IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/servic/v30y2008i1p99-118.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Policies to enhance the ‘hidden innovation’ in services: evidence and lessons from the UK

Author

Listed:
  • Maria Abreu
  • Vadim Grinevich
  • Michael Kitson
  • Maria Savona

Abstract

More than 75% of the UK economy is based on services. Knowledge-based services generate more than five times as much value added for the UK economy as advanced manufacturing. Yet, there are persistent gaps in understanding the innovative performance of services. Using Fourth UK Community Innovation Survey (CIS4) data and the results of a detailed case study analysis, this article helps to fill this gap by analysing what innovation in services means and how it can be measured. The traditional indicators of innovation inputs (such as levels of R&D expenditures) and innovation outputs (such as the number of patents) suggest that services are less innovative than other branches of the economy. We take into account a larger spectrum of innovation indicators, both in terms of innovation inputs and outputs, to analyse whether the intensity, nature and economic impact of innovation significantly varies between the manufacturing and service sectors in UK, and between different parts of the services sector such as knowledge-intensive business services and traditional services. The results of the empirical analysis identify the ‘hidden parts’ of innovation in services, that is, the innovative activities and successful innovative outputs that are traditionally underestimated by the use of metrics based on R&D and patents. We suggest a wide range of policy measures specifically targeted at enhancing innovation in services; the UK service economy needs more focus on learning and the training of personnel, and a new balance of policy to support both R&D and non-R&D innovation activities.

Suggested Citation

  • Maria Abreu & Vadim Grinevich & Michael Kitson & Maria Savona, 2008. "Policies to enhance the ‘hidden innovation’ in services: evidence and lessons from the UK," The Service Industries Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(1), pages 99-118, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:servic:v:30:y:2008:i:1:p:99-118
    DOI: 10.1080/02642060802236160
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/02642060802236160
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/02642060802236160?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Iván Arribas & Mariel Fornoni & Jose E. Vila, 2012. "An entrepreneur’s social capital and performance The role of access to information in the Argentinean case," Discussion Papers in Economic Behaviour 0712, University of Valencia, ERI-CES.
    2. Salge, Torsten Oliver, 2012. "The temporal trajectories of innovative search: Insights from public hospital services," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(4), pages 720-733.
    3. Evangelista, Rinaldo & Lucchese, Matteo & Meliciani, Valentina, 2013. "Business services, innovation and sectoral growth," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 119-132.
    4. Valentina Meliciani & Maria Savona, 2015. "The determinants of regional specialisation in business services: agglomeration economies, vertical linkages and innovation," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 15(2), pages 387-416.
    5. José Roberto Aguilar-Jiménez & José Nahed-Toral & Manuel Roberto Parra-Vázquez & Francisco Guevara-Hernández & Lucio Alberto Pat-Fernández, 2019. "Adaptability of Cattle-Raising to Multiple Stressors in the Dry Tropics of Chiapas, Mexico," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-21, April.
    6. Rinaldo Evangelista & Matteo Lucchese & Valentina Meliciani, 2013. "The contribution of Business services to the export performances of manufacturing industries. An empirical study on 5 European countries," Working Papers 14, Birkbeck Centre for Innovation Management Research, revised Nov 2013.
    7. Kluck, Christian, 2012. "Zur Beschäftigungsdynamik in der Wissensökonomie: Die Entwicklung von wissensintensiven-unternehmensorientierten Dienstleistungen in Deutschland," Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsgeographie und Regionalentwicklung 2-2012, Universität Bremen, Institut für Geographie.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:servic:v:30:y:2008:i:1:p:99-118. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/FSIJ20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.