Danish report 1999

Danish report, RESER 1998 - Sven Illeris R � s e a u E u r o p � e n S e r v i c e s & E s p a c e

- SERVICES ET INTERNATIONALISATION -

Rapport de l'�quipe Danoise.

SERVICES & INTERNATIONALISATION - Sven Illeris.

Index

1 - A Discussion of Research on the Internationalisation of Services
2 - References

The regional impacts of growing business consultancy tradability

Two aspects of the internationalisation of services have been taken up by Danish research on services in 1998.

Professor Jan Mattsson, member of the Centre for Service Studies at Roskilde University, has continued his research on international marketing and exports of services, with case studies frm Australia and New Zealand.

At the Centre for Tele-Information at Denmark�s Technical University, Lyngby, Anders Henten and Knud Erik Skouby study the internationalisation of services via Information and Communication Technologies, in particular the Internet.

They focus on information-intensive services which are transportable and intangible. These may be divided into (a) data services, e.g. databases; (b) in-formation services, e.g. financial services; and (c) knowledge-intensive services, e.g. consulting services. The two former types may be delivered to-tally electronically, while the latter still requires a combination of electronic delivery and face-to-face contacts.

In particular, the studies focus on the following types of division of labour : Internal division inside firms between production and distribution units with different location; and division of tasks between different firms for-ming a network.

An important finding is that the geographical (including international) di-vision of labour is not only determined by the technical possibilities of loca-ting the different functions in different places.
This only takes place if
- there are economic gains involved
- the political conditions permit access to the markets in question
- cultural barriers (language, lack of trust etc) are overcome.

There are many well-known examples of international division of informa-tion service labour in order to minimize labour costs: American insurance companies have data entry functions performed in Ireland, European and American firms have software production performed in India. In these cases, the political and cultural barriers are minor. Formerly dispersed functions may also be centralized, as in the case of the expert centres of multinational consulting firms, from which the local consultants then can fetch specialized knowledge. The development of the Internet offers many examples of complicated divisions of labour in connection with a global electronic net-work.

In a high-wage country like Denmark, the debate has focussed on the com-petition from low-wage countries on labour formerly performed in Denmark. However, there is reason to remember that service employ-ment connected with physical goods and with persons still has to be located close to the customers. This, of course, does not exclude internationalisation in other senses, such as organisational integration into multinational corpo-rations.

R�f�rences

� Bj�rn-Andersen, Niels & Skouby, Knud Erik, Elektronisk handel og nye or-ganisationsformer. Lyngby: CTI.

� Falch, Morten, The Impact of Telecommunications on Trade in Services. CTI Working Paper, 40. Lyngby: Denmark�s Technical University

� Fuglsang, Lars & Fussing-Jensen, Christjan, Representation Problems in Service Innovation. Service Development, Internationalisation and Competences, Working Paper 3. Roskilde University.

� Henten, Anders, Market Structure in International Telecommunications. CTI Working Paper 41. Lyngby: Denmark�s Technical University.

� Henten, Anders & Skouby, Knud Erik (eds), Commercialisation of the Internet. CTI Report 5. Lyngby: Denmark�s Technical University.

� Henten, Anders & Skouby, Knud Erik, The Political Economy of Competition in Telecommunications. Communications & Strategies, 30.

� Henten, Anders & Skouby, Knud Erik, Fjernsalg af finansielle tjenester. TemaNORD 555. K�benhavn: Nordisk Ministerr�d.

� Mattsson, Jan, A Comparison of Service Delivery Processes of Different Complexity. International Journal of Service Industry Management, 9, 1, 48-63.

� Mattsson, Jan, Do Service and Merchandise Exporters Behave Differently? A New Zealand Investigation. European Journal of Marketing, 32, 9, 830-842.

� Norvig-Larsen, Jacob, Knowledge-Intensive Business Services in the Danish Economy. Service Development, Internationalisation and Competences, Working Paper 4. Roskilde University.

� Sundbo, Jon, Organisation of Innovation in Services. Roskilde University Press.

� Sundbo, Jon & Gallouj, Fa�z, Innovation in Services in Seven European Countries: The Result of Work Package 3-4 of the SI4S Project. Report to the EU Commission. Roskilde University.

Wednesday April 21, 2004

RESER

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