Exploring the relationship between KIBS co-location and the innovativeness of the manufacturing firms in Latin America

Abstract

Literature has provided empirical evidence showing the importance of location for understanding KIBS effective service provision. According to territorial servitization postulates KIBS are also fundamental for the development of the manufacturing firms. Despite KIBS can be an important source of innovation, limited attention is paid of KIBS in Latin America region. The purpose of this research is analysing the relationship between KIBS co-location and innovativeness of the manufacturing firms. Drawing on the World Bank Enterprise Survey 2017 for Latin-American countries, authors analyse 3,029 manufacturing firms using OLS method. Findings indicate that manufacturing firms’ location based on KIBS proximity is a critical determinant of innovativeness. This relationship is considerably stronger in Central American countries, where according to our data there is KIBS scarcity.

Exploring the Effects of Innovation Strategies and Size on Manufacturing Firms’ Productivity and Environmental Impact

“…Therefore, more policy effort should be put into fostering the acquisition of new skills among enterprises. Similarly, the creation of specialized service firms should be encouraged and linkages with other manufacturing firms should be fostered to contribute to the servitization strategy [99].…”

Innovation in Micro Firms Builders of Machine Tool? Effects of T-KIBS on technological and non-technological innovations

“…Likewise, they can act as innovation facilitators or knowledge intermediaries (Czarnitzki & Spielkamp, 2003;Hertog, 2000) since they support clients in the development of their innovation processes. More recent studies explore the relationship between KIBS and manufacturing firms with regards to different issues, such as: the factors that influence the purchasing decisions of a firm's customers (Kohtamäki & Partanen, 2016), the vertical integration in several industries (Antonietti, Ferrante, & Leoncini, 2014) where KIBS are an effective carrier of productionbased R&D to manufacturing firms (Bustinza et al, 2019;Ciriaci et al, 2015;García-Quevedo, Mas-Verdú, & Montolio, 2013), the transfer of knowledge on firms' innovation and technology commercialisation processes (Zhou & Wang, 2020), supporting the emergence of circular oriented innovation (Pereira & Vence, 2021), internationalization (Shearmur, Doloreux, & Laperrière, 2015), as well as the co-location of KIBS (Brunow, Hammer, & McCann, 2020;Seclen-Luna & Moya-Fernández, 2020) and territorial servitization (Lafuente, Vaillant, & Vendrell-Herrero, 2019).…”

“…Thirdly, the analysis carried out in this exploratory study is of a cross-sectional nature, and so it does not capture all the dynamics of the innovation process; further research on this issue would therefore also be valuable. Lastly, it would also be very worthwhile to carry out comparative studies among European regions (Ciriaci et al, 2015;Schricke et al, 2012;Vaillant et al, 2021) and even beyond European boundaries (Seclen-Luna & Moya-Fernández, 2020), which would help governments to improve their industrial policies. Thus, future research will need to corroborate the results in specific contexts in a long-term analysis, to determine some of the causal mechanisms.…”

Effects of the use of digital technologies on the performance of firms in a developing country: are there differences between creative and manufacturing industries?

“…Through projects in companies, IT consulting firms can increase productivity through the transfer of knowledge from one part of the business to another. This makes the learning process quicker and easier, mainly because it reduces the training time and can lead to the development of innovations [37]. IT consultants also facilitate communication between firms and clients because they give assistance in solving problems related to services and products [38].…”