Knowledge intensive business services: ambiguities and continuities

Miles Ian Douglas; Belousova Veronika; Chichkanov Nikolay

doi:10.1108/FS-10-2017-0058

Publications

Article

Knowledge intensive business services: ambiguities and continuities

Foresight. 2018. Vol. 20. No. 1. P. 1-26.

Miles I. D., Belousova V., Chichkanov N.

Purpose

The substantial growth in literature on knowledge-intensive business services (KIBSs) has thrown light on their contributions to innovation and innovation systems. This paper is the first of a set that examines major debates and conclusions to have emerged from this growing body of evidence.

Design/methodology/approach

This is a review essay, which also presents relevant statistics. It addresses definitional issues and controversies, and sets out basic trends and characteristics of the KIBS industries. The focus is mainly on KIBS firms, though the production of similar services in other types of organisation is also considered.

Findings

Many of the conclusions of an earlier (2005) review in this journal remain valid, though difficulties in capturing these activities in official statistics mean that there are many issues that demand closer inspection. Understanding the role and future prospects of KIBS will also require looking beyond the literature that focuses just on KIBS industries.

Research limitations/implications

This study involves literature review and statistical analysis. Future work would benefit from involvement of practitioners and users of KIBS.

Practical implications

More explicit consideration of KIBS in statistical frameworks is still required, and novel approaches to data conceptualisation and production should be explored.

Originality/value

The growing literature on KIBS, and its implications for understanding the roles and future development of the firms and their relationships to innovation systems, requires systematic analysis. Available statistics have been brought together, and this paper also reflects critically on the trajectories of research on these topics.

Priority areas: management

Language: English

Full text (PDF, 1.23 Mb)

DOI

Text on another site

Keywords: Knowledge-Intensive Business Services (KIBS) knowledge economy

Publication based on the results of: Study of the activity of innovation process actors: development of the theoretical framework and methodological approaches(2018)

Knowledge intensive business services as generators of innovations

Doroshenko M. E., Miles I. D., Vinogradov D. Science, Technology and Innovation. WP BRP. Высшая школа экономики, 2013. No. 12.

Knowledge Intensive Business Services (KIBS) are widely argued to be important actors in innovation systems. They are active both innovating themselves, and by providing their clients with important knowledge and learning opportunities. This study uses survey data to investigate the mechanisms of knowledge transfer and innovativeness improvement through the provision of KIBS. The empirical core of the paper is a set of Russian surveys of KIBS and their clients: KIBS are a fairly new phenomenon in Russia, so this provides an opportunity to contrast KIBS supplier-client relationships featuring more and less experienced customers. Many of the KIBS firms’ services are highly tailored to customer specificities, and we consider how far this is minor customisation and how far novel products (and thus potentially product innovations) are involved. These services typically involve KIBS consumers into a coproduction process, where both the formal supplier and the formal user of the service are engaged together in service production. Knowledge transfers through learning-by-doing in such cases affect customers' propensity to innovate and improve their absorptive capacity. The paper concludes that the generation of innovations through KIBS may well be a self-sustaining process. In this process, service providers are incentivised to engage in service innovations by more innovative customers’ demand for highly individualised services. In turn, the process stimulates the innovativeness of customers, as they engage in learning-by-doing through coproduction.

Added: Jul 12, 2013

Влияние развития сектора интеллектуальных услуг на конкурентоспособность региона

Котомина О. В. Экономика и управление: научно-практический журнал. 2015. № 3. С. 83-88.

Added: Aug 17, 2015

Conditions for Innovation in KIBS: Evidence from Russia

Chichkanov N., Miles I. D., Belousova V. Science, Technology and Innovation. WP BRP. Высшая школа экономики, 2019. No. 92/STI/2019.

