KIBS Roles in KIBS Industries

The notion of KIBS (knowledge-intensive business services) was introduced by Miles et al. as “services that involved economic activities which are intended to result in the creation, accumulation or dissemination of knowledge” (1995: 18). Given the relevance of this kind of organizations, and their prominent role in several industries, a number contributions followed. KIBS are now regarded as particularly relevant in modern economies because of their prominent role(s) in allowing SME to innovate in a more effective, cost efficient, and/or timely manner. In this respect, KIBS are traditionally classified as Sources of innovation, Facilitators, and Carriers of innovation, depending on the part they play in the innovation process, alone, or alongside their customers. Another distinction can be made with respect to the relative position of KIBS toward technology: Typically, P-KIBS are new technology users, but they have no active role in new technology implementation and diffusion. T-KIBS, on the other hand, are firms that offer services for which information and communication technologies play a prominent part, in terms of both their content and the way in which the service is delivered to the customer. By linking the role KIBS firms are supposed to play in the innovation process, and the relationship between KIBS and new technologies (users or creators), we aim at extending the existing knowledge about KIBS classification, looking for specific patterns or behaviors that received little to no attention in the literature. The idea is that, albeit a firm’s profile may be predominantly adherent to one of the roles described by the literature, such profile may be the average of several different context-specific behaviors. Is it possible to identify new and more articulated profiles, along with the classic ones, that depict previously uncodified patterns of behavior among KIBS firms? Our findings revealed a more complex typology: First of all, a number of firms, despite being labeled as KIBS by means on their NACIE classification, didn’t possess the traits traditionally associated with knowledge-intensive companies, being essentially active in offering highly personalized services, but with neither significant added value, nor external relations with customers or suppliers. Such firms were not far from what Hollenstein defined as “Low-profile innovators with hardly any external links” (2003). At the same time, Carriers of innovation could be split into two separate categories, the first one involved in vertical knowledge transfer activities – i.e. transferring innovations from its suppliers downstream to its customers, and the second one more active in promoting knowledge diffusion among its customers, with the more sophisticated ones being beneficial for the less innovative ones, albeit not intentionally. To spread innovation, instead of relying on expensive (and sometimes unnecessary, or even harmful) particularization activities, Facilitators help customers in the integration process by transferring personnel to the latter’s facility. Sources of innovation reveal a trait previously unexplored in the KIBS literature, i.e. the ability to leverage their supply network, instead of relying on it as a source of innovation. This distinction comes closer to the one presented by Henderson and Clark (1990), i.e. it has more to do with the ability to separate architectural and component-specific knowledge, thereby controlling the innovation-related capabilities and managing a network of interchangeable partners (Lipparini, Fratocchi, 1999; Lorenzoni, Lipparini, 1999), than with the absorptive capabilities (Cohen, Levinthal, 1992) described by Koch and Strotmann (2008).