Narrow Results

This paper adds business services to Feenstra and Hanson’s (1996) model to show that if a country is more prosperous in business services, tending to carry out less international outsourcing activities than it would otherwise. In this model, the more varieties of specialized business services a country endows, the more welfare gains arise in the presence of positive production externalities to the manufacturing sector. Since developed countries are more prosperous in business service sector, this model helps to explain why the impact of opening trade on the dispersion of both wages and unemployment is stronger in developing economies.

In the unfolding knowledge-based economy, services do matter. But while they are increasingly seen to play a pivotal role in innovation processes, there has been little systematic analysis of this role. This essay presents a four-dimensional model of (services) innovation, that points to the significance of such non-technological factors in innovation as new service concepts, client interfaces and service delivery system. The various roles of service firms in innovation processes are mapped out by identifying five basic service innovation patterns. This framework is used to make an analysis of the role played by knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) in innovation. KIBS are seen to function as facilitator, carrier or source of innovation, and through their almost symbiotic relationship with client firms, some KIBS function as co-producers of innovation. It is further argued that, in addition to discrete and tangible forms of knowledge exchange, process-oriented and intangible forms of knowledge flows are crucial in such relationships. KIBS are hypothesised to be gradually developing into a "second knowledge infrastructure" in addition to the formal (public) "first knowledge infrastructure", though there is likelihood of cross-national variations in the spill-over effects from services innovation in and through KIBS, and in the degree to which KIBS are integrated with other economic activities. Finally, some implications for innovation management and innovation policy are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of knowledge absorptive capacity (KAC) on innovation orientation in business services. An empirical analysis was conducted on two samples (scientific experts and—in the next step, business service companies). The authors applied one-way ANOVA, HSD Tukey’s post hoc tests, and structural equation modelling. Approached from a knowledge-based view, this research has found that the impact of KAC on all six innovation orientation dimensions is significant and positive. This empirical evidence also supports the thesis that KAC impacts the business performance of firms. Managers should raise a company’s competitive advantage by introducing an innovation orientation, which requires a high level of KAC. This study advances the literature on KAC and innovation orientation by confirming the significant impact of KAC on business performance and a firm’s innovation orientation.

This study uses newly available representative data from German business services firms and a continuous treatment approach based on the generalised propensity score to test for a causal effect of R&D activities (measured by the share of engineers and natural scientists in all employees) on the share of exports in total sales. We find evidence for a positive and statistically significant but small causal effect. This result is in line with the (non-causal) results reported in Vogel and Wagner (2014) based on regression models with and without control for unobserved time-invariant firm characteristics. The bottom line, then, is that R&D activity does matter for success of German business services firms on export markets — but not much.

The advancement of technologies has tremendous impact on e-commerce industry, where start-ups change the competitive landscape by meeting the continuously changing social needs, and established players seek opportunities for disruptive innovation in every aspects of their businesses. Based on the review of e-commerce current status and future tendencies, emerging technologies, and maturity or growth models in the domains of business and technologies, the authors develop an e-commerce maturity model. The model can be used for e-commerce maturity assessment in the competitive environment and as a roadmap leading to a desired stage for performance improvement.

We employ a computable general equilibrium model of the Russian economy to assess the impact of accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) on income distribution and the poor. We incorporate all 55,098 households from the Russian Household Budget Survey as agents in the model. The model includes FDI in services and Dixit–Stiglitz endogenous productivity effects in imperfectly competitive goods and services sectors, features which are crucial to the results. We show that incorporating the diversity of households though a real household model is important for assessing household impacts, but getting the key model features right is equally important.

This study investigates the patterns in regional culture that enable and enhance open innovation and drive the transformation towards an open innovation culture. Based on the existing literature on open innovation in regions, a framework of innovation dilemmas is developed to assess how regions can address seemingly conflicting demands and find a dynamic balance that is appropriate for the regional context in order to develop an open innovation culture. The framework is applied to three regions, in The Netherlands, representing different types of geographically centred open innovation networks, where empirical research has been conducted of the interaction in open innovation processes between firms, knowledge institutes, regional governments and innovation support agencies. The research shows that different regional contexts result in different requirements for cultures conducive to open innovation. It is concluded that the framework of innovation culture dilemmas can serve as an analytical tool to identify elements in the regional culture conducive to open innovation and/or hampering open innovation, and can be used by regional actors in the innovation system to identify necessary measures to support open innovation.