Following drastic shifts in the spatial organization of goods production, increasingly fierce competition now forces firms also to look critically at how to organize the production of services. While digitization and advances in information and communication technologies have enabled firms to unbundle service production processes, the increased global availability of skilled labour allows for the relocation of ever more of these processes around the world. As a result, a new geography of services production takes shape: a geography that is defined by new interregional and international divisions of labour and held together by increasingly complex global services production networks. This book examines how the reorganisation of services production alters relations between and generates different sets of challenges and opportunities for economic development in the Global North and the Global South. Drawing from 11 case studies probing various aspects of services production in different parts of the world, the book brings out the remarkable heterogeneity and transformative capacities of services. It successively shows how global trade in services creates new interdependencies between services producing and services consuming regions; reveals how services help to mitigate the impact of and contribute to recovery from economic crises in the Global North; and demonstrates how services offshoring fosters economic development and service-sector driven modernisation processes in the Global South. The book's openness to the heterogeneous and dynamic nature of services production enlarges our understanding of which particular services in which spatiotemporal context have the capacity to generate good jobs, contribute to productivity and drive economic growth. The book stands out from other books in the field in that it combines perspectives on services-driven transformations from both the Global North and the Global South and looks into the role of various services segments. Based on pioneering empirical research and original data it offers a timely contribution to this growing debate. The book provides valuable insights for students, scholars and professionals interested in services, services offshoring, services-driven growth, and socioeconomic transformations in the Global North and South.

In the past two decades, several millions of IT-enabled services jobs have been relocated or 'offshored' from the US and Europe to, in particular, low cost economies around the world. Most of these jobs so far have landed in South and South-East Asia, with India and the Philippines receiving the bulk of them. This has caused profound changes in the international division of labour, and has had correspondingly wide social and economic effects. This book examines how this 'next wave in globalization' affects people and places in South and South-East Asia. It brings together twelve case studies from India, the Philippines, China, Hong Kong and Thailand, and explores how and for whom services offshoring creates opportunities, triggers local economic transformations and produces challenges. This book in addition compares how different countries take part in this 'second global shift', investigates service-sector driven economic development from a historical perspective, and engages with the question whether and to what extent services offer a new promising avenue of sustained economic growth for developing countries. It argues that service-led development in developing countries is not easy for all the workers involved, or a guaranteed path to sustained economic development and prosperity. This volume stands out from other books in the field in its exploration of the social and economic outcomes in the cities and countries where services have been located. Based on cutting edge empirical research and original data, the volume offers a state-of-the-art contribution to this growing debate. The book provides valuable insights for students, scholars and professionals interested in services offshoring, socio-economic development and contemporary transformations in South and South-East Asia.