Abstract
The economic literature on services has for a long time been dominated by an industrialist bias which considers services as unproductive. This point of view was progressively replaced by a more positive integrative framework that takes into account possibilities of non-technological innovations. However, this framework does not constitute a theory of the growth of services and business services. We show the proximity between the integrative framework and the complex systems, and we argue that theories of the dynamics of such systems offer promising explanations for these two phenomena. In a systemic perspective, services are catalysts—i.e. actors who increasingly complexify the economic system—by taking part to various production and innovation processes at the same time.
This chapter draws on a research carried out within the COVAL project (European Commission, Horizon 2020).
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Notes
- 1.
See Delaunay and Gadrey (1992) for an account of this pessimistic opinion in the history of economic thought.
- 2.
These data can be found at the following webpage: https://bea.gov/iTable/iTable.cfm?ReqID=51&step=1#reqid=51&step=2&isuri=1
Last access: Feb. 9 2017.
We use the real value added to remove potential price effects in services, and also because value added is a measure of production net from intermediate consumption.
- 3.
See for instance the low productivity growth of “management of companies and enterprises” in Table 31.1.
- 4.
The NK model attributes a measure of performance to the different possible combinations of nodes. For the sake of simplicity and clarity, we abstract from such a measure in this chapter.
- 5.
This “rule 30” can actually even been used as a random number generator (see Wolfram 2002 p. 317).
- 6.
For an account of the origin of the conceptualization of economies as complex adaptive systems, the interested reader can refer to Arthur (2015).
- 7.
Interestingly, “management of companies and enterprises” is among the worst performers in terms of productivity growth in Table 31.1.
- 8.
The load factor is “the ratio of average output to the maximum output during a specified period” (Hughes 1987 p. 65).
- 9.
In organization studies, the multidivisional form refers to the organization of firms’ activities in segmented departments, each one being in charge of the production and commercialization of a specific product line.
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Desmarchelier, B. (2019). Service Economies and Complexity. In: Maglio, P.P., Kieliszewski, C.A., Spohrer, J.C., Lyons, K., Patrício, L., Sawatani, Y. (eds) Handbook of Service Science, Volume II. Service Science: Research and Innovations in the Service Economy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98512-1_31
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