Innovation and knowledge-intensive business service: the contribution of knowledge-intensive business service to innovation in manufacturing establishments

Abstract

It is well established that knowledge-intensive business service (KIBS) firms can be innovators in their own right. It is also well established that KIBS can contribute to innovation in their client firms. This role of KIBS has been theorised, and some of the processes by which KIBS contribute to innovation have been scrutinised by way of case studies. However, there are few, if any, large-scale analyses that permit the two following questions to be addressed: (i) Do firms that use KIBS systematically introduce more innovations than those that do not? (ii) Is recourse to certain types of KIBS associated with certain types of innovation? Our survey of KIBS use across 804 manufacturing establishments in Quebec shows that KIBS contribute to their client's innovation – thereby confirming in a more general way what has been observed in case studies – but also that different types of KIBS contribute to different types of innovation.

Keywords:

• KIBS users
• innovation
• manufacturing establishments
• contribution of KIBS

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank three anonymous referees for their helpful comments, and the editor, Cristiano Antonelli, for guiding the paper through the revision process. The research has been financed by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and by Economic Development Canada.