Business Services
Developed market economies have been experiencing a process of structural change over the last two decades that has involved two related alterations. First, a process of de industrialization in which manufacturing's share of employment and output has been declining and, second, compensating growth in employment and output in services and especially in business services. Business services add value to their clients by providing operational and strategic inputs. Most business service firms are orientated to national markets and this reflects the importance of small firms in this sector. Nevertheless, transnational business service firms have developed albeit these tend to be created through linking national partnerships into an international corporate framework.
Business service firms play an important role in developing new process and product innovations. They develop new products (management/organizational ideas, marketing concepts, etc.) and sell them to clients, and this can have a major impact on the local and increasingly international organization of capitalist activities. It is important not to underestimate the role business service firms play in the formation of new economic geographies. Alterations in the economic system are the result of a series of unrelated and related changes made by independent private and public sector organizations. Central to these alterations are the activities of a group of business service professionals: management gurus and management consultants. Busi ness services played an important role in the development of Fordism through the activities of F. W. Taylor, the American management guru and consultant, and more recently in encouraging clients to introduce e commerce, outsourcing, and offshoring into their business models.
Measuring Business Services in National Economies
Characteristics of Business Service Firms
Explaining the Growth of Business Service Firms
Business Services – the Body and Emotional Labor
Business Service Geographies – Global Cities, Service Offshoring, and the Second Global Shift