Two decades of research on innovation in services: Which place for public services?

Faridah Djellal (1) , Faïz Gallouj (1) , Ian Miles (2)

1 CLERSÉ - Centre Lillois d’Études et de Recherches Sociologiques et Économiques - UMR 8019
2 MBS - Manchester Business School

Service innovation was neglected for a long time, but by the first years of this century it was clear that some maturity had been reached. Innovation in the public sector has been even more neglected in the mainstream of innovation studies. This paper explores the scope for fruitful integration of work on this topic into innovation studies more generally. It examines four different theoretical perspectives used in studies of service innovation: assimilation, demarcation, inversion and integration/synthesis. Each of these throws light on particular issues confronting public services innovation, and we see that innovation in this sphere is highly diverse and that it does often display special features. But we conclude that these features do not constitute a strong case for studying public service innovation as if it were something sui generis, let alone continuing to neglect it. Instead, the case is made for developing more integrative views of innovation.

Mots clés: innovation; public services; services; survey

Domaines: Economies et finances; Gestion et management

Faridah Djellal, Faïz Gallouj, Ian Miles. Two decades of research on innovation in services: Which place for public services?. Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, 2013, pp.98-117. ⟨10.1016/j.strueco.2013.06.005⟩. ⟨halshs-01133837⟩