BUSINESS SERVICES AND THEIR IMPACT UPON CLIENT PERFORMANCE - AN EXPLORATORY INTERREGIONAL ANALYSIS

Despite the importance of knowledge-intensive business services to economic development at the national, regional and firm level, there is scant evidence as to their effectiveness. This paper discusses the impact over 200 indvidual external business services upon the performance of client manufacturing plants in two regions, Scotland and the South East of England. The empirical research examines client satisfaction and also indicates that it is feasible to directly quantify the impact of these services on client performance in half of the cases. The results suggest that there are limited interregional differences in business service impact and evaluation.