Knowledge-intensive business services as an element of learning regions - the case of Baden-Wurttemberg

In the globalizing process, the production of knowledge and the management of information gain increasing strategic importance for the competitiveness of regions. Theoretical conceptions of the learning economy and the learning region emphasise that the capability to learn is crucial for the economic success of firms, regions and national economies. Given this background, the proposal will focus on the significance of knowledge?intensive business services for innovation and learning. So far, knowledge about innovative activities of service firms and their significance in the technological change is existent only to a low extent. For a long time, research concerning technological change as well as innovations focussed on the manufacturing industry and the development and transfer of technological knowledge. The dynamic growth of business?related services has now been documented in numerous studies not only in Germany, but also in other European countries. Their role in innovativeness and competitiveness in the current situation of structural change has, however, received little attention. A major reason is that it is very difficult to establish the quantitative contribution these services make to innovation at both the macro and micro levels. The present state of the statistics for services and innovation make it impossible to determine what the contribution is. From a qualitative point of view, however, this service segment is an important element in the innovation system. The contribution of knowledge?intensive business service firms to innovation is not just the result of their own innovative activities. It also results from the indirect and positive feedback effects which originate on the demand side as a result of the use of the services by client firms. The speech will focus on specific development trends of knowledge?intensive business services in the regional innovation system of Baden?Wuerttemberg, and the role of these services in the present regional restructuring process will be examined.

Micro-dynamics of knowledge: actors, processes and territorial organization

By applying the evolutionary economic geography approach and focusing on the organizational dimension of the knowledge-based theory of the firm the paper intends to make both a conceptual and an empirical contribution to understand the ways in which knowledge dynamics unfold in time and space and lead to innovative change. The article focuses on the connections of cumulative and combinatorial knowledge dynamics at the micro level of firms and other organizations. The empirical results base on the quantitative and qualitative meta-analysis of case studies in Europe that were obtained by the instrument of innovation biographies

Path Dependency and Path Plasticity: the Co-evolution of Institutions and Innovation - the German Customized Business Software Industry

Path dependence and the co-evolution of technology and institutions is a key concept to understand the dynamics of structural change at the level of firms, sectors and multi-level spatial scales. The concept of path dependency is often used in economic geography to explain the economic specialisation and long-standing success as well as crises and economically unfavourable development of regions. The understanding of the institutional dynamics within a well-established technological and institutional development path of territorial settings is a central but to a large extent also an open issue. The paper focuses on the role of institutions and modes of institutional change in path dependent processes of innovation, knowledge accumulation and competence building in innovation systems. Processes of institutional change are mainly seen either as incremental, leading to continuity of the present technological path or as abrupt and disruptive, leading to the breakdown and replacement of institutional settings. By using the notion of 'path plasticity' the paper argues that paths are not coherent in themselves. There is 'path plasticity', which describes a broad range of possibilities for the creation of innovation within a dominant path of innovation systems. Plasticity results among others from the elastic stretch of institutions and institutional arrangements and their interpretative flexibility through actors. Associated with this approach, the paper takes a closer look at path plasticity, its relation to institutional change and the role of geography. Empirical evidence is provided by exploring the evolution of the German software industry. Although comparative disadvantages are caused by the established institutional setting of the national innovation system, a sub sector of this industry - customized business software - was able to become internationally competitive. The customized business software industry can be seen as an example of innovation and successful change in what is described as non- favourable institutional settings

Knowledge Commodification and New Patterns of Specialisation: Professionals and Experts in Knowledge-Intensive Business Services (KIBS)

The knowledge society is characterized by knowledge becoming a kind of commodity that can be traded and priced. Knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) are representative for such a knowledge-based economy, since their main input and output factor is directly related to knowledge itself. While research on KIBS has been mainly conducted on the firm and sector level, focusing on their role in innovation processes, little attention has been paid to the knowledge workers within the firms, whose knowledge assets have to be acquired, configured and deployed. Yet these knowledge creation processes on the micro-level are central to understand how KIBS can drive innovation in regional and national economies by contributing to new patterns of knowledge specialisation and the diversification of knowledge markets. Hence this paper seeks to elaborate on the generic processes which underlay knowledge processing and production. It will introduce the influences of different types of knowledge and knowledge bases of KIBS sub-sectors on the processes and structures in which knowledge is produced. Thereby it will reveal that by gaining experience-based expertise in horizontal and vertical knowledge domains of both their knowledge workers and their clients KIBS foster the emergence of composite and combinatorial knowledge driving knowledge specialisation further

Knowledge-intensive business services as an element of learning regions - the case of Baden-Wurttemberg

In the globalizing process, the production of knowledge and the management of information gain increasing strategic importance for the competitiveness of regions. Theoretical conceptions of the learning economy and the learning region emphasise that the capability to learn is crucial for the economic success of firms, regions and national economies. Given this background, the proposal will focus on the significance of knowledge?intensive business services for innovation and learning. So far, knowledge about innovative activities of service firms and their significance in the technological change is existent only to a low extent. For a long time, research concerning technological change as well as innovations focussed on the manufacturing industry and the development and transfer of technological knowledge. The dynamic growth of business?related services has now been documented in numerous studies not only in Germany, but also in other European countries. Their role in innovativeness and competitiveness in the current situation of structural change has, however, received little attention. A major reason is that it is very difficult to establish the quantitative contribution these services make to innovation at both the macro and micro levels. The present state of the statistics for services and innovation make it impossible to determine what the contribution is. From a qualitative point of view, however, this service segment is an important element in the innovation system. The contribution of knowledge?intensive business service firms to innovation is not just the result of their own innovative activities. It also results from the indirect and positive feedback effects which originate on the demand side as a result of the use of the services by client firms. The speech will focus on specific development trends of knowledge?intensive business services in the regional innovation system of Baden?Wuerttemberg, and the role of these services in the present regional restructuring process will be examined

The organisational decomposition of innovation and territorial knowledge dynamics - insights from the German software industry

In recent years, innovation processes involve more heterogenous actors inside and outside the firm. Little is known however about the spatial impact of this organisational decomposition of innovation processes (ODIP): Does it lead to a geographical dispersion of innovation activities as well? Furthermore, which parts of the innovation process are carried out spatially or organisationally separated? To what extent are knowledge-creating activities subject to organisational decomposition? We propose the analytical ODIP framework which integrates research on innovation systems, global value chains and knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS). Thereby we provide a conceptual contribution to the debate on the globalisation of innovation in the identification of different modes of decomposed innovation processes by capturing the participating actors and their contribution in specific innovation events. The exploration of the spatial dimension of innovation processes in the software industry shows that the global-local dichotomy in the innovation debate does not suffice to describe their complex, multi-scalar nature. In analysing ODIP in a knowledge-intensive industry, we contribute to the debate about the 'new geography of innovation' by providing insights into the upgrading of subsidiary capabilities