Growth Of Service Sector Research Articles

Barriers to growth of the household services sector: some lessons from English urban areas

The aim of this paper is to evaluate critically whether the main barrier to the growth of the household services sector is household disposable income. Reporting case study evidence from a study of 511 households in lower- and higher-income neighbourhoods in English urban areas, it is revealed that economic constraints account for less than half of the instances where formal services were not used. A large proportion of tasks is instead undertaken on an informal basis for reasons associated with the standardization, quality, ease and reliability of formal service delivery. The paper thus concludes by discussing how formal businesses could tackle these barriers to the expansion of the household services sector.

Fast food, fast track: immigrants, big business, and the American dream

Hailing from China, the Caribbean, Latin America, and India, a colorful sea of faces has taken its place behind one of the most ubiquitous American business institutions -- the fast-food counter. They have become a vital link between the growing service sector in our cities' ethnic enclaves and the multi-billion dollar global fast-food industry. For four years, sociologist Jennifer Parker Talwar went behind the counter herself and listened to immigrant fast-food workers in New York City's ethnic communities. They talked about balancing their low-paying jobs and monotonous daily reality with keeping the faith that these very jobs could be the first step on the path to the American Dream. In this original and compelling work of ethnography, Talwar shows that contrary to those arguing that the fast-food industry only represents an increasing homogenization of the American workforce, fast-food chains in immigrant communities must and do adapt to their surroundings.

Occupancy evaluation of offices in the financial sector

Presents an innovation in surveys and consulting activities in the performance evaluation of work environments in Brazilian cities such as São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro by means of selected and specific examples in the financial sector. Large office buildings, as intelligent enterprises, are still in need of efficient tools for quality control of production processes, use, operation and maintenance, besides the concerns for diverse agents involved in this design with aspects such as advanced technology, automation and security. Two case studies have been chosen in the financial sector – one of the fastest growing service sectors in large Latin American cities – where methods and evaluation techniques were applied, with a focus not only on technological aspects, but also on the collection of functional parameters and indicators of occupation, security and automation, which is aimed at productivity and satisfaction for the users and occupants of these office buildings.

Brand Valuation and Control: An Empirical Study

In economies with a growing service sector, the importance of intangible assets like brands, customer relationships, and organizational capabilities is rapidly increasing, as is the importance of information and knowledge for the production of goods and services. New concepts in such areas as knowledge management or intellectual capital management underline the increasing importance of these “soft” production factors. Both financial and managerial accounting still focus on the “hard” production factors, especially the physical and tangible assets of the production area. From the managerial accounting perspective, the question is how a firm’s valuable intangible assets can be managed, controlled, and evaluated. Brands represent very important intangible assets, that have been especially in the light of marketing research. We use an empirical survey, based on 132 German companies with brands, to investigate the state of the art of brand accounting, brand control, and brand valuation. The focus of our study is the general perception of brands as an (intangible) asset and as an investment, the organization of brand management, the valuation of brands for internal control purposes, and the tactical and strategic performance measures for brand management. We also examine the budgeting process, the brand-related decision making and the underlying incentive systems. Our results show a gap between the perception of brands as valuable intangible assets and the implementation of an adequate management control process (implementation gap). Our study discusses implications for better strategies in brand management and control that can also be used in the management control process of other intangible assets.

Employment and Productivity Growth in Service and Manufacturing Sectors in France, Germany and the Us

The growth patterns of service sectors across France, Germany, and the US exhibit striking differences. This can explain most of the well-known differences in aggregate growth rates of labour productivity and employment across these countries. Having confirmed this observation by a shift-share analysis of key indicators of growth, such as employment, labour productivity and capital, the paper analyses service sector growth in detail. It argues that a careful consideration of the forces of long-run growth may help to better explain differences in employment and productivity growth, in particular if combined with the standard approach, institutional peculiarities of labour markets. In this regard, it first presents new estimates of capital's contribution to labour productivity growth, which take into account skill-biased technological change. Second, it discusses evidence of catch-up growth in European service sectors relative to the US, and how this may affect employment growth in the presence of labour market rigidities. JEL Classification: O3, O5

