Urban agglomerations, knowledge-intensive services and innovation: establishing the core connections

Abstract

This paper investigates how resources available in urban agglomerations influence the organizational form, innovation activity and collaborative linkages of knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) firms. Compared with their counterparts elsewhere, KIBS located in Norwegian large city labour market regions are more likely to be independent of multi-establishment business organizations and thus reliant on resources available externally, in their locations. This is most pronounced in the central and Western business districts of the capital, wherein independent KIBS exhibit high turnover of professionals and are less inclined to engage actively in innovation. Yet, those that do engage use the capital region economy as a platform for engaging with both domestic and international collaboration partners. Only by consecutively analysing these aspects and accounting for the selection processes involved is the empirical analysis able to uncover contrasting firm-level responses to the same urban economy resource base.