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The purpose of this study is to detail about the India’s service sector with different aspects of services and the opportunities or challenges that lie within it.

Preliminary part of the study covers the following details of the India’s services sector: services gross domestic product (GDP), individual states/union territories’ services contributions, services foreign direct investment (FDI), services export, services employment, services inflation and overall service performance. Then the study compares India’s services sector performances with the top 15 services performance countries in the world in terms of GDP.

Study found R&D services, legal services, media and broadcasting services and “internal trade and repairs services” to be the potential services sub-sectors that will boost the services sector growth in future. Finally, the study concluded with the implication of the present study finding/results for the present Indian Government policies related to the services, trade, FDI for economic growth and employment.

The study has significant public policy content. The research focuses on the economic and commercial impact, mainly by practice.

The paper is original and brings out some valuable finding that will help the policymakers and economists to make policy decision regarding India’s services: sector, trade and employment. The study has found R&D services, legal services, media & broadcasting services and internal trade and repairs services as the potential services sub-sectors which are new and not addressed by any other studies.

For many years, proponents of new public management (NPM) have been presenting it as a formula for improving the public sector through making the public sector more businesslike. However, reforms based on NPM have failed to prove that they deliver more efficient, effective and quality services for citizens. The purpose of this paper is to describe to evaluate the effect that alternative socially innovative service initiatives have in facilitating social cohesion.

The ALLIANCE project is designed to be conducted in two main phases. Phase one concentrates on conceptualising the concept (social cohesion and new public management) and ends with a quantitative empirical survey to comparatively measure key performance indicators for pre and post NPM initiatives. Phase two, on the other hand, is focused on identifying and simulating alternative scenarios for service delivery and qualitatively evaluating them.

This research note demonstrates the need for an empirical investigation to measure the impact of pre and post NPM initiatives on improving social cohesion.

Using the principles of social entrepreneurs, ALLIANCE will help to establish a better understanding of alternative socially innovative service initiatives to instil social cohesion within the diverse European societies. In this respect, ALLIANCE will facilitate the development of a key performance indicator matrix for measuring social cohesion; and improve stakeholder participation in defining and shaping alternative socially innovative service initiatives for the public sector.

This paper explores some of the complexities of the public sector as they relate to the formation of strategy for the management of quality. Key issues analysed include the importance of the particular mission and responsibilities of the public sector; the range and influence of different stakeholders; the strategic portfolio choices open to decision‐makers; the perverse logic of quality in this sector; and the peculiar nature of its customers and decision‐makers. In highlighting crucial differences with the commercial sector, the paper raises some challenges for the quality movement as to how best it might support continuous improvement in this important sector in the future.

Compiled by K.G.B. Bakewell covering the following journals published by MCB University Press: Facilities Volumes 8‐18; Journal of Property Investment & Finance Volumes 8‐18; Property Management Volumes 8‐18; Structural Survey Volumes 8‐18.

The purpose of this paper is to present an empirical study of the contribution of the services sector to per capita economic growth for Pacific Island countries.

Within the new growth theory framework, the empirical procedure consisted of the regression analysis of data using the panel data fixed effects procedure.

The results confirm the positive and statistically significant correlation of services growth to per capita gross domestic product growth.

Limitations largely centre on the use of aggregate cross‐country data. Variations may be found in what actually drives the services growth at the country level. Thus, a country‐specific study would be more appropriate in order to get more robust results. Also, the data do not capture the effect of non‐market services. Disaggregate services data that separate market data services with non‐market services would provide a more accurate picture of the influence of non‐market services.

The practical implication is that that service sectors in the Pacific Island countries ought to be given greater support, for example, investment in physical and institutional infrastructure, market access, financial support, skill development and investment incentives.

Pacific Islands services sectors contribute to household welfare through paid employment and meet household demands of service sector output.

This paper presents the first study among the Pacific Island countries that has examined the importance of services sector and its contribution to growth. The findings of this study are useful to Pacific policy makers in terms of improving the services sector through instituting appropriate growth enhancing policies.

This paper aims to analyze the impact of brand management system (BMS) practices on subjective and objective performance in both service- and product-oriented sectors.

