Exploring Perceived Risk in Professional Business-to-Business Services: Perspectives of Professionals

Abstract

Professional services are seen to be intangible, inseparable, perishable and heterogenous. Their complexity makes them difficult to evaluate and they are recognised as high risk purchases. While divergent attitudes to risk have been examined in the managerial decision making literature, less is understood about perceived risk in a professional service setting and this study explores divergent beliefs about risk in a United Kingdom (UK) advertising agency setting. Using in-depth interviews with an expert sample of UK advertising agency Account Managers the findings suggest that stakeholders have different attitudes towards perceived risk. In addition the study identifies risk is context specific and advertising created for global advertising campaigns is more likely to be perceived by clients as high risk. The findings extend our current knowledge of perceived risk in a professional service context and contribute to our understanding of the divergent beliefs that advertising agencies and their clients hold towards risk. The study has a number of implications for advertising agency management and brand owners. We discuss the limitations of the research and topics for future research.