This survey essay examines the development and internationalization of the Japanese service sector. For this purpose, statistical data is analyzed together with a literature review. The Japanese service sector is smaller in contributions to gross domestic product (GDP) and employment share than...

Purpose A service production system has a structure composed of task execution, agents performing tasks and a resulting service output. The purpose of this paper is to understand how such a service production system changes as a consequence of offshoring. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on...

Purpose Despite increasing interest in offshoring of knowledge-intensive services, it is still undetermined as to whether the sourcing of services truly creates the anticipated value for clients. Moreover, even less is known about whether value is created for service providers in the process...