KIBS 嵌入对中国制造业贸易竞争优势的促动效应

随着产业的不断分化和价值链的延长,知识密集型服务业(KIBS)嵌入对制造业的贸易竞争优势产生了至关重要的作用。本文通过面板矫正标准误差(PCSE)模型实证中国KIBS对制造业贸易竞争优势带来的复杂效应。从整体KIBS对中国制造业贸易竞争优势的促动效应看,KIBS只对技术密集型制造业具有较大的正面促动效应,对资本密集型制造业几乎没有影响,而对于劳动密集型制造业反而具有明显的负作用。从具体KIBS看,科学研究服务和信息通讯服务业对制造业贸易竞争优势具有明显的正向带动作用,金融服务业的发展对不同要素密集度制造业的贸易竞争优势具有非对称性的影响,而商务服务则对各种要素密集度制造业的贸易竞争优势都具有明显的负面影响。     

Embracing realism and recognizing choice in IT offshoring initiatives

As more and more firms move activities offshore to countries that are distantly located from their home base of operations, the initial advantages of making this move are increasingly tempered by realities on the ground. For firms contemplating offshoring today, it is important to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of undertaking or extending this strategy in light of what we now know. Broadly speaking, successful offshoring must begin with an understanding of the market and competitive pressures that encourage offshoring, and then build on recognition of how these pressures can be addressed using or modifying the offshoring options currently practiced. Our discussion of these issues is based on analysis of offshoring of IT-enabled services by Fortune Global 500 firms in such areas as software development and business processes that support customer interaction.     

Dynamics of Firm Profitability and Growth: Do Knowledge-Intensive (Business) Services Persistently Outperform?

This paper explores the persistence of profitability and growth for firms operating in the Greek service sector, paying special attention to knowledge-intensive services (KIS) and knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS). The generalized method of moments is used on a rich panel of firms over a recent nine-year period. Quantile regressions are complementarily applied for KIS and KIBS industries. The key results from both growth and profit dynamics suggest that firms in KIS and KIBS industries persistently outperform firms in less knowledge-intensive service industries, pointing to strategic advantages of the former. Importantly, KIS and KIBS seem to be able to sustain their growth and profitability persistent trends even in times of crisis. Further insight into these issues is provided by the quantile analysis, the exploration of the profitability and growth inter-linkages, and the investigation of differences among various size groups in KIS and KIBS.     

Does innovativeness of knowledge-intensive business services differ from other industries?

This article seeks to determine whether the innovative capabilities of knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) do actually differ from other industries through comparing the innovation capacities and financial performance of KIBS with firms operating in other sectors (non-KIBS). Based upon a 1000-firm sample, the results of our estimated econometric model demonstrate that non-KIBS firms are in possession of significantly greater innovation capacities than KIBS firms. These differences were observed across factors such as organisational process innovation, the launch of already existing products in new markets, branding and new product designs. Nevertheless, as regards the actual importance attributed to product/service innovation, KIBS firms place a greater comparative importance on innovation in comparison with their non-KIBS peers. In addition, the empirical evidences display a significantly different range of effects of innovation capacities on financial performance and concludes that non-KIBS firms turn in better comparative performances than specialist KIBS firms.     

Multinational investment and host country development: Location efficiencies for services offshoring

Services offshoring has become an important source of investment and development in many emerging economies. While much attention has been paid to companies’ use of services offshoring to lower costs, not all of these offshoring activities have yielded the anticipated results. Thus, the choice of where to locate offshore facilities is an important yet complex one that has substantial implications for both the investing firm and host country. In this paper, we adopt the perspectives of service firms located in the U.S. and empirically examine the attractiveness of host countries for offshoring of services. Using data envelopment analysis (DEA), we examine which countries use their resources or inputs most efficiently in order to produce outputs that make them attractive for services offshoring. We find that China, India, Ireland, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Slovakia, Spain, and the U.K. are particularly attractive locations for services offshoring. All of these countries have at least one core efficiency-creating competency among the key inputs of wages, education, and infrastructure. We discuss implications for firms and government policy makers and offer recommendations for future research.     

服务型跨国公司全球模块化与服务业国际转移及其对中国的启示

日趋激烈的全球竞争迫使服务型跨国公司必须更加高效地整合全球资源,增强全球竞争力和创新能力。全球模块化为服务型跨国公司实现这一目标提供了重要路径,也在客观上有力地推动了服务业国际转移。本文首先进行了相关理论综述;然后分析了服务型跨国公司实施全球模块化的可行性;接着阐释服务型跨国公司全球模块化是如何发展及其如何推动服务业国际转移,并选取国际快递业作为新样本行业进行理论检验;最后,对中国服务企业应该如何运用全球模块化来更好地承接服务业国际转移或整合全球战略性服务资源提出相关政策建议。     

The moderating effects of service solution characteristics on competitive advantage

The objective of this study is to improve the understanding of the moderating effects of service solution characteristics on competitive advantage of knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS). This study is among the first to systematically operationalize the contingents in the absorptive capacity construct as service solution characteristics, that is, intangibility, heterogeneity, inseparability, and perishability, and tested them in the KIBS sector. Using a sample of 327 new technology-based KIBS firms in Finland, a hierarchical multiple regression analysis is applied to test the hypothesized moderator effects. The results suggest that service solution characteristics moderate the effects of the antecedents on absorptive capacity and the effect of absorptive capacity on competitive advantage. Guidelines are provided to practitioners to deal with projects with different service solution characteristics.     