Based on a “grounded-in-practice” approach to BMS, a comprehensive formative BMS scale is developed and its validity is assessed. The impact of BMS on subjective brand performance (i.e. predictive validity) and on objective financial performance is assessed. Data are collected from a sample of 298 brand managers and marketing directors in five business sectors (cosmetics, convenience goods, industry, bank/insurance and media) and from a financial database. Path analysis and multigroup analysis are performed to test mediating and moderating effects.

The results reveal that subjective brand performance (perceived brand performance) mediates the relationship between the BMS and objective financial performance of the firm and on each of the three BMS dimensions; and product-oriented (vs service-oriented) sector positively moderates the relationship between the BMS and subjective brand performance.

The paper offers insights into adapting brand management practices along all BMS dimensions to achieve better business performance and improve objective financial performance in product-oriented activities. It highlights the role of brand management implementation, as well as the role of brand management in hierarchical relationships, in improving performance in service activities.

The formative BMS scale offers a tool which can be used to improve strategic decisions and give practical guidance on product vs service sector specificities. The indirect impact of a BMS on financial objective performance reinforces the legitimacy of brand managers and marketing managers.

This paper shows the impact of the BMS on objective financial performance by using a “grounded-in-practice” BMS scale. It also affords explanation on sectoral effects of brand management practices and their consequences on subjective and objective performance.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate public partners’ motives for seeking and/or accepting partnerships with third sector organisations.

The approach is to seek to identify and explain motives from different perspectives; as responses to government failure or voluntary failure, as related to governance structures, and/or as driven by resource dependencies. The empirical material was gathered through semi-structured interviews with public employees in Swedish municipalities. The aim of the interviews was to grasp the public partners’ motives for partnerships with third sector organisations. Each interview started with questions on the presence and forms of partnerships, thus creating a backdrop for the motives, both during the interview and as a map of the partnership landscape.

The most prominent motives for public engagement in partnerships with third sector organisations are related to democratic values, the need to solve concrete problems, and economic rationality. The motives vary with the type of partnership of which there is considerable variation in scale, content and contribution; the types of partnership vary with different policy fields and services. Different perspectives highlight different motives but none of them excludes other perspectives.

The main contribution of the paper is the empirically based findings of a multi-layered public–third sector partnership landscape where policy fields, forms and complex motives are intertwined.

In the mid 1980s, amidst a massive restructuring of U.S. capital and a retrenchment of the welfare state, little attention has been paid to the ill‐defined “nonprofit” or “voluntary” service sector in the American economy. The Filer Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs characterised it in 1975 in the following way:

Looks at the 2000 Employment Research Unit Annual Conference held at the University of Cardiff in Wales on 6/7 September 2000. Spotlights the 76 or so presentations within and shows that these are in many, differing, areas across management research from: retail finance; precarious jobs and decisions; methodological lessons from feminism; call centre experience and disability discrimination. These and all points east and west are covered and laid out in a simple, abstract style, including, where applicable, references, endnotes and bibliography in an easy‐to‐follow manner. Summarizes each paper and also gives conclusions where needed, in a comfortable modern format.

Increasingly public sector industrial relations have become the central concern of governments, practitioners and academics. The main purpose of this monograph is to review key developments in public sector industrial relations, particularly during the period of the Thatcher Government. The emphasis is on the public services, especially local government, the NHS and the civil service. In the first section we review trends in public sector employment (particularly in the light of Government policy to reduce it), wages (in a context of cash limits), and strikes and other forms of industrial action. In the second part we move from “outcomes” to consider recent developments in the structure, organisation and policy of the “actors” in public sector industrial relations. In particular, we examine union organisation, developments in personnel management, bargaining structure, wage determination machinery and procedures, dispute resolution and privatisation initiatives. Developments in these areas are set in the context of the traditional features which distinguish public sector industrial relations from other spheres. In many of the areas under consideration, trends and developments set in train by the post‐1979 Conservative Government are still in the process of being worked out. Overall public sector employment has fallen, but with considerable variation around the average. National wage disputes, with considerable numbers of working days lost, have characterised the public sector since 1979, but the frequency of industrial conflict should not be exaggerated. There are moves to decentralise union and management structures, but the consequences of this have yet to be realised. Pay, however, remains problematic for government, employing authorities and unions. Since 1981–2, public sector settlements have generally been below the rate of inflation, but above the cash limit. The ad hoc policy of determining public sector pay by a mixture of review bodies, measures of comparability and market forces has created an overall picture of confusion. Establishing a fair and rational system of public sector pay remains a key task for any future government.