# Services Sector Export in Europe
## 4 Research and Discussion
### Are Leaders in Service Export Growth Rate Also Innovation Leaders? In this subsection, we consider whether there is certain dependence between the levels of innovative development of a country and its service export growth rates. A comparison was made for four groups of countries grouped by quartiles. Thus, we determined the quartiles that comprise countries categorized as \"Innovation Leaders\" according to the classification of the European Innovation Scoreboard ([PERSON] and [PERSON], 2016). According to the European Innovation Scoreboard ([PERSON] and [PERSON], 2016), in total, there are seven European countries that are categorized as \"Innovation Leaders\". One of these countries--Switzerland--was not included in the present research due to a lack of available data on service exports. None of the six remaining countries--Sweden, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Germany--were grouped into the fourth quartile, and only one country was grouped into the third quartile. Three countries were grouped into the second quartile and one country was grouped into the first quartile. The data obtained allowed us to conclude that European countries categorized as \"Innovation Leaders\" in accordance with the European Innovation Scoreboard ([PERSON] and [PERSON], 2016) are not the leading countries in Europe with regard to the rates of service export growth. For example, the country with the highest rank among \"Innovation Leaders\" in Europe--Switzerland--only takes up the sixteenth position in the ranking of countries in terms of service export growth rates. Therefore, we may conclude that in Europe, categorizing a country into the group of \"Innovation Leaders\" according to the European Innovation Scoreboard ([PERSON] and [PERSON], 2016) is not the determining factor of ensuring the highest rates of service export growth. To determine the differences in average growth in service exports in each of the four \"innovator\" groups, we conducted a dispersion analysis. 30 European countries were categorized into four groups: \"Innovation Leaders\", \"Strong Innovators\", \"Moderate Innovators\", and \"Modest Innovators\" according to the classification of the European Innovation Scoreboard ([PERSON] and [PERSON], 2016). The conducted dispersion analysis showed that the countries categorized into the group \"Innovation Leaders\" demonstratedan average growth in service exports amounting to 57.42% in 2016 compared to 2005. This indicator was equal to 90.21% in the group \"Strong Innovators\", 74.18% in the group \"Moderate Innovators\", and 61.96% in the group \"Modest Innovators\" (see Appendix D, and Figure 4). The results of the analysis of variance (ANOVA) reveal that in the period of 2005-2016 European countries categorized in the group \"Innovation Leaders\" demonstrated the lowest service export growth. The data we obtained does not correlate with the findings of [PERSON] et al. (2005). Perhaps, this contradiction between ours and their results may be explained by the specifics of concrete countries or a concrete region, as pointed out by [PERSON] et al. (2005). We believe that these specifics may include a low initial level of the share of service exports in 2005 in the countries outside the \"Innovation Leaders\" category, which, in its turn, ensured high service export growth rates in these countries. Furthermore, the export of services is steadily more popular strategy of firms (including SMEs) in emerging economy countries ([PERSON], 2016). The presence of firms from emerging markets in the foreign markets increased during the last twenty years. Moreover, multinational companies discovered sourcing opportunities in emerging economies where labor force has high levels of general and specific human capital; in the same time wage level and tax regimes make outsourcing highly profitable ([PERSON], 2016; [PERSON], 2016; [PERSON], 2016). Over time, the competence of firms in emerging markets increased, and prices for their services increased as well.