Contenu du sommaire : Innovations and Performances in Services

This paper conducts an exploration of services innovation specificities with respect to innovation in goods. It focuses primarily on disparities between the innovative behaviours of the two economic sectors, and also tests explanatory elements behind business innovation impacts in Europe (twelve countries), using data collected in the third EU Community Innovation Survey (CIS3). Results confirm some specific behaviour in the innovation processes of these two aggregated industries, although existent disparities among the heterogeneous services sector are recognised. Moreover, results underline, on the one hand, the importance of the interactive aspects of innovation, not only as regards the services sector but also the goods industry, and, on the other, the relevant association of some intangible elements (i.e. organisational changes) with impacts derived from service innovation.JEL codes: L8, O3, O52

Knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) have received great attention over the last years, in part due to their similarities with high-innovative manufacturing firms. Nevertheless, many innovations carried out by KIBS are of a soft nature. The objective of this paper is to identify patterns of innovation in KIBS firms when non-technological innovation is taken into account. To do so, we employ microdata for 1,837 Spanish KIBS firms. The results obtained show that there are important differences in the innovation behaviour of KIBS firms. In particular, four innovation modes are distinguished: hard innovation, soft innovation, lonely innovation and knowledge diffusion. These modes are evenly distributed within KIBS industries and in three out of the four modes soft innovation plays a relevant role.JEL codes: L84, O39

The purpose of the paper is to discuss how the definitions of innovation must be extended in order to analyse innovation in a public service-institution and uncover the reality of innovation in such an institution. A case study of home-help for the elderly has been carried out. Interviews with top-management, middle management as well as nurses and home helpers have been conducted. The case-study shows that innovation is a core activity and that process-based concepts such as “ad hoc innovation” (Gallouj & Weinstein, 1997), “a posteriori recognition of innovation” (Toivonen et al., 2007) and “bricolage” (see e.g. Styhre, 2009) are highly relevant to understanding and analysing development processes in this context. These concepts point to a more process- and practise-based approach to innovation.JEL codes: L8, O3, H4

Productivity in its relationships with services raises two issues: a definition and measurement issue, on the one hand, and an issue related to the productivity strategies implemented, on the other hand. This article addresses both issues, focusing more on the latter. Our goal is to account for the various productivity strategies implemented within services firms and to analyse their implications in terms of productivity definition and measurement. This analysis will allow us to discuss the role of the productivity concept and the relevance of the « productivity regime concept » in a post-fordist economy of services, quality and innovation.JEL codes: L8, J24, L25, L1

For-profit public service networks increasingly incorporate sustainable development objectives. This vital concern occurs in a situation of generalised competition in which demands for profitability are increasingly important. This study concerns the way in which the issue of sustainable development fits into the strategies and activities of these services. By adopting a conventionalist approach, this study looks in particular at the innovations involved in these activities to respond to sustainable development objectives, whilst respecting the constraints of profitability and public service linked to their business. The results show that these activities develop sustainable development indicators, either in a mimetic approach, or in an innovative approach. They also develop innovations that allow social elements to be reconstructed in their services. These innovations try to reconcile the conflicting objectives of the different spheres of sustainable development.


JEL codes: O14, O31, Q01

Sustainable and responsible consumption are nowadays at the top of the consumer agenda. However, so far ways of signalling so-called environmentally friendly products have neither been proven to be effective methods of attracting new consumers to a product nor designed to appreciate the heterogeneity of response to their efforts amongst supermarket shoppers. The paper argues that the response to policies is dependent on the type of food being purchased and consumer's level of involvement. The analysis of actual supermarket shopper behaviour proves that lifestage and lifestyle characteristics are consistent with hypotheses, whilst focus groups confirmed different levels of involvement across consumers.JEL codes: E21, C23, Q01

Usually, labour market has been evaluated from a quantitative point of view. But nowadays, a new interest stress on quality of job and job satisfaction. Related with this last perspective, a frequent hypothesis that is used to explain the aggregate evolution of job quality establish that the growth of service employment is connected with the increase in the number of low skilled or badly paid jobs. Nevertheless, defining and understanding service jobs are tasks that are not free of difficulties. Recent developments in the economic analysis of service activities overcome these shortcomings, and the nature of these activities has been re-invented. In this context, the paper aims a double objective. First, to check if job quality levels on services are lower than the ones observed in the rest of the economy. Second, to know if relevant differences among services activities exist in term of job quality. Our analysis uses a double perspective to measure the job quality: one based on the characteristics of job and the other on workers perception of job. Results point out that services have not the lower quality job levels. On the contrary, workers in services activities report higher job satisfaction levels. We conclude that into services there is an important heterogeneity by branches in terms of job quality. Services and no services share job satisfaction components. So, the observed differences in job satisfaction are sustained rather on differences into the characteristics and conditions of jobs more than into worker perceptions.JEL codes: J28, J24, J81

Senior practitioners of modern economics commonly claim that “nobody could have foreseen” the great financial crisis that began in August, 2007. In fact many economists did foresee it. But their analysis and warnings were ignored. This essay describes five distinct analytical traditions, the followers of each of which contributed emphatic warnings. They are the Marxian tradition, Dean Baker's chartalist empiricism, Wynne Godley's balance-sheet Keynesianism, Hyman Minsky's analysis of financial instability, and John Kenneth Galbraith's inspection of corporate governance, including the new white collar criminology. None of these traditions are taught in mainstream economics programs. None are represented on the pages of the so-called mainstream journals. This is a grave situation, which can be remedied only by structural reform, disciplinary decentralization, and resource reallocation in higher education.JEL codes: A23, B2, B31, B41