Small and Medium Accounting Practice Firms (SMPs) are crucial in helping SMEs to keep their businesses
economically and financially sustainable. Even though there is an increasing importance of SMPs for fostering SMEs daily
activities, a general lack in terms of literature has been recognized. Innovation in service sector is characterized by
distinguished features and literature on product innovation cannot be applied verbatim. Several studies have recognized
the importance of Market Orientation to support product innovation, while less attention has been paid on the service
industry. Moreover previous studies seem to consider product innovation as a general construct without considering the
impact of the relatedness. Applying the PersonâEnvironment theory (PE), this study analyzes the impact of Market
Orientation (MO) on New Service Development (NSD), distinguishing new services according to their relatedness to already
provided ones. A logistic regression on a sample of 960 full filled questionnaires has been used. Results show that Market
Orientation has a significant different impact between related and unrelated diversification. The study aims to contribute
to existing literature helping a better understanding of diversification activities in SMPs. At the same time the study wants
to offer empirical evidence that could lead to recognize best practices in NSD
