Why services are not immaterial goods: Additional comments on a long-standing debate, vol 2/2026

Magnus Richter

in Ilmenauer Schriften zur Betriebswirtschaftslehre from Technische Universität Ilmenau, Institut für Betriebswirtschaftslehre

Abstract: The article illustrates that services are not immaterial goods. The widespread understanding of services as immaterial goods is based on the ontological misconception of describing services with the help of object characteristics. It is shown that the core characteristics of true immaterial goods, nonrivalry and quasi-arbitrary copyability, do actually not apply to services, neither from a process-oriented nor an output-oriented perspective.

Date: 2026
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/343988/1/1983782556.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:tuisbw:343988

Access Statistics for this book

More books in Ilmenauer Schriften zur Betriebswirtschaftslehre from Technische Universität Ilmenau, Institut für Betriebswirtschaftslehre Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().