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Modes of innovation in knowledge-intensive business services evidence from Lombardy

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Abstract

The present paper investigates the sectoral variety and common patterns across different typologies of knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS). We examine this issue by considering the case of Lombardy, a highly developed manufacturing area the industrial activities of which are experiencing a pervasive transformation towards higher knowledge content, demanding stronger and more pervasive support by advanced services. Drawing on an original survey-based firm-level dataset, we analyze innovation patterns across KIBS, evaluating the explanatory power of traditional classifications of the service sector, as well as the heterogeneity driven by firm and market specific characteristics. Our findings highlight four profiles of KIBS: interactive innovation mode, product innovation mode, conservative innovation mode and techno-organizational innovation mode. When examining in more depth the variables that are associated with cluster membership, we find that firm strategy is the most significant determinant, with size, customer location, and training also playing a role in defining cluster specificities.

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Notes

  1. According to Tether (2003), the emphasis on the ‘interaction’ side is also to be understood in relation to the aim of reversing the traditional view of supplier-dominated services.

  2. Recent evidence supports this claim. For example, Freel (2006) shows that KIBS tend to employ high skill workers, and technical KIBS in particular hire high profile technicians.

  3. Data collection and sampling were carried out as part of the project “Survey sulle imprese e sulla struttura economica lombarda—Settore dei servizi” sponsored by the Istituto Regionale di Ricerca della Lombardia (IRER) in 2006.

  4. The second segment (R&D services) is rather sparse (four units only in the stratified sample), as a result of the relatively low number of dedicated businesses in the regional universe. For this reason, in our descriptive analysis we consider a higher level of sector aggregation, by distinguishing between p-KIBS and t-KIBS.

  5. The telephone interviews were conducted by a specialized survey company with the assistance of the CATI procedure.

  6. This trend has been further encouraged by the recent reforms in the Italian labour market, which introduced a large variety of flexible labour contracts.

  7. We have to take into consideration the relevance of small firms in our sample. The size class skewed distribution might introduce some bias in the analysis. Nevertheless, as the KIBS sector is indeed characterized by a population of small businesses, we believe investigating alternative modes of innovation contributes to understanding the sector’s overall dynamics.

  8. We extract 4 factors by means of a principal component analysis with Varimax rotation. The percentage of variance explained is 76.8. For the scope of the present analysis, within each component, we focus on the variables that display a factor loading greater than 0.40.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge funding from Istituto Regionale di Ricerca della Lombardia (IRER), and to thank the participants at the 5th International EMAEE conference held in Manchester on 17–19 May 2007, and in the seminar held at Universitá del Piemonte Orientale (Novara) on 30 January 2008 for their useful comments and suggestions. Nicoletta Corrocher acknowledges the financial support of the Research Council of Norway (Project n˚172603/V10: “The Knowledge-based society”).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CESPRI, Bocconi University, Via Sarfatti, 25-20236, Milan, Italy

    Nicoletta Corrocher, Lucia Cusmano & Andrea Morrison

  2. Department of Economics, NFH, University of Tromso, 9037, Tromso, Norway

    Nicoletta Corrocher

  3. Insubria University, Via Monte Generoso 71, 21100, Varese, Italy

    Lucia Cusmano

  4. Department of Economic Geography, Utrecht University, 3508 TC, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Andrea Morrison

Authors
  1. Nicoletta Corrocher
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  2. Lucia Cusmano
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  3. Andrea Morrison
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Correspondence to Nicoletta Corrocher.

Appendix

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Table 7 Factors for competitiveness
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Corrocher, N., Cusmano, L. & Morrison, A. Modes of innovation in knowledge-intensive business services evidence from Lombardy. J Evol Econ 19, 173–196 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00191-008-0128-2

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