Co-VAL aims to explore the notion of value created in public administration via the participation of citizens and civil servants, along with the new ways of integrating respective practices towards transforming public administration services and processes. The project will mainly contribute to the analysis of innovative ways for designing (a) service models for public administration processes, mainly demand-driven (i.e. cases where service providers and the users of services, such as citizens and organizations, are the key actors), and (b) bottom-up supply chains (e.g. from civil servants, front-line workers, citizens/users of the services) that promote the voluntary and active participation of society in the transformative efforts of public administrations.

Co-VAL pursue the introduction of a new paradigm of public service design and delivery. In fact, the project team wants to discover, analyze, and provide policy recommendations for transformative strategies based on the value created via the joint participation of various stakeholders in public administration’s decision making processes. Citizens, civil servants, private and third sector organizations will voluntarily participate in the development of transformative innovations that can address changing needs and solve social problems.

Co-VAL will produce three kinds of outcomes: 1) A theoretical framework, 2) New empirical evidence and metrics, and 3) Policy recommendations and policy tools. Results on these three kinds of outcomes will be periodically made available in the official project website.

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The RESER annual conference 2018 in Gothenburg constitutes the 28th annual platform and meeting place for European researchers and policy makers working on services. RESER is an interdisciplinary European network of social scientists linked by a common interest in service industries and their territorial expression. The annual RESER research conference provides a unique opportunity for the exchange of ideas concerning the cutting edge of service research and is open to all researchers interested in these topics. The 28th annual conference is co-organized by the School of Business, Economics and Law, University of Gothenburg and the Department of Technology Management and Economics, Chalmers University of Technology.

As in the past, we expect participation by academics and policy makers. Business people and professional associations representing services sectors are also invited to attend.

Since its first international conference in 1990, the RESER research community has sought to identify and explore new service trends in a multidisciplinary context. The RESER conference is interested in studies ranging from the micro to the macro level. Papers that explore the issues related to the main theme with its tracks are especially welcome.

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The challenge for service scholars in the 21st Century is to contribute to the understanding of the economics and society. The New Millennium brings a new complexity of systems, interactions, networks, technology and social issues at the core of developed and developing economies and societies and the need of rethinking the relationships between businesses, organizations and public actors.

The RESER 2017 conference aims to capture frontier thinking in service research and to set a new research agenda to make sense of the full picture of economies and society as complex networks and systems of services. More specifically the conference of this year wants to open a reflection in two directions. On the one hand, we want to think with researchers and practitioners about the particular features of advance services sector. On the other hand, we hope to talk deeply about the contribution of the city to the development of this advance service sector. Bilbao aims to promote a third transformation based in the development of a plethora of advanced services;  thus, we hope that new and interesting perspectives and contributions coming from researchers will help in this direction.

Service scholars face new challenges within a more complex and inter-dependent world that needs to achieve a balanced, inclusive and sustainable growth. RESER 2017 will pay special attention to the servitization issue that is changing the business models of a lot of industries around the world. Basque Country is one of the leading regions in industrial development in Europe and now is facing with successful results the so called, industry 4.0 challenge which is generating great interest about the crucial role of services in this strategy.

As always do the conference the broadening the research domain, the unit of analysis is not anymore the product or service but the well-being of both individuals and societies.

This conference is a forum for presentation and discussion of inter-disciplinary, innovative studies in service research. Scholars and practitioners of management, marketing, engineering, economics, sociology, geography, are invited to submit papers that explore and develop a multidisciplinary understanding of various service issues. Papers can be based on literature reviews, conceptual and empirical studies using qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods.

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This paper puts forward a framework for understanding the relationship between service industries and social innovation. These are two, previously disconnected research areas. The paper explores ways in which innovation in services is increasingly becoming one of social innovation (in terms of social goals, social means, social roles and multi-agent provision) and how social innovation can be understood from a service innovation perspective. A taxonomy is proposed based on the mix between innovation nature and the locus of co-production. The paper additionally puts forward a theoretical framework for understanding social innovation in services, where the co-creation of innovation is the result of an interaction of competences and preferences of multiple providers, users/citizens, and policy makers. This provides the basis for a discussion of key avenues for future research in theory, measurement, organisation, appropriation, performance measurement, and public policy.

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The notion of competitiveness is attracting more and more attention in the new globalized economic geography. Cities, regions, and countries compete to increase their standards of life, their growth, and their welfare. Competition is not necessarily a negative concept, indicating a fight against other economic entities, but it can also be a positive concept, in which all entities try to achieve something good. From an ontological perspective competitiveness can thus be defined as several units, such as cities, regions, and countries, with a common aspiration making a deliberate effort to achieve that goal. Win–win games dominate in the global area, but coexist with some zero sum games. The balance depends on the type and the size of the economic units and on systemic dynamics. Many drivers of competitiveness have been explored and the most important measurement methods today are based on a comprehensive multidimensional set of macro and micro indicators. Further conceptual and measurement developments, the role of drivers related to new global value chains, and the policy implications are the basis for further research.

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Services are becoming dominant activities in the world, and service innovation is a way to increase growth and welfare. Service-innovation policies are justified by a wide range of reasons, including the existence of market and systemic failures. In developing economies, these failures are often more serious than in developed economies. Innovation in services presents specific characteristics that are different from innovation in goods. A policy framework and a policy menu with different options are proposed. They include horizontal and vertical policies, as well as a systemic approach in which services can constitute a key component of any innovation policy.

 

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Services have become the most important economic sector worldwide, in developed countries and in most of developing economies as well. Service economy provides nowadays more than 60% of employment and GDP in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Nonetheless, slow growth of productivity in the services sector has hampered overall productivity growth in LAC. Service innovation is especially necessary in this context. Although there is a growing interest in the process of innovation in the services sector – and in understanding links between innovation and productivity in developed countries, there is yet no systematic research for countries in the region. Development of policies and programs for supporting innovation and productivity growth within the region requires a better understanding of this kind of processes. In this book we analyze the economy and service productivity of services in Latin America and the Caribbean, determinants and obstacles for innovation, links between innovation and productivity and the reference frame for carrying on innovation policy. This is the result of a unique and wide research effort made in eight countries of the LAC region, with funding aid of the International Development and Research Center (IDRC) of Canada and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), in coordination with the Division for Competitiveness, Technology and Innovation of the IDB and the Economy Research Center (CINVE).

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The paper analyses the potential contribution of services as a driving force of economic growth in developing countries within a Kaldorian framework. In doing so, we revisit Kaldor Growth Laws and econometrically test them for a number of economic activities (including four service branches) across twenty-nine developing countries from Asia, Latin-America and Sub-Saharan Africa during a time span of thirty decades (1975-2005). Panel data estimations are complemented with a decomposition of labour productivity growth by means of a shift-share analysis. The results induce to question the traditional role posed to services as unlikely drivers of productivity growth in developing economies. As a matter of fact, business services seem to allow productivity growth by the same Kaldorian mechanisms that have traditionally made manufacturing the key driver of growth.

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