Chris Styles, Paul G. Patterson, and Vinh Q. La
Executive Summary
The importance of service exports is increasing in the world economy. One group of services in particular, the so-called knowledge-based services (e.g., management consulting, engineering, architectural, education, information technology, biotechnology), has been the fastest growing sector in developed economies; this group has experienced an average annual growth of 10%–12% over the past several years.
However, despite this rise in the importance of service exports and knowledge-based services in particular, there has been limited research into what drives the export success in this sector. Most research has focused on exporting manufacturing industries. Although there are likely to be success factors common to all sectors, the unique characteristics (credence properties, variability, intangibility, inseparability) of knowledge-based service firms in particular are likely to lead to some success factors that are unique to this group of exporters. In this article, Styles, Patterson, and La focus on two unanswered research questions: (1) What are the key success factors across knowledge-based services? and (2) How do these success factors vary across different knowledge-based service types?
Styles, Patterson, and La collected data from 17 Australian small and medium-sized, knowledge-based service firms (and their overseas partners) exporting to Southeast Asia. They selected cases in accordance with Patterson and Cicic’s (1995) classification scheme, which recognizes key differences across service types. In-depth interviews were conducted with key informants (i.e., the chief executive officer or export manager of the Australian export firm and a key client/agent/partner located in South East Asia). The authors used Miles and Huberman’s (1994) cross-case matrix technique to identify patterns in the data.
Styles, Patterson, and La find several success factors that are consistent with prior studies of manufacturing firms (e.g., market commitment, relationship building). In addition, they also identify several service-specific success factors, such as those related to intellectual property and personnel. As they predicted, there were distinct patterns according to the type of service being exported—namely, whether the product was mostly intangible (e.g., lawyers, architects) or tangible (e.g., software) and whether the service involved a high or low degree of face-to-face contact for the service to be “manufactured.” Thus, a contingency approach seems justified, and they find important differences across service types.
For practitioners, understanding the characteristics of their service type is an important first step in identifying what are likely to be the most important factors driving performance. With scarce human and financial resources and limited time, firms, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises, are better off when they are able to focus on factors that are likely to make the most significant difference. Similarly, the findings from this research should assist export promotion agencies in better serving an increasingly important and growing sector of the economy more effectively. Given that the focus of the majority of previous research in export performance has been on manufactured goods, the identification of service-specific success factors should be welcome.
Biography
Chris Styles is Professor of Marketing in the School of Business at the University of Sydney. He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Western Australia and his doctoral degree from the London Business School. His areas of interest include international marketing, export marketing, international alliances, international entrepreneurship, and strategy. He has published in Journal of Services Marketing, Journal of Business Research, Industrial Marketing Management, International Marketing Review, and International Journal of Research in Marketing.
Paul G. Patterson is Professor and Head of School in the School of Marketing at the University of New South Wales, Sydney. He holds degrees in Marketing, Economics, and Management. He is also Co-Editor of Australasian Marketing Journal. His research, teaching, and consulting interests revolve around marketing in service industries in general and focus on modeling customer satisfaction and service quality, relationship marketing, consumer loyalty and switching barriers in service contexts, complaining behavior, and the internationalization of service firms. His more recent research has been cross-cultural in nature, examining various models of consumer behavior across East–West cultures. He has published in Journal of Business Research, Journal of Retailing, European Journal of Marketing, and Journal of Service Research.
Vinh Q. La is a doctoral candidate in the School of Marketing at the University of New South Wales, Sydney. Her research and teaching interests consist of services marketing, business-to-business services, marketing strategy, and the internationalization of service firms. She has also published in Journal of Services Marketing and her work has been presented at the annual Australian and New Zealand Marketing Academy Conference.
Journal of International Marketing, Vol. 13, No. 4, December 2005
View Table of Contents.