Heft36 1 - SFB 580 - Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena

ORGANISATIONAL LITERATUR INNOVATION IN HUNGARY
There are also differences between the
knowledge development practices of the
KIBS firms representing different production
strategies. The share of the followers of simple
standardisation strategies in the different
training practices is significantly lower than
for other categories, which implies that more
flexible production strategies require more
investment in knowledge development (see
Table 5).
Table 5. Knowledge development practice and production strategies
Type of knowledge
development
Simple
standardisation
Diversified
standardisation
Simple
customisation
Diversified
customisation
Courses organized and
financed by the firm
Courses selected by an employee
but financed by the firm
Courses supported by
working time reduction
Relying on customer
knowledge
18.8% 36.0% 33.3% 37.0%
6.3% 6.9% 13.3% 15.2%
1.7% 4.9% 13.8% 3.3%
50.0% 68.0% 65.5% 67.4%
4. CONCLUDING REMARKS AND FUTURE
RESEARCH CHALLENGES
In this paper, I attempted to briefly present the
paradigmatic changes in the world economy that
can be labelled as the rise of the post-industrial
service economy. These changes, which can
be captured by the increasing importance of
the service sector in the performance of the
national economies, has also taken place in
Hungary over the last two decades. According
to global trends, the weight of services
in the Hungarian economy has been
Seite page 116
growing steadily, especially in the case
of the knowledge-intensive business
services (KIBS). The modernisation
of the manufacturing sector was controversial
and affected only a few subsectors. In this
situation, KIBS may represent a possible
new development path for the continued
modernisation of the Hungarian economy. In
fulfilling this role, firm-level facilitators such
as learning and networking capability and the
implementation of organisational practices
as well as the innovations supporting them
play a crucial role in addition to an adequate
institutional environment.
In the second part of this paper, the results
of a company-level questionnaire survey were
presented that was carried out in 2008 among
the Hungarian knowledge-intensive business
firms. The KIBS sector is relatively young
and dominated by Hungarian-owned small
and medium sized firms that provide service
mainly to the domestic market. Examining the
service production strategies that Hungarian
firms apply suggests that knowledge-intensive