The development of service industries in emerging economies has been attracting more attention in recent years, but to date there have been few studies of knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) in these countries. (The main exception is the case of a specific sector – software and related Information Technology services, with most focus here being on India. KIBS as a whole have received little examination.) This paper aims to study how conditions for innovation influence innovation activities in KIBS in one of the largest emerging countries, Russia. The study draws on survey data from firms belonging to ten KIBS subsectors, based in major Russian cities in 2015. The results contrast with those generally reported in Western developed economies. In this particular emerging economy, firms experiencing negative market and knowledge conditions are actually more liable to undertake nontechnological innovations. We consider various explanations for this apparent anomaly. The institutional framework appears to be less essential for KIBS than has been earlier documented for manufacturing enterprises in Russia. Implications for innovation management and policy are outlined: both government and corporate, strategies here would benefit from more attention to these sectors.

Added: Jan 21, 2019

KIBS for Public Needs

Vinogradov D., Shadrina E. V., Doroshenko M. E. Public Administration. PA. Высшая школа экономики, 2015. No. WP BRP 27/PA/2015.

Knowledge intensive business services (KIBS) constitute a rapidly developing sector of modern economies. Numerous studies suggest that KIBS facilitate knowledge exchange between providers and consumers, and improve the innovativeness of the latter. However, because KIBS are strongly reliant on service co-production by the customer and provider working in partnership, intensive cooperation between the two parties is essential. Public procurement may provide supporting mechanisms for this sector, both directly (by purchasing services) and indirectly (by demonstrating the benefits of KIBS consumption, which may stimulate the demand for them from the private sector). Yet legislative constraints on the types of admissible public procurement mechanisms may have an undesirable effect on the provider selection, making it possible that services are purchased not from the most efficient or the most suitable provider. Along with that, public bodies are known to be managerially less efficient than private firms, partly due to a distorted system of incentives. These key differences between the public and private sectors motivated us to study the efficiency of public procurement of KIBS. In particular, we find that consumers of KIBS in the public sector report lower satisfaction from KIBS and admit a lower level of co-production than the private sector. Our main recommendations refer to the optimal choice of procurement mechanisms and the system of incentives in public institutions

Added: Apr 29, 2015

Knowledge Intensive Business Services: the Russian Experience

Doroshenko M. E., Miles I., Vinogradov D. Foresight and STI Governance. 2014. Vol. 8. No. 4. P. 24-38.

Knowledge-Intensive Business Services (KIBS) are seen to be a core sector of the so-called 'knowledge economy', and already play an important role in developed economies. The KIBS providers are both innovate themselves and provide their clients with knowledge and learning opportunities. This paper examines the status of KIBS in Russia, and explores some key issues in their role in innovation using data from surveys of KIBS firms and their clients.

Added: Jun 26, 2018

Value (co)creation in emerging KIBS industries: Absorptive capacity matters. Evidence from Russia

Marina Doroshenko, Vinogradov D. In bk.: Proceedings of XXIV Annual RESER Conference 2014 "Services and New Societal Challenges: Innovation for Sustainable Growth and Welfare". Espoo: 2014. P. 368-377.

The paper focuses on knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) to study the determinants of the successful value creation. We argue that value creation is not always efficient: the value of services could be lost due to an inefficient absorptive capacity of service consumers, who must be value adders together with providers due to the nature of services. The origins of inefficiency are elucidated by a thorough study of the interaction between KIBS producers and consumers (co-production). The methodology includes the study of observable patterns in Russian KIBS sector performancein2007-13 obtained from specialised surveys of Russian executives who were asked to answer questions both on their own company and on market developments. We provide both cross-section and generalised analysis of survey data.

Added: Jan 28, 2015

Богатство России интеллектом прирастать будет

Березин И. С., Дорошенко М. Е. Marketing PRO. 2007. № 10.

The paper observes empirical evidence on Russian KIBS sector basing on sureveys fulfilled by HSE and ROMIR Monitoring research group in 2007

Added: Jan 28, 2015

Экономика и управление: проблемы и перспективы развития. Сборник научных статей по итогам международной научно-практической конференции г.Волгоград 15-16 ноября 2010 г.

Ч. 1. Волгоград: Волгоградское научное издательство, 2010.

Added: Jan 18, 2013

Современный менеджмент: проблемы, гипотезы, исследования : сборник научных трудов

Вып. 1. М.: Издательский дом ГУ-ВШЭ, 2009.

Added: Oct 27, 2012

Is Education a Signal on the Russian Labour Market?

