Since the 1960s, researchers have provided short-term and long-term explanations for low productivity growth in the construction industry. In retrospect, the main challenge appears to be the measurement of changes in heterogeneous input and output qualities. The aim here is to review earlier...

This Handbook brings together 49 international specialists to address an issue of increasing importance for the world’s post-industrial economies; innovation as it relates to services.

The use of external providers, multiple or single, for peripheral support services has expanded during the 1990s. This investigation analyses patterns of support service outsourcing against a background of industry and national differences. Questionnaires and interviews with managers of three...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review facilities management among the ancient Romans with an emphasis on features that are relevant for understanding the evolution of current innovative practices. Design/methodology/approach – Ancient Roman literary sources, inscriptions, other...

Purpose The purpose of this study is to identify methods appropriate for measuring the direct productivity of facilities management (FM) with respect to the providers, on both the industry level and the firm level. Design/methodology/approach This is a literature survey and conceptual analysis....

While implementing the EC Procurement Directives in Swedish legislation, there remains a reference to 'business-like' (affärsmässig) practice as an external system of norms. The problem is that the term a. might contradict non-economic considerations in the award of contracts. Municipal...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to assess the applicability of care quality concepts as contract award criteria for public procurement of health and social care, using the case of Sweden. Design/methodology/approach – Based on a literature review, European and Swedish legal texts,...