Is Human Capital the Key Factor in Explaining Business Location Differences? Knowledge Intensive Business Services in Portugal

The purpose of this paper is to verify if the human capital is the key factor in explaining business location differences on Portuguese knowledge intensive business services (KIBS) sector. A logistic regression model is applied, adopting rural versus urban and human resources as the key dimensions. We combine business locations with graduate employee rates to assess whether these aspects are determinant in the KIBS sector or if they vary from firm to firm. Our results demonstrate that rural professional and technological KIBS employ more graduate human resources than urban KIBS. As regards their urban professional and technological KIBS counterparts, we may statistically state that the employment of higher education qualified professionals is not related to KIBS type. Furthermore, we conclude that the employment of graduate human resources, the age and the academic background of business owners do have a statistically significant impact on the logit probability of a KIBS company locating in a rural environment.

[1]  R. Stough,et al.  Theories of Endogenous Regional Growth : Lessons for Regional Policies , 2011 .

[2]  B. Verspagen,et al.  Systems of Innovation , 2009 .

[3]  Wilfred Dolfsma,et al.  Innovation in service firms explored: what, how and why? , 2003 .

[4]  F. Gallouj.  Innovation in the Service Economy , 2002 .

[5]  Paul M. Romer,et al.  The Origins of Endogenous Growth , 1994 .

[6]  Raffaele Paci,et al.  Technological Enclaves and Industrial Districts: An Analysis of the Regional Distribution of Innovative Activity in Europe , 1997 .

[7]  A. Zenker,et al.  Business services as actors of knowledge transformation: the role of KIBS in regional and national innovation systems , 2001 .

[8]  B. Tether,et al.  The sources and aims of innovation in services: Variety between and within sectors , 2003 .

[9]  K. Pavitt.  Sectoral Patterns of Technical Change : Towards a Taxonomy and a Theory : Research Policy , 1984 .

[10]  Knut Koschatzky,et al.  Innovation networks : concepts and challenges in the European perspective , 2001 .

[11]  Manfred M. Fischer,et al.  Metropolitan Innovation Systems: Theory and Evidence from Three Metropolitan Regions in Europe , 2001 .

[12]  Faïz Gallouj,et al.  Innovation in services , 1997 .

[13]  R. Stough,et al.  Theories of Endogenous Regional Growth , 2001 .

[14]  Naresh K. Malhotra,et al.  Marketing Research: An Applied Orientation , 1993 .

[15]  R. Barras.  Interactive innovation in financial and business services: The vanguard of the service revolution , 1993 .

[16]  Ian Miles,et al.  SERVICES INNOVATION: COMING OF AGE IN THE KNOWLEDGE-BASED ECONOMY , 2000 .

[17]  Simone Strambach,et al.  The contribution of KIBS to innovation in cities: an evolutionary and institutional perspective , 2006, J. Knowl. Manag..

[18]  Marc H. Meyer,et al.  Product development for services , 1999 .

[19]  P. Hertog.  KNOWLEDGE-INTENSIVE BUSINESS SERVICES AS CO-PRODUCERS OF INNOVATION , 2000 .

[20]  Ian Miles,et al.  Services and the Knowledge-Based Economy , 2000 .

[21]  Peter R. Wood.  Consultancy and Innovation: The Business Service Revolution in Europe , 2001 .

[22]  Manfred M. Fischer,et al.  Metropolitan Innovation Systems , 2001 .

[23]  C. Edquist.  Systems of Innovation: Technologies, Institutions and Organizations , 1997 .

[24]  Karl Wennberg,et al.  Knowledge Intensive Entrepreneurship , 2010 .

[25]  Johan Hauknes,et al.  Services in innovation - Innovation in services , 1998 .

[26]  Emmanuel Muller.  Innovation interactions between knowledge-intensive business services and small and medium-sized enterprises : an analysis in terms of evolution, knowledge and territories , 2001 .

[27]  R. Barras.  Towards a theory of innovation in services , 1986 .

