The evolution of services science

Abstract

Services science has emerged as the key factor in developed economies as it becomes the main driver of productivity and economic growth. With the evolution of consumer and business processes, it has become a large part of economy. Services have become the main differentiator guided by the principle that every business has to be a service business in order to survive and compete effectively. The explosion of recent service research has shown the growing importance of services science in today's economy with the increasing efforts to focus more on the service sector in improving the standard of living and boosting productivity. Besides, technological advances have revolutionized businesses to focus more on service. IT has also opened up new revenues through improved services which is a more attractive strategy for success. In this paper, we present the evolution of services science based on the chronology of the research in services and hence postulating the progression of its academic research and the paradigm shift of services through an in-depth literature review. The future of services science is also discussed in this paper.