Servicification of manufacturing in global value chains : how services trade and foreign direct investment shape export quality and volume

Stemberger, Jakob (author), Zajc Kejžar, Katja (author)

This study examines the role of services trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) in shaping export performance among manufacturing firms participating in global value chains. Using firm-product-destination level panel data for Slovenia (2008–2020), the analysis investigates whether servicification—the growing integration of services into manufacturing—enhances firms’ export quality and export volume. The findings reveal that services imports at the destination level significantly enhance export quality, particularly for consumer and intermediate goods, while services exports positively influence export volumes, suggesting strong complementarities between goods and services trade. Outward FDI is a key driver of both higher export quality and volume, while inward FDI has mixed effects, benefiting quality but occasionally reducing export volumes. These results highlight the critical role of services trade and FDI in global value chain upgrading and suggest that policies promoting servicification and strategic international investments can enhance firms’ competitiveness in global markets.

• Language: English
• Keywords: services, value chain, foreign direct investments, exports, services trade, global value chains (GVCs), export quality and volume, servicification, foreign direct investment (FDI)
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: EF - School of Economics and Business
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2025
• Number of pages: Str. 160-174
• Numbering: Vol. 27, iss. 3, article no. 3
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-173292
• UDC: 339.5
• ISSN on article: 2335-4216
• DOI: 10.15458/2335-4216.1358
• COBISS.SI-ID: 248434947
• Publication date in RUL: 15.09.2025

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Economic and business review
• Publisher: Univerza v Ljubljani, Ekonomska fakulteta
• ISSN: 2335-4216
• COBISS.SI-ID: 268649216

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: storitve, veriga vrednosti, neposredne tuje investicije, izvoz

Projects

• Funder: ARIS - Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency
• Project number: P5-0117-2018
• Name: Trajnostna konkurenčnost slovenskega gospodarstva v evropskem in globalnem okviru