Service productivity: Towards a conceptualization of the transformation of inputs into economic results in services

The productivity of a process is related to how effectively input resources are transformed into value for customers. For the needs of manufacturers of physical products, there are widely used productivity concepts and measurements instruments. However, in service processes, the underlying assumptions of these concepts and models do not hold. For example, manufacturing-based productivity models assume that an altered configuration of input resources in the production process does not lead to quality changes in outputs (the constant quality assumption). However, in a service context, changes in the production resources and productions systems do affect the perceived quality of services. Therefore, using manufacturing-oriented productivity models in service contexts are likely to give managers wrong directions for action. Research into the productivity of services is still scarce because of the lack of viable models. The purpose of the present article is to analyse the requirements for the development of a productivity concept for service operations. Based on the analysis, a service productivity model is developed. According to this model, service productivity is a function of (1) how effectively input resources into the service (production) process are transformed to outputs in the form of services (internal efficiency), (2) how well the quality of the service process and its outcome is perceived (external efficiency or effectiveness) and (3) how effectively the capacity of the service process is utilized (capacity efficiency). In addition, service productivity as a learning experience and directions for developing measurement models for service productivity are discussed.