The Importance of Knowledge in the Development of Services, Analysis of Cam Services Development in Sloveniaa

In the last twenty years there has been a noticeable increase of services in the tertiary sector in the society with a parallel increase of informal education offer, which creates demand for such services. We are also noticing indirect promotion of certain services through other different forms of education (informative, promotions, TV and radio shows). Because services are considered knowledge intensive activities, we predict a correlation between the level of knowledge among people in the society and growth of services. In this article we examine the influence of knowledge on the development of services, limiting ourselves to services of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM services). The presence of these services in Slovenia has increased by over 100% during the last decade. Based on literary references, our theoretical model and findings obtained from data on growth of CAM services, as well as informal education from this field in Slovenia, we have established that there is a correlation between the increased offer of informal education and the development of CAM services. Newly obtained knowledge encourages individuals to create companies that provide CAM services and drives consumers to look for services offered by such companies. Informal education has an important role in this as well, as individuals with a higher degree of formal education generally tend to upgrade their knowledge.