services are seen as playing a principal role in economies. The two sectors are, however, becoming more interrelated. There is an increasingly important bundling of services with products – such as software with computers. The relationship is a dynamic one, with software, for example, driving developments in computer technology, and vice versa. Outsourcing is a key factor in this development. With companies focusing on core competencies, more service-related functions are being sourced from specialised firms; this trend is serving to improve performance in key areas. 
The role of the Internet and electronic commerce was also examined. Developments in this domain are shattering conventional communication networks and are providing the means for companies to engage in partnerships that would have been unimaginable several years ago. These new partnerships help to diffuse knowledge and to strengthen the international presence and competitiveness of firms, including start-ups and small and medium-sized firms. 
At the international level, participants agreed that countries need to work collectively through the GATS to establish the type of reliable and effective trading environment that has been achieved during the past 50 years for merchandise trade. At the same time, more needs to be done to substantially reduce current barriers to trade in services.
Governments need to implement a comprehensive policy approach to remove the remaining structural barriers which impede the performance and development of strategic business services, and related knowledge-intensive activities. Innovation policies should be adjusted and broadened away from traditional R&D support in manufacturing, and there is a need for new initiatives in training and lifelong learning. Tax reform and removing impediments to entrepreneurship are crucial in some countries. More adequate measuring and reporting of intangible assets is important for the effective channelling of venture capital to service activities. Finally, better input and performance indicators would provide the basic information needed by governments, service providers, users and investors to make more informed policy and business decisions. 
There is considerable variation across OECD countries in the extent to which they have experienced rapid development of high-growth service industries. This, in turn, has been influenced by major differences in underlying policy conditions. In the United States, there has been extensive restructuring of existing firms which have reorganised their activities around their core competencies and outsourced a wide range of service-related activities, as well as numerous start-ups of service companies. Strong growth in Internet/ICT-related service providers has contributed to the rapid growth of an increasingly sophisticated range of innovative service products. These developments have been brought about by a number of interrelated factors, including lightly regulated product markets, efficient markets for corporate control, strong supply of venture capital and a climate that is conducive to risk-taking and entrepreneurship. Strong growth in services has also occurred in Canada and Australia, two countries with open economies and relatively few regulatory barriers. In contrast, growth in services has been slower in countries like Japan and Korea, where the business environment has been less favourable to entry by newcomers and to risk-taking, and where extensive cross-holdings of shares and the strength of keiretsu and chaebol relationships have slowed industry restructuring. Participants in the Forum agreed that the stakes are high, as services will provide the platform for future economic growth. It was agreed that the OECD should continue to work with Member countries to help design more effective and better-integrated policy approaches. - oecd.org

STI Working Paper 2005/3: The Service Economy in OECD Countries 
Improving the performance of the services sector is important to enhance aggregate economic growth. This is primarily since the service sector has become the quantitatively most important sector in all OECD economies. The growing role of services is not only the result of a resource re-allocation towards services, as the sector with low productivity growth. It is also related to demand side factors, such as a high income elasticity of demand for some services, demographic developments, the provision of certain services as public goods, and the growing role of services as providers of intermediate inputs. The empirical evidence points to several areas where employment and productivity growth in services is held back. For example, labour-intensive production in many services industries may reduce the potential for productivity growth. Innovation is held back by obstacles that are particularly relevant for services industries. The evidence also shows that the regulatory environment for services in product and labour markets may affect the scope for employment and productivity growth. However, policy should not necessarily look at services separately from manufacturing industries. In contrast, several services industries show characteristics and problems similar to those of manufacturing industries and the blurring of the two sectors is becoming more and more prevalent. Moreover, addressing some of the problems faced by services may also improve the performance of other industries, since services provide key intermediate inputs to such sectors. - oecd.org

The Service Economy: Standardisation or Customisation? - Jon Sundbo
Abstract: Service firms are squeezed between customisation and standardisation (the latter emphasises productivity in accordance with neo-classic economic theory). This presents a dilemma to service firms and to economic theory. The theoretical logics of both are discussed and a third theory, based on modulisation, is presented. The article investigates the issue of towards which of the three logics the service sector is developing. This is measured via two surveys carried out in Denmark. The results of the surveys say that the development is towards that of customisation with some minor tendencies towards modulisation. These results are discussed thoroughly. - ingentaconnect.com

Research and technology organizations in the service economy - Preissl, Brigitte
Abstract: This paper documents the conception and results of a research project on the changing roles of research organisations in Europe. Institutional settings and functional orientation of these organizations reflect the ongoing transformation of economies into service economies. Several analytical tools have been developed to study the dynamics of research organisations. These tools allow the positioning of research organisations in national systems of innovation and the interpretation of institutional reforms. They emphasise the service character of research activities and innovation policy and help to explain differences in the research landscapes across the EU. - ingentaconnect.com

The New Service Economy and It's Implications for Statistics 
LAURA ASANDULUI - "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" University of Iasi 
Abstract: The New Service Economy is an increasingly global economy in which businesses compete and communicate in a worldwide marketplace. High-technology and information-based goods and services are dominating today's economy. New business models are applied, and international business is changing profoundly. The New Service Economy poses opportunities as well as threats to data collection. In some instances, the existing data systems must be improved. The greatest challenge will be to devise new data systems designed to go beyond monitoring and with an explicit orientation to shed light on the underlying dynamics of the economy. - papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=936335

America's Service Economy - Wolfbein, Seymour L.
Every one of the 20 fastest-growing occupations, as listed by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, is in the service sector. Nearly all of the 15 million jobs that have been created since the November trough of the 1982 recession have been in the service sector. About half of these jobs pay at least $10 per hour, and those paying minimum wage or less have declined by about 25 percent. The biggest increases granted under collective bargaining for 1987 as a whole and the first quarter of 1988 occurred in the services industry. Employment in the goods-producing sector rose during 26 of the past 40 years and fell during 14. In the service sector, however, employment rose during 39 of the past 40 years. Ninety-seven percent of the increase in employment between 1947 and 1987 took place in the service sector, and projections call for this trend to continue at least into the beginning of the next century. In the years between 1982 and 1987, the increase in employment in trade-related occupations has amounted to 20 percent. In finance, insurance, and real estate the increase has amounted to 23 percent. It should be noted that this increase in service sector employment levels coincided with the decline of the U.S. manufacturing sector, a period of peacetime prosperity, and significant increases in female labor force participation. (MN) - eric.ed.gov

A "High-Tech" or a Service Economy Future? - Galambos, Eva C. 
Educators are currently confronting two divergent messages regarding the occupational needs of the future--"high tech" and service economy. These two views of the future world of work imply opposite strategies on how to prepare youth for tomorrow's jobs. - eric.ed.gov

The diversity and evolution of research and technology organizations
The RISE agenda has three components:
Mapping the changing shape of innovation systems in the service economy, and addressing the diversity of national and sectoral arrangements. 
Examining and evaluating the working balance between contributions (including funding) of public and private sector actors in innovation systems. 
Developing strategies for generating and presenting knowledge on innovation systems, as a contribution to the strategic steering of courses of action by actors who wish to change the trajectories of innovation systems. 
Semi-public research and technology organizations - so-called RTOs - have been taken as the tactical focus for this exploration of mapping issues for policy purposes. No general description covers all RTOs but a stereotypical definition serves as a basis for discussing the term's many variants and interpretations:
RTOs are organizations with significant core government funding (25% or greater) which supply services to firms individually or collectively in support of scientific and technological innovation and which devote much of their capability (50% or more of their labor) to remaining integrated with the science base.
RISE research has generated ten principles that should inform government policy related to RTOs.

Service economy and goods-producing economy

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