Standardisation and particularisation in services: evidence from Germany

Services have been widely neglected by economists and analysts of innovatio n, who have instead focused on manufacturing. One of the widely supposed fe atures of services outputs is that they are often highly tailored to their clients. In practice, however, services are sometimes mass-produced and som etimes customised versions of standard products, but can also be produced o n a one-off basis. This paper examines the pattern of service activities us ing German evidence with respect to the structure of service firms' income froth 'standardised', 'partially customised' and 'bespoke' services. The an alysis then relates the revealed patterns of 'standardisation-particularisa tion' in the output of the firms to their size and broad sector of activity , and considers the relationship with innovation. Our analysis lends suppor t to previous theoretical studies which provide useful taxonomies of servic e activities and innovation processes in services. However, our analysis al so 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. (C) 200 1 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.