Research and development service firms (RDSFs), a subsector of knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS), provide contract R&D services to third parties for payment. They are a major generator of new technological knowledge serving manufacturing and non-manufacturing industries. Their innovation activities are in the up-stream of the knowledge creation value chain. This explorative study focuses on R&D service firms and their innovation activities. We have adopted a qualitative research design seeking to address the need to strengthen theory-building on service innovation, and in particular to extend the limited empirical evidence on RDSFs innovation. The literature on innovation in services and KIBS constitutes a strong theoretical foundation of this study. It provides the conceptual tools upon which we develop a working definition of RDSFs and ground our analysis. We examine the long-term development of the UK's R&D Service Sector using secondary data. This builds a 'real-life context' for case studies on innovation in RDSFs. Qualitative research was conducted through semi-structured interviews with 32 firms in the UK. Analysis revealed the heterogeneous nature of these firms by identifying four main business models. Moreover, our findings point towards a clearly defined typology of RDSFs based on a combination of innovation drivers and outcomes. Four fundamentally different types of RDSFs can be identified: Technology-based innovation exploiters, Science-focused innovation explorers, Client-led innovation integrators, and Open innovation translators. This thesis contributes to the research on the supply side of R&D outsourcing by elaborating the development, business and innovation activities of RDSFs. It also contributes to understanding innovation in specific KIBS sub-sector by providing empirical evidence on the innovation processes of RDSFs.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:713643 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Li, Xiuqin |
| Contributors | Miles, Ian |
| Publisher | University of Manchester |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/innovation-process-in-research-and-development-service-firms-the-case-of-the-uk(1f322b32-6d2d-495e-92d7-7fb1b745b252).html |
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