Do service firms benefit from diversification? The moderating effect of competitive intensity and firm size

Despite much ado about the effectiveness of ‘product’ diversification, there is very limited knowledge about the impact of ‘service’ diversification on firm performance. By taking a resource-based perspective, this study explores the service diversificationperformance relationship. Results show a consistent inverse U-shaped relationship between service diversification and firm performance, with the slope positive at low and moderate levels of service diversification but negative at high levels of service diversification. Moreover, results show that competitive intensity negatively moderates the relationship between service diversification and performance, while the moderating effect of firm’s size is not significant. Hypotheses are tested with data on 52 Italian facility management firms over the 2000-2009 time period.