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

Despite the importance of knowledge-intensive business services to eco nomic development at the national, regional and firm level, there is s cant evidence as to their effectiveness. This paper discusses the impa ct 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 a nd also indicates that it is feasible to directly quantify the impact of these services on client performance in half of the cases. The resu lts suggest that there are limited interregional differences in busine ss service impact and evaluation.