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"This essay intends to explore three innovative ways to foster job creation in services: First, the switch from product markets to utility markets would induce more and new types of user services. Such a switch would not only be more employment friendly but also foster a sustainable economic development compatible with ecological principles. The reorientation from products to utilities provides strong arguments for an emphasis on the framework conditions of services, for instance for lowering VAT in favour of labour intensive services, for forward regulation through (usually service enhancing) high quality standards, for deregulating market entry barriers, and for subsidising networks instead of individual products or services. Second, the thesis of cost disease has to be reconsidered in view of productivity enhancing possibilities by new technologies, and in view of innovative possibilities in managing specific income risks related to modern services. Service-product chains are the main ingredient for increasing productivity in services which is demonstrated in the field of art. Various approaches of social insurance in this field offer also inspiring ideas for risk management beyond the traditional welfare state. The most important policy conclusion related to this experience is the inclusion of consumers into the financing of social insurance. Third, the switch from transfers to persons with low earnings capacities to the support of peoples self-reliance through their own work could also induce increasing demand for already existing or new types of job services, and contribute especially to gender equality in the labour market. The central policy conclusion is the recommendation to turn social benefit entitlements (transfers) into vouchers for buying or co-financing job services." (author's abstract)

Service organizations are increasingly managing customer experiences to promote differentiation and customer loyalty. This article examines the design of experience-centric services, particularly the design of their context. Drawing on relevant literature in service and experience design, the authors develop a theory-based set of propositions for experience design.The propositions are then investigated empirically by means of 17 case studies of design agencies, consulting firms, and experience-centric service providers in different industries. Strong support was found for the designing of "customer journeys" and "touchpoints," for sensory design, and for the designing of a dramatic structure of events. In addition, the engagement of employees, the management of fellow customers, and the close coupling of backstage employees and frontstage activities represent promising new frontiers in experience design. By identifying the current design practices of leaders in experience design, this study both informs this practice and presents a unique perspective on the design of service delivery systems.

Vargo and Lusch (V&L) have claimed that there was a movement from a goods-dominant logic to service-dominant logic in marketing. We problematise this narrative via attention to multiple strands of service discourse from the late 19th to mid-20th century. Our focus begins with the promotion of service in the economics literature. A close reading of a publication important to V&L's account reveals the politics associated with the rise of service discourse. This is elided in their work. Our genealogy subsequently engages with the publications of A. F. Sheldon. His views are unpacked and links to the Rotary Club explicated. The evidence indicates that service discourse was relational in orientation and ethically driven, with the intertwined themes in Sheldon and Rotary's publications generalised into an emergent 'theory of society' that had applicability around the world. We term this discursive formation 'service capitalism'. This perspective was contested by a 'counter manoeuvre' labelled 'service socialism'. Service socialism differed fundamentally from Sheldon's axiology, Rotary's service capitalism or the midpoint view detailed by Edward Filene due to its focus on the deleterious impact of the profit motive, the significance of 'use value', the reorientation from ownership to access-based consumption and attention to human welfare and economic security. Service socialism, we conclude, generates insights that require engagement today.

We conduct a systematic exploratory investigation of the effects of firms' existing service productivity on the success of their new service innovations. Although previous research extensively addresses service productivity and service innovation, this is the first empirical study that bridges the gap between these two research streams and examines the links between the two concepts. Based on a comprehensive data set of new service introductions in a financial services market over a 14-year period, we empirically explore the relationship between a firm's existing service productivity and the firm's success in introducing new services to the market. The results unveil a fundamental service productivity-service innovation dilemma: Being productive in existing services increases a firm's willingness to innovate new services proactively but decreases the firm's capabilities of bringing these services to the market successfully. We provide specific insights into the mechanism underlying the complex relationship between a firm's productivity in existing services, its innovation proactivity, and its service innovation success. For managers, we not only unpack and elucidate this dilemma but also demonstrate that a focused customer scope and growth market conditions may enable firms to mitigate the dilemma and successfully pursue service productivity and service innovation simultaneously.

Services employing virtual channels of delivery such as the Internet are typically multichannel. Service quality research in traditional services and, more recently, in e-services tends to take a single-channel perspective. This article argues that a multichannel setting introduces a set of complexities that call for a broader conceptualization of service quality, recognizing that customer experience is formed across all moments of contact with the firm through several channels. Building on existing research, the article develops a framework for conceptualizing multichannel service quality, distinguishing between virtual, physical, and integration quality. Integration quality is identified as a key new service quality component. The framework also addresses how the three components of service quality are delivered by the different parts of the service delivery system and identifies the associated challenges for providing good levels of service quality. A number of research and managerial implications as well as future research needs are put forward.