Service Offshoring and Productivity: Evidence from the US

The practice of sourcing service inputs from overseas suppliers has been growing in response to new technologies that have made it possible to trade in some business and computing services that were previously considered non‐tradable. This paper estimates the effects of offshoring on productivity in US manufacturing industries between 1992 and 2000. It finds that service offshoring has a significant positive effect on productivity in the United States, accounting for around 10 per cent of labour productivity growth during this period. Offshoring material inputs also have a positive effect on productivity, but the magnitude is smaller accounting for approximately 5 per cent of productivity growth.     

A comparative study of innovation behaviour in Singapore's KIBS and manufacturing firms

While most services innovation studies are concentrated on the OECD or EU countries, research on services innovation in the non-OECD context is still rare. This study investigates innovation behaviour of a certain group of services – knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS), compared with the manufacturing sector in Singapore. The main findings of this study are: (1) KIBS firms have higher innovating ratio than manufacturing firms, but innovating manufacturing firms are more likely to do R&D than innovating KIBS firms; (2) KIBS firms have higher human capital intensity, training spending intensity, innovation spending intensity, and R&D spending intensity than manufacturing firms; (3) KIBS firms and manufacturing firms have similar innovation objectives, although some delicate nuances do exist; (4) KIBS firms are less likely to have overseas partners for innovation collaboration than manufacturing firms; (5) there is a U pattern of innovation collaboration with geographic distance for both KIBS and manufacturing firms; (6) social capitals are important for KIBS firms' successful provision of innovation support to manufacturing clients; (7) the importance of spatial proximity varies over different phases of innovation support.     

Developing Pharmacy Services: a Customer-driven Interaction and Counselling Approach

In recent years, many traditional businesses have been facing demands to extend their core product and incorporate a substantial service element. The transition from traditional business to service enterprise cannot be accomplished without considerable attention being given to ways of fulfilling cus- tomer needs. This study looks at the pharmacy business and asks what kind of pharmacy services different customer groups want, how these groups can be distinguished and what the implications are for pharmacy service development. It identifies four customer groups - the contented, phormacist- dependent customer, the independent customer, the infor- mation seeker and the discontented customer -and concludes that the future success of the pharmacies depends on how much they take the desires of these groups into consideration in developing their services.     

Foresight in services: possibilities and special challenges

Service sectors have been only loosely linked to foresight projects considered essential for wiring up innovation systems. This article examines possibilities and methodological challenges in the foresight of services on the basis of a study conducted in Finland in knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS). It also provides empirical results about the future trends in KIBS. The most central of these are the growing emphasis on a consultative way of working and broad service solutions, the tightening linkages to clients' strategies, the blurring of sectoral boundaries and the diversification of the forms of internationalisation.     

Co-evolution of global sourcing: The need to understand the underlying mechanisms of firm-decisions to offshore

In this introductory paper, we first discuss the emergence of global sourcing of business services and how these have been largely ignored in the IB field. Offshoring of business services has reached substantial proportions. Despite the radical growth, IB research on global sourcing is still in its infancy. Offshoring of business services represents a new type of internationalization. The offshoring of high-value services confronts companies with many of the challenges that are typical of an internationalization process in which well-known models and concepts of internationalization are applicable but also leave important unanswered questions requiring reconsideration and revision of these theoretical positions. Offshoring of business services is fundamentally different from outsourcing offshore of manufacturing activities. Using data from the Offshore Research Network (ORN), we track patterns of the emergence and diffusion of global sourcing of business services. On the basis of these new insights, we make a plea for a more encompassing, co-evolutionary perspective of global sourcing stressing the interactions between managerial intentionality, path-dependent experience and knowledge accumulation, as well as the institutional and selection forces. In particular, we develop a co-evolutionary offshore decision model integrating managerial intentionality, knowledge/experience and institutional and selection forces that explain the heterogeneous outcomes of offshoring. Although emergent outcomes of co-evolutionary dynamics are highly idiosyncratic, we identify in this paper some underlying mechanism that drive specific global sourcing patterns. Finally, we position the papers of this special issue in this co-evolutionary model.     

A longitudinal examination of HRM in a human resources offshoring (HRO) organization operating from India

Human resources offshoring (HRO) forms a significant part of the Indian business process offshoring (BPO) market. This paper assesses HRM in the emergent HRO sector. Longitudinal case-study research enables an in-depth examination of the development of HRM practices in an HRO organization where offshored HR services are delivered from two different cities in India. The paper highlights the development of HR activities focused on extrinsic incentives, rewards and penalties to influence employee behaviour. These practices are mediated by indigenous traditions, the nature of the service offering; management style and an aspiration to ‘role model’ systematic HR practices.     

