Title: From knowledge-intensive services to knowledge-intensive service systems

Authors: Ian Miles

Addresses: MIoIR/Centre for Service Research, MBS, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK

Abstract: A great deal of recent research on services has focused on knowledge-intensive services of various types. These are seen as particularly important activities, mobilising and applying high levels of professional expertise in specific service encounters, where solutions to problems are defined and sometimes implemented. In the context of new interest in service science, too, the role of service systems has been stressed, since the production of services involves interaction of various resources (technology, information, etc.) and actors (not least the service client). This essay begins with an exploration of definitional and empirical approaches associated with research on services, and on knowledge-intensive services, before considering whether and how the notion of knowledge-intensive service systems (KISS) can be usefully developed.

Keywords: knowledge-intensive business services; KIBS; high tech KIS; knowledge-intensive services; knowledge-intensive service activities; KISA; service systems; services technology.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSTM.2011.042593

International Journal of Services Technology and Management, 2011 Vol.16 No.2, pp.141 - 159

Published online: 21 Feb 2015 *

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