A General Equilibrium of Managed Services

  • Pieter H. M. Ruys

Abstract

A service is a value-creating interaction between individuals, each in the role of either a performer or a receiver. A service is represented by a network on the set of individuals. There are many service networks possible, which all belong to the service network possibility set. The service structure consists of this set and a value function on the service networks. Specialization of individuals leads to separating the performer interaction from the receiver interaction in the service structure. The service concept is thus extended to a stratified service with interactive groups on each level, represented by two hierarchical graphs. The main idea behind this paper is that services cannot be rendered unless they are managed. So a governance structure is introduced with agents who obey specific rules of management. There are two types of agents, managers - both for a performers organization and for a receivers organization - and consumers. An equilibrium for an economy with managed stratified services is defined and shown to exist for a market economy with rather strong conditions on both the service structure and the governance structure. It is shown to be a generalization of a neoclassical general equilibrium.

Keywords

Service economy management of cooperation general equilibrium corporate governance organization theory network industries 

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Copyright information

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2002

Authors and Affiliations

  • Pieter H. M. Ruys
    • 1
  1. 1.CentER, Tilburg UniversityNetherlands

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