Germany’s manufacturing sector, which plays an important role for exports, has been performing well over the past decade in terms of labour productivity growth and international competitiveness. However, the services sector has had much slower growth rates. Competition often appears to be...

The share of the tertiary sector in China’s value added has increased steadily, overtaking the share of the secondary sector in 2013. With increasing incomes, the share of services is expected to grow further as at higher incomes a larger share of income is spent on services. In addition to...

This study covers “tapering scale” mechanism in hospital payments, i.e. mechanisms linking unit prices to the volume of services produced. This paper begins with an overview of hospital services and hospital payment methods in OECD countries, focusing more specifically on DRG-based payment....

This paper presents the services trade restrictiveness indices (STRIs) for the regulated professions of legal and accounting services. The STRIs are composite indices taking values between zero and one, zero representing an open market and one a market completely closed to foreign services...

This paper presents the services trade restrictiveness indices (STRIs) for construction, architecture and engineering services. The STRIs are composite indices taking values between zero and one, zero representing an open market and one a market completely closed to foreign services providers....

Professional service firms (PSFs) such as accounting firms, management consultancies, or advertising agencies use very different forms of governance ranging from traditional professional partnerships to public corporations. In spite of the extensive literature, little academic work has been done...

Success in human resource management (HRM) depends on the question of whether applied practices of HRM meet specific contingency factors and are appropriately configured. Using this argument, the present article examines HRM in professional service firms (PSFs) in pursuit of three objectives....

Why is it that HR specialists appear to have difficulty applying their knowledge, systems and techniques in a systematic way when it comes to professional services firms (PSFs) - particularly when the drivers for developing powerful HRM practices within such businesses seem more pressing than...

Service organizations try to control the service behavior of employees using formal guidelines, training and instructions. However, the specific actions that are performed during the service encounters are predominantly under the discretion of the individual frontline employee. Therefore, the...

This policy brief discusses recent international policy experiences in developing e-learning and digital business diagnostic tools for entrepreneurs. E-learning tools can develop entrepreneurial knowledge, skills and competences among users and increase their confidence and success in business...