IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ids/ijecbr/v6y2013i1p87-113.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Servicification of manufacturing - evidence from Sweden

Author

Listed:
  • Magnus Lodefalk

Abstract

There are signs that manufacturing is becoming increasingly focused on services; this process is known as servicification. Despite suggestive evidence, large gaps remain in our knowledge regarding this process. This paper contributes to closing these gaps by discussing the phenomenon, arriving at some conjectures and examining them empirically. Comprehensive datasets at both the firm and enterprise group level are developed for Sweden. Changes in manufacturing during the period from 1997 to 2006 are analysed in depth. The results show that manufacturing has been servicifying substantially. On the input side, services and qualified services are increasingly characteristic of in-house activity. On the output side, manufacturing has been accounting for an increasing share of services in total sales and exports. Moreover, we show that diversification is much greater (almost 60% higher) when all activities in the manufacturing industry's constituent enterprise groups are considered. The results imply that the practice of treating services and manufacturing separately - e.g., in trade policymaking - may be out-of-date. Finally, the findings illustrate the value of enterprise group-level data when studying structural economic changes.

Suggested Citation

  • Magnus Lodefalk, 2013. "Servicification of manufacturing - evidence from Sweden," International Journal of Economics and Business Research, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 6(1), pages 87-113.
    • Handle: RePEc:ids:ijecbr:v:6:y:2013:i:1:p:87-113
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=54855
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. McCarthy, Ian & Anagnostou, Angela, 2004. "The impact of outsourcing on the transaction costs and boundaries of manufacturing," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(1), pages 61-71, March.
    2. Ekholm, Karolina & Hakkala, Katariina, 2005. "The Effect of Offshoring on Labor Demand: Evidence from Sweden," Working Paper Series 654, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    3. Falk, Martin & Koebel, Bertrand M, 2002. " Outsourcing, Imports and Labour Demand," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 104(4), pages 567-586, December.
    4. Bernd Görzig & Andreas Stephan, 2002. "Outsourcing and Firm-level Performance," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 309, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    5. Michael Peneder, 2007. "A sectoral taxonomy of educational intensity," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 34(3), pages 189-212, July.
    6. George J. Stigler, 1951. "The Division of Labor is Limited by the Extent of the Market," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59(3), pages 185-185.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bernhard Michel & François Rycx, 2012. "Does offshoring of materials and business services affect employment? Evidence from a small open economy," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(2), pages 229-251, January.
    2. Bart Hertveldt & Bernhard Michel, 2013. "Offshoring and the Skill Structure of Labour Demand in Belgium," De Economist, Springer, vol. 161(4), pages 399-420, December.
    3. Patrik Karpaty & Patrik Gustavsson Tingvall, 2015. "Offshoring and Home Country R&D," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(4), pages 655-676, April.
    4. Lars Calmfors & Giancarlo Corsetti & Michael P. Devereux & Gilles Saint-Paul & Hans-Werner Sinn & Jan-Egbert Sturm & Xavier Vives, 2008. "Chapter 3: The effect of globalisation on Western European jobs: curse or blessing?," EEAG Report on the European Economy, CESifo, vol. 0, pages 71-104, February.
    5. Lichter, Andreas & Peichl, Andreas & Siegloch, Sebastian, 2015. "The own-wage elasticity of labor demand: A meta-regression analysis," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 94-119.
    6. Charlie Karlsson & Gunther Maier & Michaela Trippl & Iulia Siedschlag & Gavin Murphy, 2010. "ICT and Regional Economic Dynamics: A Literature Review," JRC Research Reports JRC59920, Joint Research Centre.
    7. S. Montresor & G. Vittucci Marzetti, 2006. "Outsourcing and structural change: shifting firm and sectoral boundaries," Working Papers 566, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    8. Kurt Kratena, 2010. "International outsourcing and the demand for skills," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 37(1), pages 65-85, February.
    9. Farole, Thomas & Hollweg, Claire & Winkler, Deborah, 2018. "Trade in Global Value Chain: An Assessment of Labor Market Implication," Jobs Group Papers, Notes, and Guides 30318036, The World Bank.
    10. Rosario Crinò, 2012. "Service Offshoring and the Skill Composition of Labour Demand," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 74(1), pages 20-57, February.
    11. Linda Andersson & Patrik Karpaty & Selen Savsin, 2016. "Firm-level effects of offshoring of materials and services on relative labor demand," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 152(2), pages 321-350, May.
    12. Sanghoon Ahn & Kyoji Fukao & Keiko Ito, 2008. "The Impact of Outsourcing on the Japanese and South Korean Labor Markets: International Outsourcing of Intermediate Inputs and Assembly in East Asia," Global COE Hi-Stat Discussion Paper Series gd08-001, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    13. Catherine Laffineur & El Mouhoud, 2015. "The jobs at risk from globalization: the French case," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 151(3), pages 477-531, August.
    14. Petri Böckerman & Elisa Riihimäki, 2009. "International outsourcing and labour demand: Evidence from Finnish firm-level data," Working Papers 252, Työn ja talouden tutkimus LABORE, The Labour Institute for Economic Research LABORE.
    15. Rosario Crinò, 2009. "Offshoring, Multinationals And Labour Market: A Review Of The Empirical Literature," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(2), pages 197-249, April.
    16. Andersson, Linda & Karpaty, Patik, 2012. "Firm Level Effects of Offshoring of Goods and Services on Relative Labor Demand," Working Papers 2013:2, Örebro University, School of Business.
    17. Bustinza, O.F. & Arias-Aranda, D. & Gutierrez-Gutierrez, L., 2010. "Outsourcing, competitive capabilities and performance: an empirical study in service firms," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(2), pages 276-288, August.
    18. Linda Andersson & Patrik Karpaty & Selen Savsin, 2017. "Labour Demand, Offshoring and Inshoring: Evidence from Swedish Firm-level Data," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(2), pages 240-274, February.
    19. Holl, Adelheid, 2008. "Production subcontracting and location," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 299-309, May.
    20. Iammarino, Simona & Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés & Gagliardi, Luisa, 2015. "Offshoring and the Geography of Jobs in Great Britain," CEPR Discussion Papers 10855, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    manufacturing servicification; services; firm level; enterprise group level; outsourcing; deindustrialisation; Sweden; manufacturing industry; enterprise groups; structural economic changes.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • L16 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Industrial Organization and Macroeconomics; Macroeconomic Industrial Structure

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ids:ijecbr:v:6:y:2013:i:1:p:87-113. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sarah Parker (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.inderscience.com/browse/index.php?journalID=310 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.