KIBS startups in the Stuttgart region

Although the Stuttgart region is among the top performing regions in the European Union (EU) in terms of Research and Development (R&D) expenditures, employment and overall competitiveness, a clear weakness regarding the startup intensity of Knowledge-Intensive Business Services (KIBS) firms can be observed. In this research note, it is argued that the Stuttgart region shows the structural characteristics of a routinised technological regime, in which below-average startup and closure rates in the KIBS area occur. Within this context, survivors and growing KIBS startups presumably adapt quite successfully to the existing institutional setup in the region.