The dark side of KIBS agency, the creative economy, and regional sustainability

Abstract

This contribution develops critique from analysing forms of misconduct by knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS) firms, especially the largest, globally located and client-interactive on all five continents. Management consultancy infractions range from supplying spurious advice, to advising clients on fraudulent practice, to acting complicitly in corrupt government practices, including engaging in ‘state capture’ by channelling internal state revenue into private holding bank accounts. Because the litany of misconduct is too massive for encompassing in a single contribution, and in the spirit of this task, the spotlight is only on a few cases that represent typical ‘creative economy’ companies contracted to ‘Big 3′ P-KIBS (Professional KIBS) corporations. Of importance to open innovation’s critical edge, the contribution articulates the puzzle of why academic KIBS research has presented the field without comment on its ‘dark’ side, questioning ‘leadership’ and ‘agency’ ‘observer’ and ‘confirmation bias’. For interpretation of data discovery, we utilise evolutionary ‘pattern recognition’ methodology set within an evolutionary theoretical framework.