ABSTRACT

Standardisation and Specialisation In Services: Evidence From Germany

CRIC Discussion Paper No. 30

Bruce Tether, Christiane Hipp & Ian Miles

Services have been widely neglected by analysts of innovation, who have instead focused on manufacturing. One of the widely supposed features of services outputs in general, and service innovations in particular, is that they are often highly tailored to their clients. In practice, however, services are sometimes mass produced, and sometimes customised versions of standard products, as well as being sometimes produced on a one-off basis. This paper examines the pattern of service activities using German evidence with respect to the structure of their income from ‘standardised’, ‘partial customised’ and ‘specialised’ services. The analysis relates the patterns of ‘standardisation-specialisation’ amongst service firms to their size and broad sector of activity, and considers the implications for innovation. Our analysis lends support to previous theoretical studies which provide useful taxonomies of service activities and innovation processes. However, our analysis also confirms that services are tremendously diverse both between and within sectors. Mapping and understanding this diversity is a major challenge for future research on service firms and their (innovative) activities.

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