social and economic change: the shape of the economy to come
economies in both developed and to a lesser extent developing countries are increasingly dominated by services rather than manufacturing. over the next
0 years the biggest growth in oecd countries is likely to come in health, education and care, whose shares of gdp are already much greater than cars
or telecoms, steel or biotech. these are all elds in which commercial, voluntary and public organisations deliver services, in which public policy plays a
key role and in which consumers co-create value alongside producers – no teacher can force a student to learn if they do not want to. for all of these reasons traditional business models of innovation are of only limited use. much of the most important innovation of the next few decades is set to follow the patterns of social innovation rather than the patterns familiar from sectors like it or insurance.
the table below from the oecd7 shows that
the contribution to total employment of ‘education, health, social work and other services’ sector has risen in nearly every member country. in the same ten year period total expenditure on healthcare rose as a percentage of gdp in all but three member countries. yet much of the writing on r&d and innovation – and most government policies – lag behind these changes and remain much more focused on hardware and objects rather than services. in health, for example, many governments (including the uk) provide very generous subsidies for r&d into pharmaceuticals despite their relatively poor record in delivering health gain, but very little for innovation in models of health service delivery.