Competitive Strategies in Knowledge-Intensive Business Services: Evidence from Lombardy

Abstract

Knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) are the emergent players in the debate about innovation systems, knowledge-driven economic dynamics and competitiveness (Muller and Zenker, 2001; Miles, 2005a; Muller and Doloreux, 2007). A burgeoning literature stresses their role as co-producers of innovation and source of added value for regional systems, as well as network nodes and convertors of generic knowledge into specific one. KIBS are perceived as complementary to knowledge-based manufacturing sectors (Strambach, 1998; Czarnitzki and Spielkamp, 2000), contributing to its competitiveness especially in advanced regions, where the performance of manufacturing firms increasingly depends on the knowledge contents provided by highly specialized suppliers.