Elements of the Production of Services
The article contributes to the current discussion on the development of a theory of the production of services. The extent to which activity analysis can be applied to the production of services will be discussed, and how it can integrate the latter into
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lntroduction
The article contributes to the current discussion on the development of a theory of the production of services. The extent to which activity analysis can be applied to the production of services will be discussed, and how it can integrate the latter into a uniform approach together with the production of physical goods. In this context it will be shown that defined theoretical approaches to the production of services correspond to certain aspects and terminological embodiments of activity analysis. Other focuses will be on specifying the output and the input system of service production as well as on the determination of terms for the area of service production familiar from goods production: activity, technology, efficiency and production function.
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The activity analysis as a concept of modelling
In developed economies service production is an important sector (Albach 1989). Just like any form of operational production it has tobe examined for its economic efficiency (Albach 2000). With the activity analysis (Koopmans 1951 ), an efficient instrument has been developed for examining and shaping efficient productions. It has proved to be of extremely good value in the production of physical goods in assessing activities and technologies, and in describing efficient productions through production functions (Wittmann 1968, 1979; Dyckhoff1993, Steven 1998; Dyckhoff et al. 2002). On the other hand, there are very few approaches that apply this analysis to the production of services as well, even though these few have by no nieans been unsuccessful (Fandel/Prasiswa 1988; Fandei 2001a, 2001b). The difficulties that economic research into service production has with the application of the input-output analysis can be seen by the fact that a potential-, process- or stage-oriented perspective is proposed in addition to G. Fandel et al. (eds.), Modern Concepts of the Theory of the Firm © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2004
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or instead of output orientation (Corsten 1988, 1990; Hilke 1989). The individual perspectives are characterised as follows: - Output-oriented perspective (Maleri 1973; Gerhardt 1987): services are generated as intangible assets through the combination of resources (e.g. haircut). - Potential-oriented perspective (Meyer 1987): services are operative capabilities (e.g. readiness to cut hair). - Process-oriented perspective (Berekoven 1974; Rosada 1990): services are created through processes in which the operative capabilities of the producer are combined with the consumer or with objects brought in by the latter and the external factor experiences a change (e.g. cutting hair). The combination processes require a factual, spatial and temporal coordination between the producer of the service and the consumer. - Stage-oriented perspective (Hilke 1989; Corsten 1990; Meyer 1991): to characterise services this considers the above perspectives in isolation (one-dimensional) or integrated (multi-dimensional). Output, input combinations, activities or production processes and models of
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