1. ¹Australian School of Business, School of Marketing, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
2. ²Faculty of Economics and Business, The University of Sydney, Australia

Correspondence: P Patterson, Australian School of Business, School of Marketing, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia. Tel: +61 2 9385 1105; Fax: +61 2 9663 1985; E-mail: p.patterson@unsw.edu.au

Received 16 December 2005; Revised 20 June 2007; Accepted 30 August 2007; Published online 26 June 2008.

Abstract

Drawing from the resource-based view and a contingency approach, the authors develop and test a model of the antecedents of client-perceived value in the context of international, professional business-to-business services (consultants, engineers, project management, IT consultants, etc.) in a developing economies setting. Further, we examine the effects of key moderators (e.g., country-of-origin (COO), firm's international experience, client's buying experience) on client-perceived performance and value. The results generally support the hypotheses that client-perceived performance is impacted by a firm's internal resources (e.g., technical skills, customer orientation, innovation). In addition, this relationship is contingent upon the COO effect, while client-perceived value is moderated by the client's buying experience. The findings can guide practitioners as to the key drivers of client-perceived value, and under what conditions this value is maximized.