Collaborative Innovation and Imitation in the KIBS Industry

In today’s economy, innovation – broadly defined as the commercialization of new knowledge - has become one of the key drivers of productivity and growth. Its prominent role has made it an important issue to be analyzed by the literature. The same attention has not been devoted to imitation. While it is actually a more diffused phenomenon of innovation, the “social stigma” associated to it has lead researchers to largely neglect this topic. Innovation and imitation have several common aspects, one of which is uncertainty. In fast changing environments, both for the innovator and the imitator is difficult to forecast the results of their efforts. In these situations, firms build external ties and relationships with other actors working in the same environment. Through these ties they can share information and resources (tacit and explicit knowledge, human or economic resources, technologies and other assets) in order to face better environmental uncertainty and reach the desired outcome. These are the basis of what has been called “open innovation”. The aim of this work is then to determine how different external search strategies can affect innovative and imitative output. The sector of reference is the KIBS industry, a fast-growing part of services, which is considered fundamental for innovation not only for service sector, but also for the manufacturing one.