KIBS as changemaker in green transition: Innovation sprints in peripheral regions

Abstract

The role of KIBS as essential actors in regional renewal processes is well demonstrated in the literature. However, less is known about how they enact change agency through concrete mechanisms in peripheral regions. This study examines how KIBS facilitate the development of agent-specific opportunity spaces for green innovation through innovation sprint processes. Drawing on a 3-year greening program in a Norwegian peripheral region, the paper analyzes how a KIBS provider mobilizes and orchestrates actors through structured, time-bound interventions. The findings show that KIBS act as a changemaker by enacting multiple and overlapping roles, including place leader, facilitator, mentor, critic, and connector, thereby shaping how firms perceive and engage with green innovation challenges. Innovation sprints serve as a key mechanism for operationalizing these roles, enabling firms to explore and expand their opportunity spaces through collaborative, future-oriented processes. The outcomes of these processes include a range of differentiated futures, such as realized, non-realized, and discarded green innovation pathways. The study contributes to economic geography and green regional development literature by demonstrating how KIBS-facilitated mechanisms shape the conditions for future-oriented innovation in peripheral regions. In particular, it shows how innovation sprints link agency, opportunity spaces, and temporal dynamics by structuring the generation, exploration, and selection of multiple possible futures. The findings underline the importance of combining short-term intervention mechanisms with long-term support to translate opportunity spaces into realized green innovations.