Determinants of export intermediaries' service‐mix configurations

The main objective of the study is to classify export intermediaries (EIs) on the basis of their service offering and to understand how they adjust the composition of their service‐mix to a number of internal and external contingencies.

A set of hypotheses were developed and tested on data collected from a random sample of British EIs through a postal survey. Cluster analysis was used to classify EIs on the basis of their service‐mix composition, whereas multinomial logit and multivariate analysis of variance were used to test the main hypothesis.

Results showed the existence of three types of EIs: full‐service provider (FSP) EIs; transaction creator EIs; and physical fulfiller EIs. Transaction creator EIs are the smallest group of the three and FSP EIs, the largest. The composition of the service mixes of these EIs is influenced by the number of countries served; physical presence to foreign markets; distance of the foreign markets and the extent to which an EI takes title of the goods. Specifically, results showed that “full service” EIs tend to be physically present in foreign markets, to serve more countries, and to serve geographically distant markets.

The main limitation of the study is that it provides evidence from only one country and results may not apply in other contexts. Thus future research, on a different context is desirable and it should take into account additional factors that affect the provision and configuration of EI services. The quality of the offered services is an important issue that was not examined by this study. Different types of EIs are likely to be linked with different levels of service quality as well as service assortment. It would be interesting in the future to examine the possible determinants of EI service quality as well as the existence of trade‐offs between service quality and service assortment.

Practical implications can be drawn for both the EIs as well as the current or potential users of EI services. The study offers guidelines to EIs on how to adjust their service offering to the characteristics of their external and operational environment. The result of the study helps the users and potential users of EI services to identify the types of EIs that can match better their needs and objectives.

First, it provides a systematically derived and practically useful classificatory scheme of EIs on the basis of services. Second, it examines an extended number of contingencies integrated in a conceptual framework that jointly influence an EIs service offering.