Innovation in the Service Economy: The New Wealth of Nations
Author(s): Faïz Gallouj (Author)
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Publication Date: July 31, 2002
Language: English
Print length: 256 pages
ISBN-10: 1840646705
ISBN-13: 9781840646702
Book Description
Whilst contemporary economies are innovative, they are also predominantly service economies in so much as services are the main source of wealth and employment. However, there is still considerable unwillingness to consider innovation in terms of services, a paradox rooted in an obsolete conception which regards manufacturing as the only engine of growth.
In this book Faiz Gallouj propounds a theoretical framework which describes and evaluates the main approaches to analysing and understanding innovation in services. He provides interesting and extensive empirical material on the nature and sources of innovation in various services sectors and countries, and makes an original contribution both to theories of innovation in services and theories of innovation in general. Taking both an evolutionary and conventionalist stance, he demonstrates that services, and more importantly innovations in services, can be regarded as the new wealth of nations.
This informative and original book will prove invaluable to academics and students interested in economics, innovation, structural change, sociology and management. It will also be welcomed by practitioners and managers in service organisations.
Editorial Reviews
Review
‘. . . this is a book worth reading.’ — Peter Clarke, Entrepreneurship and Innovation
‘This is one of the first dedicated attempts to focus on the economics of innovation in the service economy. The book provides a detailed analysis of the conditions that shape and direct the introduction of innovations in services. In so doing it makes an important step towards integrating the analysis of quality and variety into the economics of innovation and knowledge.’ — Cristiano Antonelli, University of Turin and Collegio Carlo Alberto, Italy
‘Activities in the service sectors of the economy used to be considered unproductive. Until very recently, they were considered un-innovative, in spite of accounting for well over half of output in the advanced countries of the world. Faiz Gallouj destroys this myth. Not only are service sectors the major investors today in equipment based on information and communications technologies, they are also the source of other innovations, both technological and organisational. His book is a major landmark in our mapping of the so-called service economy.’ — The late Keith Pavitt, formerly of SPRU – Science and Technology Policy Research, University of Sussex, UK
About the Author
Faïz Gallouj, Professor of Economics and member of CLERSE-CNRS, University of Lille, France
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