ABSTRACT
According to the World Bank, some 12 per cent of world service production entered international trade in 1999. This compares with an equivalent figure of 50 per cent of world goods production (https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203389676/da3b7c48-d188-4c3e-ac59-0e3f5f11f822/content/www.worldbank.org/data/wdi2002" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">www.worldbank.org/data/wdi2002). As tradability has been enhanced by ICTs or domestic markets have become saturated, services have looked for business growth in markets around the world. The increasing specialisation of service firms, often stimulated by outsourcing, has also made it essential for them to make their knowledge and expertise available outside their home markets in order to protect market share and to fulfil obligations to shareholders or to partners (in the case of professional services). Specialisation has also made it necessary for firms to form strategic alliances, consortia, or pools of expertise that enable them to bid for contracts and subsequently to deliver the necessary work; many of these networks will involve working with partners in other parts of the world. Some will be one-off, while others will lead to longer-term relationships that may ultimately lead to formal mergers or acquisitions. The production of a range of services is also shifting from the developed to the developing countries and to the post-socialist economies in a way that is not dissimilar to what has happened in manufacturing.
