KIBS Companies and Their Importance for Economy and Innovation

Companies offering knowledge-intensive business services are subject to various types of analyses, both at the macroeconomic and microeconomic level. In the literature, you can find reviews of previous research on these companies, but they cover time-limited or selected publications. Therefore, this chapter presents the available reviews of the literature on KIBS companies along with the research phases and then presents the results of a systematic review of the literature on these companies. Generally, three phases of research on the KIBS companies were distinguished. The first phase concerned mainly the identification of KIBS companies and related theoretical aspects. The second phase of research was devoted to providing empirical evidence for the uniqueness of KIBS. The third phase of research, which continues until today, includes an in-depth analysis of various factors and conditions related to the activities of these companies and their relations with the broadly understood environment (customers, partners, suppliers, R&D institutions, competitors, etc.). The study analyses KIBS companies in relation to innovations, their interactions with the environment, their basic resource and other research areas, such as human resources management, productivity, efficiency and growth, trust, etc. In the final section of the chapter the importance of the KIBS sector for the economy is presented. This chapter should be especially useful for researchers, managers and policy makers dealing with KIBS companies.