Is there research and development in services? A review

With the rapid development of the global economy, the world has entered the era of service economy today. However, the service research and development (R&D) activities remain a sporadic, occasional and non-system state. Long-term sustainability of this phenomenon will obviously undermine the economic vitality. First, we briefly introduced the status of research and development of services. Then, we comprehensively summarized the four areas of service R&D, including the concept of the service R&D, measurable indicators, impetus mechanism, and implement management. The literature confuse between the theory of manufacturing R&D and the practice of service R&D, and between the research and development. The conclusion is that, we should expand the concept of service R&D from the both sides of knowledge creation and knowledge application and acquirement, to establish the comprehensive framework of service R&D. Finally, we gave the future research directions.