Do services exporters build relationships? Some qualitative perspectives

Investigates whether success factors for Australian services firms that export to Asia are consistent with the theory of relationship marketing, and demonstrates the power of the in‐depth interview methodology for exploring marketing theory. Relationship marketing theory suggests that services firms should adopt a relationship marketing approach while goods firms might use a transactional approach. To investigate this theory, a series of in‐depth interviews were conducted in firms marketing agribusiness products to Asia. We found that growth in the agribusiness services sector could be attributed to their strategy of “pairing” with Australian commodity exporters rather than to entering the market directly. Contrary to expectations, we found that Australian goods firms consider building relationships with Asian distributors and customers crucial to initiating and maintaining an export strategy. Furthermore, Australian agribusiness services firms do not seek to enter the market on their own but build relationships with Australian firms as a means of accessing the Asian market. The results demonstrate the power of qualitative methods for uncovering results that confirm or disconfirm existing theory.

Global Competitive Pressures, Labour Market and Employment Issues in the Japanese Service Sector

Global competition of products and services leads to rapid changes in the economy, industry and management. Judging from the industrial employment structure in Japan, the lower prices of foreign goods and services will drive the unemployment rate up in the long run. The Japanese economy urgently requires the growth of business and job opportunities, and therefore the role of employment protection legislation should be re-examined from the viewpoint of encouraging business activities. Analysis of the case study shows that managers in the growing service sector have positive attitudes towards employment growth and the expansion of business activities if the following measures are introduced: the deregulation of redundancy dismissals, the introduction of arbitrary work with performance pay, and legislative enforcement against age discrimination for hiring and firing.

Sources of output growth in Singapore's services sector

As services are an important engine of growth for Singapore, this paper attempts to empirically investigate the sources of output growth in this sector to shed light on the debate sparked off by Krugman (1994) on the miraculous or mythical growth of Singapore and the other newly industralizing Southeast Asian economies. This is done by using the stochastic production frontier model with panel data. Unlike existing studies which used the conventional growth accounting approach to decompose output growth into just input growth and total factor productivity (TFP) growth, this approach further decomposes TFP growth into technological progress and changes in technical efficiency.

The Externalisation of Producer Services Debate: The UK Computer Services Sector

This article uses a variety of evidence from the UK computer services industry to inform debates surrounding externalisation processes and the nature of growth in contemporary producer service sectors. While it has been argued that growth in such industries is predominantly demand-lead and independent from the disintegration of businesses in client sectors, in the computer services sector the direct transfer of activity from client firms to independent computer service providers is an increasingly important component of growth at an aggregate, national scale. Growth in this segment is being fuelled by the de-regulation of public sector IT procurenment in the UK.

Real Exchange Rate Trends and Growth: A Model of East Asia

In contrast to the Balassa–Samuelson hypothesis, many fast‐growing Asian countries have experienced little trend real exchange rate appreciation, or even depreciation. Moreover, their long‐run real exchange rate trend seems to be dominated by movements in traded goods prices. A model is developed which is consistent with these observations. As in the Balassa–Samuelson model, productivity growth is concentrated in the traded goods sector. Nevertheless the real exchange rate may exhibit trend depreciation, driven by persistent deviations in the price of traded goods from those in the reference country. The key feature of the model is the presence of endogenous productivity growth in the distribution services sector.

