Postprint (published version

Music industry revenues are highly correlated with firm profitability, which on average is below the risk‐free bank interest rate after the digital disruption.

Purpose The unobserved benefits of digital technologies are described as digital dark matter. Product service systems (PSSs) are bundles of products and services that deliver value in use, which is unobserved but generates benefits. This paper aims to empirically quantify digital dark matter within PSSs and correlates that measure with national competitiveness. Design/methodology/approach A novel methodology establishes the link between customer needs and a product and digital service portfolio offered across ten developed economies. The case context is the music industry where product and services are often substitutes – a cannibalistic PSS. Consumer information is obtained from a unique database of more than 18,000 consumer surveys. Consumer demand for digital formats is modelled and predicted through logistic regressions. Findings The work provides inverse estimations for digital dark matter within PSSs by calculating the gap between supply and demand for digital offers – described as the business model challenge. The USA has the lowest business model challenge; the home of major companies developing digital technologies. Digital dark matter is shown to be positively correlated with national competitiveness and manufacturing competitiveness indices. Practical implications The success of a cannibalistic PSS requires good understanding of market demand. Governments embarking on soft innovation policies might incentivise the development of service-orientated business models based on digital technologies. Originality/value Work expands theory on the concept of digital dark matter to the PSS literature. Empirically, a novel method is proposed to measure digital dark matter.

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Purpose: The performance of service activities with high added value, offered by manufacturing companies, in the same way as those of knowledge-intensive services can be affected by the hiring of labor used in them. We study the impact of the use of contingent work (temporary and autonomous) on labor productivity in knowledgeintensive services. To develop hypotheses, the potential impact of contingent work on the intangible capital of the company, as well as the results of the empirical literature are taken into account. Design/methodology/approach: Data from a sample of 279 companies in knowledge-intensive services located in Catalonia are analyzed with two linear regression models.Findings: The results show that the use of contingent forms of employment, such as temporary employment and self-employed, have a negative impact on labor productivity. However, there is no quadratic relationship between these variables. Research limitations: The sample used comes exclusively from Catalonia (Spain), it is not perfectly extrapolated to all businesses with knowledge-intensive services and was obtained during the raising phase of the economic cycle. The design of the study is cross-section. The classification of knowledge-intensive companies is dichotomous, based on the sector they belong to. Practical implications: Decisions on hiring labor in services with high added value should minimize contingent forms of work, if they want to improve their productivity. Social implications: A production model that seeks to enhance the services added value services cannot rest on the basis of a labor market in which firms use a high proportion of contingent labor in its workforce. Originality/value: This study offers new data to the scant literature that links the use of contingent labor with productivity in the sector of knowledge-intensive services. The growing importance of high-value-added services, both in services and manufacturing companies, and the interest to know the determinants of their productivity justify the need for studies like the one presented.Postprint (published version