Abstract
The recognition of the relevance of knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) is becoming especially acute in the European Union and even more important for many emerging economies. The objective of the present study is twofold: (1) to examine whether an empirically-based typology of sustainability development can be constructed for KIBS; (2) to identify whether different development patterns are associated with different business performance outcomes. The empirical evidence is based on quantitative and firm-level data gathered through an email questionnaire which yielded 128 qualified responses from KIBS in the Czech Republic. The analysis is based on exploratory factor and cluster analysis to identify the cluster membership and to assess the relationship with performance outcomes it has been used the parametric test one-way ANOVA. Data analysis revealed that three distinct patterns types of KIBS exist, which were associated with different performance outcomes. With regard to the level of sustainable development, we found the conservative KIBS following market extension through a repositioning of existing and revised services, innovating KIBS following a new service development strategy focusing mainly on complements or line extension to existing services based on changes in technology and middle-ranged KIBS focusing on traditional strategy of comprehensiveness of services or “more services under one roof”. Innovating KIBS outperform other types of KIBS in all financial and non-financial parameters. The results have implications for practices involved in strategy development in services and useful for government efforts. The limitation of the research is done by focus on small companies, operating mainly in ICT and architectural and engineering services.
Highlights
Services are increasingly becoming the dominant activities in developed economies and their growth is not independent, but rather is closely linked to the other sectors of the economy [1]
Drawing on a survey-based firm-level dataset, the aim of this paper is to test whether: (1) to examine whether an empirically-based typology of sustainability development can be constructed for knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS); (2) to identify whether different development patterns are associated with different business performance outcomes, evaluating the heterogeneity driven by KIBS
Drawing on the survey-based firm-level dataset, the aim of the paper is to test whether different types of KIBS could be associated with different development patterns and performance outcomes, evaluating the heterogeneity driven by KIBS
Summary
Services are increasingly becoming the dominant activities in developed economies and their growth is not independent, but rather is closely linked to the other sectors of the economy [1]. The growing importance and focus on the services sector research is the result of significant manifestations of the current structural changes of the economically developed countries, which have been noted over the past twenty years. It is not surprising that a majority of sustainability-related studies were conducted in a developed country context, global business organizations must promote research on sustainability assessment issues in the developing countries [2]. It is well known, that the knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) as a small proportion of all services, is significant in terms of economic benefits and as the key part of the growth in value-added, employment and labor productivity [3]. It represents one of the major segments that is a facilitator of knowledge, external information, and an innovation facilitator for other client businesses [4]
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