Abstract:
Services constitute over 50% of the Gross Domestic Product of most nations of the world and appear to be
characterised by unprecedented complexity, unpredictability and rapid change. The traditional management
paradigm of scientific management, that has in many respects assumed a life of its own and became inherent in
succeeding generations of management theory evolution, thinking and practice, would appear to no longer be
effective for dealing with an unpredictable and continually changing global services economy. This paper is
directed at exploring the services economy from an institutional management perspective, based on a multidisciplinary
review of the contemporary literature. The purpose of this paper is to determine how management
theory and practice has evolved in order to remain appropriate in a very competitive, unpredictable and
constantly changing global services economy. It is suggested that insights gained from the literature may serve
to inform contemporary services management theory and practice. An important finding emanating from the
literature is that the management approach adopted needs to be appropriate for the context in which service
systems are deployed. A scientific management approach appears to be better suited for ordered contexts, while
a complex adaptive systems methodology for complex services encountered is deemed to be more appropriate.