[28]  Richard R. Nelson,et al.  Neoclassical vs. Evolutionary Theories of Economic Growth: Critique and Prospectus , 1974 .

[29]  Amy L. Ostrom,et al.  Client Co-Production in Knowledge-Intensive Business Services , 2002 .

[30]  Karl Wennberg,et al.  Knowledge Intensive Entrepreneurship: The Birth, Growth and Demise of Entrepreneurial Firms , 2010 .

[31]  D. Doloreux,et al.  Urban Hierarchy or Local Buzz? High-Order Producer Service and (or) Knowledge-Intensive Business Service Location in Canada, 1991–2001 , 2008 .

[32]  Jean Gadrey,et al.  Productivity, Innovation and Knowledge in Services , 2002 .

[33]  Jon Sundbo.  Management of Innovation in Services , 1997 .

[34]  Geoffrey J. D. Hewings,et al.  Information technology and urban spatial structure: A comparative analysis of the Chicago and Seoul regions , 2003 .

[35]  I. Miles.  Innovation Systems in the Service Economy , 2000 .

[36]  Daniel A. Levinthal,et al.  ABSORPTIVE CAPACITY: A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON LEARNING AND INNOVATION , 1990 .

[37]  Peter R H Wood.  A service-informed approach to regional innovation – or adaptation? , 2005 .

[38]  Jeremy Howells,et al.  Research and Technology Outsourcing and Systems of Innovation , 2000 .

[39]  T. J. Kim,et al.  The spatial dispersion of economic activities and development trends in China: 1952–1985 , 2001 .

[40]  Alfred Thwaites,et al.  The regional distribution of innovative manufacturing establishments in Britain , 1980 .

[41]  I. Nonaka.  A Dynamic Theory of Organizational Knowledge Creation , 1994 .

[42]  D. Teece.  Profiting from technological innovation: Implications for integration, collaboration, licensing and public policy , 1993 .

[43]  A. Morrison,et al.  Globalization of Production and Innovation: How Outsourcing is Reshaping an Advanced Manufacturing Area , 2010 .

[44]  Raffaele Paci,et al.  The Complementary Effects of Proximity Dimensions on Knowledge Spillovers , 2011 .

[45]  Arne Isaksen,et al.  Knowledge Intensive Business Services and Urban Industrial Development , 2007 .

[46]  I. Nonaka,et al.  A firm as a knowledge-creating entity: a new perspective on the theory of the firm , 2000 .

[47]  W. V. D. Aa,et al.  Realizing innovation in services , 2002 .

[48]  C. Freeman.  Economics of Industrial Innovation , 1975 .

[49]  Pim Den Hertog,et al.  Co-producers of Innovation: On the Role of Knowledge-intensive Business Services in Innovation , 2002 .

[50]  A. Johne,et al.  New service development: a review of the literature and annotated bibliography , 1998 .

[51]  S. Illeris.  Producer services: the key sector for future economic development? , 1989 .

[52]  Richard R. Nelson,et al.  Growth Theory from an Evolutionary Perspective: The Differential Productivity Puzzle , 1975 .

[53]  Peter R H Wood,et al.  The regional significance of knowledge-intensive services in europe , 2006 .

[54]  B. Tether.  Do Services Innovate (Differently)? Insights from the European Innobarometer Survey , 2005 .

[55]  Manfred M. Fischer,et al.  Spatial knowledge spillovers and university research: Evidence from Austria , 2003 .

[56]  B. Lundvall,et al.  The Learning Economy , 1994 .

[57]  Simone Strambach,et al.  Innovation Processes and the Role of Knowledge-Intensive Business Services (KIBS) , 2001 .

[58]  S. Winter,et al.  In search of useful theory of innovation , 1993 .

[59]  Emmanuel Muller,et al.  The key dimensions of knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) analysis: a decade of evolution , 2007 .

[60]  M. Freel,et al.  Patterns of Technological Innovation in Knowledge‐Intensive Business Services , 2006 .