TECHNOLOGICAL WORK AND WOMEN'S PROSPECTS IN THE KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY: an agenda for research

This article sets out the conceptual and analytical framework underlying a 3-year long, 8-country research project which will examine the dynamics of women's employment in sectors critical to the so-called 'Information Society'. The project is fundamentally concerned with the gender dynamics of employment in the 'Information Society' or 'Knowledge Economy', and with whether they signal potentially greater gender equity than we currently have in contemporary capitalist society. Specifically, the project's central objective is to examine the prospects for women workers to develop new forms of expertise and skill which promote their career and personal development potential. It will focus on women's work and employment in two growing service sectors, retailing and retail financial services, in the context of leading edge innovations in technology and work organization. This article outlines the thinking behind the research project, in particular the major conceptual frameworks and the research questions which they have generated. It discusses the concepts of the 'Information Society' and the 'Knowledge Economy', and questions their relevance for female employees in routine jobs, raising the historical issue of women's exclusion from knowledge and skill. It considers the importance of the two sectors under study, retailing and retailing financial services, both for notions of the Information Society and for their role as important employers of women. It reviews recent organizational, technological and employment innovations in these sectorsparticularly in the Anglo-Saxon economies. It then raises questions about how far these dynamics might be present in other European economies, and what their implications are for women's ability to develop significant bodies of expertise and career prospects. The project is in its early stages, and this article is planned as the first in a series of papers dealing with the work as it progresses.

Effect of a transient, geographically localised economic recovery on community health and income studied with longitudinal household cohort interview method.

STUDY OBJECTIVE: The main purpose of the study was to determine whether the health or economic status of a cohort of residents in an economically troubled geographical area changed between...

Management Accounting Information Systems in UK Building Societies

A significant feature of the UK economy over the past decade hasbeen the growth in the financial services sector: Little has been written on the nature and content of accounting information systems in the financial services sector: To remedy, this deficiency a postal survey and interviews were undertaken to provide information on the nature and scope of management accounting information systems within UK building societies. This paper reports on the survey and interview findings relating to the role of branch and product profitability analysis for making strategic decisions, the evaluation of branch managerial performance, transfer pricing, budgeting and the monitoring of competitor performance.

Of Mops and Maids: Contradictions and Continuities in Bureaucratized Domestic Work

This paper explores domestic employment relations in the context of the growth of the post-industrial service sector and the “stalled revolution.” The data comes from fieldwork conducted among domestic workers, employers, and clients, as well as managers and owners of housecleaning agencies. By presenting a case study of the household service agency “Helping Hands Housekeeping,” I compare and contrast bureaucratized arrangements of paid domestic work with the “traditional” private employment arrangement, demonstrating how the bureaucratization of paid domestic work has (and has not) affected the relations, conditions, and experiences of this occupation. To sell their service, managers train workers to “care” for clients. In addition, HHH managers create a work culture of caring and service as a form of worker control and as a strategy to combat worker turnover. The gender ideologies and personalized management tactics used by these organizations mask the low pay, part-time hours and lack of benefits that persist within the more bureaucratized arrangements of paid domestic work. Workers also implement “strategic personalism” in their relations with employers and clients and may seek out personalistic relationships and use them to their advantage. This research challenges the modernist notion that more formal and structured work relations are sufficient to eliminate the emotional and psychological exploitation of domestic workers. Indeed, my fieldwork suggests that private employment arrangements offer workers more options and greater potential for negotiating wages and control over the work process than do the more rationalized organizations and relations of household service agencies.

Singer, services and software

It is more than 40 years ago that Hans Singer published his celebrated paper on the “Distribution of Gains between the Investing and Borrowing Countries”. This article reexamines his hypothesis that the gains from foreign investment tend to be distributed heavily in favor of the investing countries in the context of India's fast-growing computer software sector. It identifies the proximate reasons for the birth and growth of a human capital-intensive service sector in a poor country and raises issues concerning its costs and benefits to the economy. It suggests that investments in services, such as software, too can result in export enclaves with very little forward and backward linkages with the rest of the economy in which they are located.

