![Sample our Social Sciences journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/110822/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Social-Sciences.jpg"})
Abstract
The last decade has seen a growing body of research on information‐intensive business service firms. These are companies that supply expertise and knowledge that are considered to add value to the output of their clients. This paper explores the impact of business service expertise provided via Business Link on the performance, profitability and competitiveness of client companies. The authors use a unique survey of small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) in England as well as case studies of individual firms. It is possible to identify a positive impact of business service expertise on client performance, but difficult and maybe impossible to isolate such impacts from other variables. Employment as an impact measure is problematic, as redundancy rather than recruitment may result from a consultancy project. The best measure is improvements in profitability, but not all consultancy projects will impact on this variable. The Department of Trade and Industry needs to be extremely careful that a concern for evaluation of Business Link companies does not inadvertently produce a situation in which the evaluation process determines how a Business Link company identifies and deals with its clients.
Notes
The research on which this article is based was supported by a research grant from the Economic and Social Science Research Council (ESRC) (R000236366) and by the NatWest Group Charitable Trust. Any views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the sponsoring organizations. We also wish to acknowledge the work undertaken by Sally Churchward and David Turner, the research assistants on this project.
