Proceedings of the 12th European Conference on Knowledge ...

Ettore Bolisani, Marco Paiola and Enrico Scarso
Table 13: Use <strong>of</strong> knowledge protection methods by KIBS subsector
Modality (% <strong>of</strong> positive responses)
KIBS subsector
ICT D&C PFS
Total
Registered Brands 14.9% 27.0% 21.7% 21.3%
Patents 7.1% 8.2% 5.1% 6.8%
Registered Designs/Models 0.0% 10.1% 3.8% 4.7%
Copyright 1.3% 9.4% 3.2% 4.7%
Industrial secret 4.5% 7.5% 3.2% 5.1%
O<strong>the</strong>r 1.9% 7.5% 4.5% 4.7%
None 77.3% 54.1% 72.0% 67.6%
There are differences across subsectors and in relation to <strong>the</strong> kind <strong>of</strong> service <strong>of</strong>fered (which can
influence <strong>the</strong> possibility <strong>of</strong> protecting knowledge). But, as can be noted, <strong>the</strong> adoption <strong>of</strong> measures to
protect knowledge is uncommon, and with <strong>the</strong> exception <strong>of</strong> registered brands <strong>the</strong> o<strong>the</strong>r methods are
only marginally employed (Table 13).
Table 14: Use <strong>of</strong> knowledge protection methods by size class
Modality
Size class
Total
(% <strong>of</strong> positive responses)
1-4 5-9 ≥10
Registered Brands 18.2% 22.1% 35.1% 21.3%
Patents 5.8% 6.6% 12.3% 6.8%
Registered Designs/Models 5.1% 4.1% 3.5% 4.7%
Copyright 5.8% 2.5% 3.5% 4.7%
Industrial secret 5.1% 4.9% 5.3% 5.1%
O<strong>the</strong>r 5.1% 4.9% 5.3% 4.7%
None 70.4% 66.4% 56.1% 67.6%
As one can expect, <strong>the</strong> use <strong>of</strong> protection measures is more common for larger companies, although
<strong>the</strong> general pattern remains <strong>the</strong> same (Table 14).
4.8 Clients as sources <strong>of</strong> knowledge
The importance <strong>of</strong> clients as sources <strong>of</strong> key knowledge was measured following <strong>the</strong> same procedure
used in <strong>the</strong> case <strong>of</strong> suppliers. Comparing data <strong>of</strong> Table 15 with those <strong>of</strong> Table 3 reveals that clients
are considered more important as knowledge sources than suppliers. This is in line with what <strong>the</strong>
literature generally affirms (Kuusisto 2008), i.e. KIBS companies are characterized by a strict
collaboration with clients that are precious sources <strong>of</strong> knowledge for learning and developing new
services. In particular 26.2% <strong>of</strong> companies consider clients having a high importance, while this value
is 16.8% in <strong>the</strong> case <strong>of</strong> suppliers. This is mainly due to PFS and ICT companies, since <strong>the</strong> percentage
<strong>of</strong> companies that assign high importance increases from 11.0% to 24.2% and from 19.9% to 30.5%
respectively passing form suppliers to clients.
Table 15: Importance <strong>of</strong> clients as sources <strong>of</strong> knowledge by KIBS subsector
Importance <strong>of</strong> clients as Subsector
Total
sources <strong>of</strong> knowledge
ICT D&C PFS
Little 24.7% 31.0% 31.2% 29.0%
Medium 44.8% 44.9% 44.6% 44.8%
High 30.5% 24.1% 24.2% 26.2%
Also in this case, size doesn’t seem to be clearly correlated with this item (Table 16). As in <strong>the</strong> case <strong>of</strong>
suppliers, opinions <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> larger companies are more polarised than those <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> smaller ones.
Table 16: Importance <strong>of</strong> clients as sources <strong>of</strong> knowledge by size class
Importance <strong>of</strong> clients as Size class
Total
5. Conclusion
sources <strong>of</strong> knowledge
1-4 5-9 ≥10
Little 26.1% 32.2% 36.8% 29.0%
Medium 48.1% 43.0% 31.6% 44.8%
High 25.8% 24.8% 31.6% 26.2%
The aim <strong>of</strong> this paper was to investigate <strong>the</strong> issue <strong>of</strong> adoption and use <strong>of</strong> KM practices by Knowledge-
Intensive Business Services (KIBS) companies. The survey used a stratified sample statistically
representative <strong>of</strong> KIBS operating in <strong>the</strong> Veneto region (North-Eastern Italy) and belonging to three
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