Service businesses exist to create value and value-in-use through the sale of products and services and various combinations of products and services. Multiple values are created through this process including profit or economic rents and surplus value, but also social, community and individual benefits. This chapter uses case studies to explore how different processes work together within service businesses to create value. Five contrasting integrated cases are explored: Rolls-Royce, Flowserve, TikTok, Inditex (including Zara) and Dubai. The last case, Dubai, explores the development of a city-region and the role service businesses play within city-regions. In this account, we explore three dimensions of Dubai: as a service economy, as a location for service spaces—The Dubai Mall—and of service businesses. Here the challenge is to explore the ways in which an observer can ‘read’ a city-region as a service space and can read a particular servicescape—a shopping mall. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this chapter (10.1007/978-3-030-52060-1_14) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Reading and Managing Service Businesses: An Integrated Case Study Approach