Towards understanding variety in knowledge intensive business services by distinguishing their knowledge bases

Knowledge intensive business services (KIBS) are known to play a significant role in innovation systems. Past research has however mostly treated KIBS as a homogenous group; it is now time to understand better the variety that exists among KIBS. In this study, we apply a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods to examine a dataset of 362 UK-based KIBS firms active in three ‘sectors’: architecture and engineering consulting; specialist design; and software and IT consulting. By applying content analysis techniques to information drawn from firms’ websites, we identify each firm’s primary ‘knowledge base’, be that analytical, synthetic or symbolic knowledge. We then relate the firms’ primary knowledge base to their engagement in R&D, design, and innovation, and examine how the ‘drivers’ of innovation vary between firms with different primary knowledge bases. The paper thereby contributes to the literature, first by identifying empirically ‘knowledge bases’, then relating these to the variety that exists among KIBS. The paper concludes by highlighting issues for further conceptual, methodological and empirical research

Towards Design Thinking as a Management Practice: A Learning Experiment in Teaching Innovation

There is an increasing need to make management knowledge more consistent with the “messiness” and complexity of actual organizational phenomena and contexts in today’s world, calling for a refoundation of mainstream management theories. The paper focuses on the contribution of design thinking approaches in this sense, particularly addressing the question of how the predisposition for a design thinking approach can be shaped in management education. Following a qualitative inductive research design, it will report the experience of the introduction of new teaching practices inspired by design thinking in a class of students from a Master program on Innovation and Marketing in an Italian University. Based on the empirical findings, the challenges and opportunities of innovating business school teaching towards the construction of a design thinking mentality will be discussed

The sources and aims of innovation in services: Variety between and within sectors

Services dominate economic activity, but remain under-researched by analysts of innovation and technological change. The early 'one size fits all' theories of innovation in services have in recent years given way to an appreciation that services are diverse, not least in their innovation activities. This paper draws on recent empirical evidence from large-scale surveys undertaken in 13 western European countries, to investigate the extent and the sources of innovation in five services sectors. The analysis includes the extent to which services innovate, and amongst innovators the extent to which they engage in R&D and collaborative arrangements for innovation. The analysis supports the recent literature which emphasises significant differences between sectors in their pattern of innovation behaviour, but also highlights significant intra-sectoral differences in innovation behaviour. This intra-sectoral variation deserves much fuller investigation in the future.Services, Innovation, Technological Change, Europe,

Do Services Innovate (Differently)? Insights from the European Innobarometer Survey

Although advanced economies are increasingly dominated by services, relatively little is known about whether and how services innovate. Instead, our understanding of innovation and innovation processes has been very largely derived from studies of manufacturing, and the production of technologically advanced artefacts. As services do not generally produce technologically advanced artefacts, they are often considered to be non-innovative, or “supplier-dominated” recipients of technologies rather than “true innovators”. An alternative perspective is that services tend to innovate differently from manufacturers, or at least that innovation in services brings to the fore “softer” aspects of innovation based in skills and inter-organisational cooperation practices which are pervasive across the economy but which do not tend to be prominent amongst manufacturers, and are therefore neglected. We examine these issues through an empirical analysis of a survey of European firms which was carried out in 2002.Services, advanced economies, innovation, European innobarometer survey,

Design Value: The Role of Design in Innovation - Final Report

Design Value: The Role of Design in Innovation was an eighteen-month AHRC funded research project carried out in collaboration with Innovate UK and the Knowledge Transfer Network Special Interest Group on Design. The principal aim of this research was to identify the roles design can play in innovation, the contributions of those roles to innovation, and the conditions under which these contributions actually happen