開発途上国の農山漁村地域開発の考え方 戦後開発援助史の再検討

This paper examines the position of rural development in the postwar history of Japanese official development aids and provides a brief explanation of key concepts or phrases such as growth pole strategy, basic human needs, and non-governmental organizations.This review is to facilitate communication and understanding among Japanese professionals who are committed or concerned with rural development in the developing world. For this reviewer, Japanese technical experts who deal with rural areas in the developing world can be divided into two groups. The first proup is concerned with the promotion of scientific and technological progresses in agriculture, forestry, fisheries and related industries. The second group is concerned with regional development planning and public infrastructure such as roads and irrigation systems. Unfortunately, the communication between the two groups is far from satisfactory.The importance of rural development for developing countries is not going to diminish in spite of the presence of rapid industrial and service sector growth in several parts of the world, For a developing country, even if we can set aside political and financial issues, the population pressure, environmental degradation, and the maldistribution of growth, wealth, and resources have been chronic problems in pursuing balanced urban and rural development.In the 1990s, Japan has become the leading country in the world in the total amount of official development aids. More than one tenth of Japanese bilateral ODA is directed to agricultural development. If we are to expect more emphasis on the integrated and holistic treatment of rural development, we cannot disregard the importance of history as a teacher for every discipline.

From input to outcome: Changes in OHS-education and training

Work organization, technology and working population characteristics change rapidly in many countries, although not always in the same direction. In many industrialized countries new trends are a growing services sector, an aging working population, and an increased work pressure. The participation rate of women is growing in the Netherlands, in contrast with the rate of handicapped workers. In the working population, work-related musculoskeletal diseases and psychic problems like mental break-down and burn-out prevail. Sickness absence and disability are important issues. Risk assessment and health and safety information are new duties of the employer. Nowadays Occupational Health and Safety Services are more multidisciplinary organized and have to prove their quality and utility. Therefore, occupational health and safety professionals have to learn skills like risk assessment, health and safety promotion, consultation, rehabilitation, and interdisciplinary cooperation. Experiential learning connects the practical experience of the participants with reflection and new insights during the course.

Explaining the service sector growth: An empirical study of India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka

A marked increase in the GDP share of the service sector has been one of the striking features of the world growth patterns in recent years. Whereas in the western economies, this trend toward servicing has been accompanied by a decline in the GDP share of the manufacturing sector, commonly referred to as ‘deindustrialization’, the manufacturing sector in the developing countries has managed to gain ground. The existing body of literature offers many theoretical explanations of structural changes. Using annual data from India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, over the period 1973–1991, this paper tests the relevance of the secular trend and the Bacon-Eltis (1978) views of structural change to these economies. The results from both the individual country analysis and the combined cross-section and time-series analysis seem to support the basic thrust of both of these views.

The Impact of Service Sector Growth on Intersectoral Linkages in the United States

This article examines the impact of service sector growth on intersectoral linkages in the US economy since the 1940s. Input-output tables are used to determine direct and total back-ward linkages for a six-sector aggregation of the economy. The results show that the service sector ranks fifth in terms of the size of these linkage indicators. An added feature is the construction of economy-wide indexes of sectoral interdependence which are weighted averages of each sector's linkage effect, with the weights determined as each sector's share of national income. The main finding is that the combined effect of service sector growth and a pattern of low linkage effects associated with the service sector has led to a reduction in the degree of overall intersectoral linkage in the US economy over time. A major implication is that the pace of economic growth may be considerably lower in the future as a rising share of expenditures is accounted for by service-producing activities.

A City at the Crossroads: Social and Economic Transformation in Budapest

East-central European cities arrived at a new phase of their development after the collapse of the former political system. This paper seeks to explore the impact of recent political and economic changes in Budapest, focusing mainly upon problems linked to the privatisation of the built environment and economic life. The rapid transformation of the economy not only reorganises the function and the role of Budapest within its wider region, but also reshapes the internal structure of the city. Due to the large-scale privatisation of housing and the very dynamic growth of the private economy, there is a functional conversion of the central part of the city. Small-scale businesses are mushrooming, and many of the newly established firms rent or buy recently privatised flats for office and business purposes. The dynamic growth of the so-called service sector and business-oriented employment also tends to generate a rapid population change and the improvement of the socio-economic status of certain neighbourhoods.