Knowledge Intensive Business Services: Organizational Forms And National Institutions

‘The book provides convincing findings against the hypothesis of KIBS as a factor of cognitive convergence or loss of diversity within our economies. On the contrary, KIBS are active agents of divergence and there is no universal pattern of the nature and the evolution of KIBS, but national varieties. It also shows that in order to well understand the inter-organizational collaboration between KIBS and their clients and more generally KIBS dynamics and their performance, transaction cost economies and agent theory should be complemented by other perspectives such as knowledge-based approaches, network theories, modularity theories, etc. This book, which is strongly oriented towards both policy and theoretical questions, is a valuable addition to a body of literature which is still too scarce. No doubt that it will stimulate further research in this field. It is undoubtedly a high level, knowledge intensive service provision about knowledge intensive business services.’ – Faïz Gallouj, University of Lille, France This book focuses on the development of Knowledge Intensive Business Services (KIBS) and the associated market characteristics and organizational forms. It brings together reputed scholars from a mix of disciplines to explore the nature and evolution of a range of Knowledge Intensive Business Services. Through an examination of KIBS sectors such as computer services, management consultancy and R&D services, the contributions in this book argue that the evolution of KIBS is strongly associated with new inter-organizational forms and that different country institutions shape the characteristics of these organizational forms. The book provides a strong contribution to theory and empirical evidence on fast-growing KIBS and their implications for innovation. The book will be of interest to final year undergraduates and postgraduate students and scholars in the field of innovation studies, organization studies and comparative business systems, across Europe.