‘Do versus Buy’ Decisions in the Demand for Knowledge Intensive Business Services

The search for the maximum use of scale and agglomeration economies and the need to operate firms in the most flexible way have provided a strong impulse for companies to increase their use of external intermediate services. Because of their strategic role, the use of business services that are intensive both in labour qualification and in technological requirements is key for these policies. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the patterns followed by companies in the two relevant decisions on this issue: firstly, whether to use knowledge intensive business services or not and, secondly, whether (and to what extent) to buy these services from another firm or to provide them inside the organisation. In both cases, we intend to identify the factors that affect the ‘do versus buy’ decision with respect to total KIBS as well as particular categories. A specific feature in our study is that it focuses on the behaviour of firms working in a region without a well-developed supply of KIBS. Applying discrete response models to the data obtained in a survey elaborated by the authors, the most relevant variables for the use of KIBS are satisfaction with previous outsourcing experiences and location of the firm in a large urban centre, but they do not affect their external provision. The size of the firm, its export orientation and its technological complexity have opposite effects on use and outsourcing.     

作为区域创新体系支持系统的科技中介服务

科技中介服务是一种典型的知识密集型商业服务(knowledge-intensivebusinessservices,KIBS)。在中国,随着人们对区域创新体系的重视日渐升级,人们对创新体系的研究方兴未艾,服务业发展的滞后和政府对中介服务组织的控制就都显现为制约创新体系形成和发展的障碍。继续深化体制改革、改善研究与开发中介服务、加强创新体系研究、倡导发展知识密集型服务是大力推进中国创新体系发展和区际经济发展的重要途径。     

Shopping Motives

Knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) are a key sector in any knowledge economy, and as such they are subject to multiple policy influences. This article considers the inadvertent impacts of policies on KIBS, using examples drawn from the policy setting in Finland. The key elements of the policy environment are described, with particular attention to innovation policy and small and medium enterprise support policies. The direct and indirect effects of public policies on KIBS are explored with particular attention to effects on innovativeness. The role of research and training organisations as a semi-competitor of KIBS is highlighted. The examples analysed suggest that policy has simultaneously both positive and negative impacts on the innovativeness of KIBS industries.     

Knowledge-exchange strategies between KIBS firms and their clients

Based on a survey of 1124 knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) firms, this paper explores the extent and determinants of knowledge exchange between KIBS and their clients. An ordered logistic regression was estimated. The results show that the propensity of KIBS firms to rely more on a commoditization strategy and less on a personalization strategy increases with the variety of research sources of information, the number of knowledge employees, the variety of knowledge management practices, the firm's size, the business age, and being a KIBS firm operating in a technology-based industry rather than a traditional professional industry, while it decreases with R&D investments, the variety of advanced technologies, and the strength of ties.     

Solutions for customer complaints about offshoring and outsourcing services

In order to provide the highest quality services at lower costs, global firms have shifted their customer service functions offshore. Despite the apparent advantages of offshoring services, customers tend to object to the practice based on concerns about private/personal information being sent overseas. Additionally, executing service exchanges with overseas providers can be challenging because of perceived communication difficulties and cultural differences. The purpose of this article is to offer managers of firms that offshore services a clearer understanding of consumer concerns and provide guidance for alleviating these concerns. Specifically, suggestions are proffered regarding how to (1) minimize communication and cultural misunderstandings between customers and service providers, (2) assure customers that personal/private information is secure, and (3) restructure service activities to alleviate customer dissatisfaction. Unless such customer concerns are successfully identified and addressed, companies may not benefit from pursuing a services offshoring strategy.     

Knowledge intensive business services and their impact on innovation in China

This study investigates the impact of knowledge intensive business services (KIBS) on innovation in China. First, we review the development of KIBS in China by analyzing the agglomeration, utilization, and quality of KIBS. Second, regression techniques are employed to investigate the impact of KIBS on innovation in the Chinese economy. We found that KIBS are becoming a major force in promoting innovation, especially in eastern China. Furthermore, we also found that the effect of KIBS on innovation is highly related to the average level of human capital. Given the findings in this study, we provided some policy suggestions.     

Managing industrial service co-design: identifying challenges from technology firms

This article investigates how the co-design of industrial services is managed by technology firms. Through multiple-case studies within high-technology semiconductor companies, the article finds that overlapped stages and collective action require considerations on a case-by-case basis as determined by business opportunities, industry standards, existing organisational practice and service level agreements. The major contribution of this article is a connection between recent research emphasising the importance of providing industrial services, and established literature on co-design. Key service operations management challenges are also identified and discussed in terms of the need for studies and frameworks to coordinate negotiations for enhanced service encounters, to critique industrial service co-design, and to integrated information during service design.