• Innovation Protection in Knowledge-Intensive Business Services: The Case Study of IT Services

Abstract

This study examined how innovations in knowledge-intensive business services can be protected. On the basis of the extension of the knowledge regime framework proposed by Howells et al. (2003), a qualitative research was conducted to construct appropriability modes for IT service firms by emphasizing three types of knowledge (product, management, and customer) and two forms of appropriability (formal and informal). We purposefully selected three cases by using the grounded comparative approach and conducted text analysis by utilizing a pattern-matching technique. The results revealed that these three IT service firms have homogeneous patterns that form appropriability modes of product knowledge, and that they conduct mixed appropriability strategies to protect their innovations through a combination of formal and informal methods. We propose five theoretical propositions that offer insightful implications regarding the mixed usage of appropriability modes and outline some of the theoretical and managerial contributions of this study.

Keywords: Knowledge-Intensive Business Services (Kibs), Innovation Protection, IT-Service Firms