Knowledge Spillovers and Knowledge Intensive Business Services: An Empirical Study

Knowledge is increasingly perceived as a central factor for company competitiveness. With the transfer of knowledge one of the core functions of knowledge intensive business service (KIBS) companies, the objective of our research incorporates analysis on how the transfer of knowledge takes place between the higher education sector and the KIBS universe. Our empirical results demonstrate that cooperation between KIBS and universities occurs independent of their location (rural or urban) and typology (professional or technological). We furthermore found that rural KIBS have increased their levels of graduate employment faster than their urban KIBS peers.