Investigating the relationships between service capabilities and financial statements indicators

Abstract

This study analyses the relationships between service capabilities and financial statements indicators of 76 U.K. service providers belonging to the Standard Industry Classification (SIC) 49410 (‘Freight transport by road’). These firms were clustered in four different groups according to their service capabilities by employing content analysis on open secondary data. Then, statistical tests were employed to analyse whether groups with different service capabilities differ in key financial statements indicators. As the results show, economic-financial indicators (e.g., turnover) do not vary significantly between the groups, whereas differences arise in the number of employees and other asset-related indicators. It follows from these results that within the same SIC code, the various assortments of service capabilities do not have repercussions on the firms’ profitability; on the other hand, these assortments are correlated with firms’ size and infrastructure (e.g., magnitude of the Stock & W.I.P.). This research develops a heuristic approach using open secondary data to identify and classify service capabilities, and to investigate their relationship with financial statements indicators. This approach can be replicated in other business sectors thus supporting managers in identifying their firm’s capabilities and those of their competitors.