Two decades of research on innovation in services: Which place for public services?

After a long period of disregard and underestimation, the issue of innovation in services is now being taken seriously in economic theory, as well as in public policy. This is not yet the case for innovation in public services. The objective of this paper is to propose a re-interpretation of the literature on innovation in services in the light of public services. Building on the interpretative framework of assimilation, demarcation, inversion and integration perspectives often used to analyze innovation in market services, we review how the major studies conducted during two decades of research on innovation in services explicitly address or can be extrapolated to address innovation in public services. We also seek to identify shortfalls in this literature and determine new avenues of research and action.