Self-service company
Self-service company ( English self-service society ) is an antonym for the scientific and public debate usual name service economy , as the name of the post-industrial society and economy.
background
The old industrialized countries are affected by a structural change that has long been described as the transition from an industrial to a service society. The decline in the number of workers in the secondary sector (industry) was noted and it was suggested that workers made redundant in industry would now find employment in the service sector.
This assumption was supported by observations made during the transition from the primary (agriculture) to the secondary sector (industry). The decline in the number of people employed in agriculture initially led to poverty and hardship ( pauperism ), but the laid-off workers soon found work in industry and, as a reservoir of cheap labor, formed an important prerequisite for the industrial revolution. Agricultural workers found work again in industry.
Contrary to what the observations regarding structural change in the 19th century would have suggested, expectations of the service sector were often disappointed. The tertiary sector proved incapable of fully taking over the workers made redundant in industry. One of the main reasons for this is the fact that people do not - as expected - spend increasing proportions of their freely disposable income on classic personal services such as hairdressing, dining out, laundry, theater, cinema, concerts, etc., but instead part of them Provide services independently - with the help of specially purchased industrial goods. The term self-service society was introduced in order to take account of the circumstances and to conceptualize the experiences.
The means used for this "self-service" are often consumer goods purchased by private households over the long term, which through their use, however, actually become capital goods, with which one can provide services for oneself but in principle also for third parties. Modern fully automatic washing machines replace cleaning services, large 16: 9 televisions and the corresponding DVD collection make many a trip to the cinema superfluous. Hair clippers save the trip to the hairdresser, ice machines save a trip to the ice cream parlor and the computer, including internet connection and software, replaces the adult education course, borrowing media in the city library or shopping in the bookstore.
But even originally service-oriented service providers are increasingly passing on some of their tasks to the customer using machines or new concepts. They pull their own money from ATMs, blow dry their hair themselves at the hairdresser's or - as explained below - assemble their furniture themselves after purchase.
Examples
A standard example of the new “self-service society” is the Ikea model, where customers choose their furniture themselves in the shop, bring the components home themselves and then assemble them there themselves. This eliminates the need for services by fitters and a delivery service.
See also
literature
- Gershuny, Jonathan: The Economics of Post-Industrial Society. Production and consumption of services. Frankfurt a. M. 1981.
- Jiri V. Skolka: Long-term effects of unbalanced labor productivity growth: on the way to a self-service society . In: Luigi Solari (Ed.): Private and Enlarged Consumption. Amsterdam 1976, pp. 279-296.
- Loheide, Boris: Who is serving whom here? - Service or self-service - The Federal Republic of Germany as a service company, Verlag Dr. Müller, Saarbrücken 2008.