Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between innovative culture, innovation efforts, and their performance among knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS). Innovation intensity is evaluated in the technical and administrative domains. Performance indicators include customer-related outcomes and market and financial results relative to competition. To provide insight into how innovativeness contributes to sustaining a KIBS' competitiveness, the mediating role of its predisposition to involve customers and front-line employees in new service development is also considered. Design/methodology/approach -In accordance with the objectives of the research, and from an extensive review of the literature, the authors develop a conceptual model and test it on a sample of 154 Spanish KIBS using structural equation modelling. Findings -The results show that KIBS' appraisal of customers' and front-line employees' participation in new service co-creation is strongly determined by the firm's innovative culture. Organizations with a greater predisposition to new service co-creation achieve higher innovation rates which lead to sustained performance. Originality/value -As dynamism of the KIBS sector has an impact on the whole economy it is also necessary to understand the most advisable management practices in KIBS to foster innovation and improved performance, although relatively few studies have approached this issue. The importance of customers and front-line employees as co-creators in new service development (NSD) is generally appreciated, although the literature is not conclusive with respect to the feasibility of co-creation and its influence on a firm's performance. The present research introduces an organizational perspective to approach co-creation by analyzing how various organizational cultural types (innovativeness, and the appraisal of front-line employees and customers as co-creators in NSD) interact and contribute to KIBS' competitiveness.

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There is widespread agreement that organizational learning (OL) and firms' innovative culture (innovativeness) positively influence organizational innovation (OI), which ultimately fosters long-term competitiveness. However, there is more limited empirical evidence on the role of OL as a forerunner of innovativeness, or on the combined effects of OL and innovativeness on OI and how performance is ultimately improved. In this research, OI is evaluated as a firm's actual ability to regularly adopt and implement more technical and administrative innovations with a greater degree of incorporated novelty relative to their main competitors. The aim is to approach innovation from a comprehensive viewpoint and to assess the attainment of superior competitive advantage in the innovation field. Effects on performance are evaluated at both the organizational level and in the commercialization of new services by means of two different conceptual models. These models are tested on a sample of 246 knowledge intensive business services (KIBS) located in Spain. We used polychoric correlations (Lee, Poon, & Bentler, 1995), together with a robust methodological approach, to analyze categorical variables in structural equation systems in EQS. The empirical results show that OL is an important antecedent for innovativeness, and that the latter plays a key role in the adoption of more technical and administrative innovations with a greater degree of incorporated novelty. Organizational learning exerts a direct effect on administrative innovation efforts although, contrary to previous research, the mediating role of innovativeness is required for the former to affect technical innovation. The research also supports the influence of OI on the attainment of competitive advantages at the business level and in the performance of new services. The greater ability of KIBS to innovate thus constitutes an invaluable resource to foster customer performance and profitability at the business level and in the commercialization of new service offerings.

There is widespread agreement that organizational learning (OL) and firms' innovative culture (innovativeness) positively influence organizational innovation (OI), which ultimately fosters long-term competitiveness. However, there is more limited empirical evidence on the role of OL as a forerunner of innovativeness, or on the combined effects of OL and innovativeness on OI and how performance is ultimately improved. In this research, OI is evaluated as a firm's actual ability to regularly adopt and implement more technical and administrative innovations with a greater degree of incorporated novelty relative to their main competitors. The aim is to approach innovation from a comprehensive viewpoint and to assess the attainment of superior competitive advantage in the innovation field. Effects on performance are evaluated at both the organizational level and in the commercialization of new services by means of two different conceptual model. These models are tested on a sample of 246 knowledge intensive business services (KIBS) located in Spain. We used polychoric correlations (Lee, Poon, & Bentler, 1995), together with a robust methodological approach, to analyze categorical variables in structural equation systems in EQS. The empirical results show that OL is an important antecedent for innovativeness, and that the latter plays a key role in the adoption of more technical and administrative innovations with a greater degree of incorporated novelty. Organizational learning exerts a direct effect on administrative innovation efforts although, contrary to previous research, the mediating role of innovativeness is required for the former to affect technical innovation. The research also supports the influence of OI on the attainment of competitive advantages at the business level and in the performance of new services. The greater ability of KIBS to innovate thus constitutes an invaluable resource to foster customer performance and profitability at the business level and in the commercialization of new service offerings.

IntroducciónEn el contexto nacional actual, el sector de construcción naval constituye una industria de síntesis y ensamblaje que fabrica un producto singular, difícilmente estandarizable, de elevado valor unitario, largo período de producción y muy sensible al ciclo económico (Cerezo, 2004; pymaR, 2014; suaz, 2012). Esta caracterización del sector es la consecuencia de los importantes procesos de reconversión industrial que el mismo experimentó en el marco de las últimas décadas del pasado siglo xx.Entre otros aspectos, tal reconversión derivó en una importante reducción de la capacidad de producción y las plantillas propias de las empresas, la externalización de actividades y costes, y la utilización intensiva de empresas de la industria auxiliar. Consecuencia de ello, el sector, entendido en un sentido amplio, está en la actualidad integrado por dos tipos de empresas claramente diferenciados: de un lado, los astilleros (empresas tractoras), encargados del diseño de los proyectos y la construcción de los buques, cuyas plantillas se caracterizan por elevada formación y cualificación, mayor edad media y superior grado de estabilidad en el empleo. Del otro, las empresas de la industria auxiliar suministradoras de equipos, componentes y servicios que cuentan con plantillas más jóvenes, menos cualificadas y con menor estabilidad en el empleo.La evolución reciente y la supervivencia futura de las empresas españolas que desarrollan su actividad en este sector se vincula estrechamente con la expansión internacional de las empresas tractoras. La proyección fuera de nuestras fronteras requiere, a su vez, del incremento de la competitividad de estas