Customizing business-to-business (B2B) professional services: The role of intellectual capital and internal social capital

Business-to-business (B2B) professional service firms often develop highly customized offerings for their customers. Customizing B2B professional services is a knowledge intensive process that requires the coordinated efforts of individuals with specialized knowledge and skills. Drawing on customization and social capital theory, we develop and test an intellectual capital (IC) model of customizing B2B professional services that rests on two foundational premises. First, three different forms IC, that is, employees' knowledge of customers, employees' technical knowledge and abilities, and organizational creativity, make firms more effective at customizing B2B professional services. Second, internal social capital (ISC) is a precursor to the intellectual capital that enables firms to effectively produce customized B2B professional services. Analyses of data from key informants of 161 marketing research firms support our theses.