Minitrack Introduction

The trend of increasing contributions to economic outputs from services-related activities in major countries pushes service innovation to be a major part of most business models. Even in traditionally manufacturing-driven industries, such as IT and computer industries, the importance of service has surpassed most other corporate competencies. From the outset, efforts in creating, composing, and delivering services call for systematic studies of managerial, technical, and social issues. Pioneers in service research have moved service research up to the inflection point, and now there is a great need of a wider range of service research. The prevalence of Internet and Web-based services demands ­ as well as brings about ­ more opportunities for service innovation.