Designs for life: new stakeholders and new spaces in the evolving services landscape

摘要

Economic and social life in Europe (and beyond) has been confronted by a range of challenges - globalisation of business and commerce, the strengthening role of emerging economies, increased competition for raw materials, crisis in the financial system, growing complexity of the business operating environment, rapidly accelerating climate change and declining faith in commercial and state institutions - to name but a few. The papers selected for this special issue reflect some of these changes and speak to the ways in which service innovators are addressing their implications, frequently transforming challenges into opportunities and addressing current and evolving human, community and business needs. As editors of this special issue, we have attempted to represent the diversity of trajectories in and futures for service innovation, and to highlight the creativity of innovation actors as they respond to shifts in the technological, political, social and financial landscape. We have also focused here on the roles and efforts of new actor groups in the innovation milieu and on the opening of new spaces and markets for innovation. The future of services and related innovation will clearly be highly variegated, and many themes, including sector, region, socio-political developments and consumer demands, will shape the configuration of innovative products and solutions. We cannot guess the future of course, or in a publication of this nature, address comprehensively the spectrum of service activities. However, the application of foresight methods and thinking as practiced in the papers below can provide insights into the factors that will shape possibilities and trends, and hint with respect to the preparations required to work towards innovation for desirable and sustainable futures. As we close this introduction, the editors would wish to extend our gratitude to all those who expressed an interest in contributing to the Special Issue, and especially those who proceeded to submit the full papers that have found their way into this edition. We would also wish to express our enormous thanks to those anonymous colleagues who gave so generously of their time in reviewing and providing feedback on earlier drafts of the papers. The insights and advice provided in this way have assisted enormously in shaping the special issue and in ensuring rigour and quality throughout. We hope that in this special edition, we have opened a door, albeit a small one, onto the factors, needs, efforts and aspirations that are shaping the creation and delivery of tertiary activities in this early part of the twenty-first century.