It has long been recognized that innovation plays a crucial role to support the economic performance of manufacturing firms. By contrast, the innovation in service is considered to be a less-studied topic and the empirical frameworks in this context are rather rare. As a way to overcome this gap, we analyze, in this paper, the impact of the innovation activities on the performance of the Tunisian service firms. We use the Heckman's two-stage econometric model in order to identify the contribution of service innovation to enhance the firms' performance (productivity, sales growth and employment growth). Based upon a sample of 71 Tunisian service firms, having significant value-added services, we show that innovation has a positive and significant effect on the productivity and on the employment growth. However, innovation has no effect on the sales' growth.

The aim of this paper is to analyze the extent to which Tunisian firms regard corruption as a major obstacle to their product and process innovation. Using firm-level data from the World Bank Enterprise Survey conducted in 2013, we empirically test how innovation accentuates or mitigates the corruption obstacle. We show that innovation has a negative and statistically significant effect on the corruption obstacle. Besides, we prove that competition and the obstacle to corruption are negatively related. This result teaches that the Tunisian firms face a rent-shifting corruption.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it investigates the way by which Tunisian service firms make their decision to innovate: simultaneously (one-stage model) or sequentially (two-stage model). Afterwards, once the innovation-making-decision way is selected, the paper analyzes its main determinants. Using a sample of 108 Tunisian service firms, the paper reveals that the two-stage model has a statistically significant advantage in predicting innovation. Indeed, it is shown that the sequential model illustrates well the innovation making-decision procedures. In fact, the main determinant behind the dominance of the sequential model is the importance that service firms give to the innovation objectives.

Recently, outsourcing services has been an important component of the organizational strategy of service firms. However, most research studies mainly focus on analyzing the determining factors of outsourcing at the expense of its structural effects. The aim of this paper is to examine the extent to which outsourcing relationships can be a source of service innovation by using a sample of 108 Tunisian service firms. Specifically, we are interested in the domestic outsourcing of auxiliary activities. Our results support the evidence of positive effects of outsourcing service activities on the capacity of innovation. This suggests that outsourcing allows Tunisian service firms to create value, increase flexibility and improve the quality of their services.