Aistov A. Education. EDU. Высшая школа экономики, 2012. No. 5.

This research focuses on estimating the signalling role of education on the Russian labour market. Two well-known screening hypotheses are initially considered. According to first of these, education is an ideal filter of persons with low productivity: education does not increase the productivity of a person, but it does give him the possibility to signal about his innate productivity via an educational certicate. The second of these hypotheses admits that productivity actually does increase during the period of study, but nevertheless the main objective of getting an education is to acquire a signal about one's productivity. Information theory suggests that employees use education signals during the hiring processes whereby employers screen potential employees. Employers and other categories of self-employed workers are usually not screened by the labour market via their educational attainments. Comparison of the returns to education of employees vs. self-employed workers could show the difference between the returns to signals and the returns to human capital. Yet another way to understand the signals is to consider the time dynamics of the returns to education for employees staying in the same firm. This helps us to answer the question about whether the signals are valuable only during the hiring process, or whether they remain valuable during the whole experience with the firm. This research is based on the Mincerian-type earnings functions, estimated on RLMS-HSE and NOBUS data. On the basis of the available information, we cannot say that the returns to signals and human capital differ significantly in Russia. Nevertheless we can say that, for the majority of men, the return to educational signals decreases with time spent in the same firm, while we observe the opposite for women.

Added: May 15, 2012

Teacher Characteristics and Student Achievements in TIMSS. Findings gained from applying the "first-difference" method to TIMSS-2007 data

Khavenson T., Tyumeneva Y. A. Education. EDU. Высшая школа экономики, 2012. No. 06.

The advantage of Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study is that not only does it perform a direct cognitive assessment of students concerning these students' teachers, but also their education, work experience and the instructional strategies used in their classes. In order to estimate teachers’ characteristics effects on a student’s achievements and overcome the limits of the TIMSS' correlational design, we have employed the first-difference method. Teachers’ characteristics effects have also been measured with the usual regression method. The effects discovered varied from one subject field to another, and there has been a difference between the results gained by using the firstdifference method and OLS regression analysis model. The first-difference method has revealed a negative effect of reproductive tasks and group work in math class, whereas comprehension tasks and tasks for developing meta-cognitive skills have shown a positive effect. On the contrary, reproductive tasks for science classes have had a positive effect while comprehension tasks and tasks for developing meta-cognitive skills have had either none or negative effects. Apart from this, a teacher's experience has had a significant effect on natural science subjects as opposed to mathematics. The possible interpretations of these results are discussed in this paper

Added: May 28, 2012

Анализ показателей портовой деятельности

Федоренко А. И., Зеленов Н. Н. Логистика сегодня. 2010. № 5. С. 296-311.

портовый менеджмент, показатели деятельности, анализ эффективности, система учета, распределение издержек, методы анализа деятельности портовой системы

Added: Oct 17, 2012

Актуальность и особенности внедрения модуля "управление персоналом" Для предприятий нефтегазового сектора

Дуненко Т., Таратухин В. В. Автоматизация, телемеханизация и связь в нефтяной промышленности. 2010. № 10. С. 7-13.

At present many industries reveal tendency for setting up of vertically integrated companies (VIC) the structure of which unites all technological processes. This tendency proved its efficiency in oil industry where coordination of all successive stages of technological process, namely, oil prospecting and production -oil transportation - oil processing - oil chemistry - oil products and oil chemicals marketing, is necessary. The article considers specific features of introduction of "personnel management" module at enterprises of oil and gas industry.

vertically integrated companies; personnel management

Added: Oct 4, 2012

Подходы к определению стратегии

Назарова В. В. Дискуссия теоретиков и практиков. 2010. № 3. С. 33-38.

Added: Nov 11, 2012

Международные институты в глобальной архитектуре содействия развитию

Зайцев Ю. К., Перфильева О. В., Рахмангулов М. Р. и др. М.: Издательский дом НИУ ВШЭ, 2011.

Added: Feb 14, 2013

Political Geography and Foreign Direct Investment

Betschinger M. Исследования по экономике и финансам. WP9. Высшая школа экономики, 2012. No. 2,4.

Added: May 14, 2012