From knowledge-intensive services to knowledge-intensive service systems

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. © 2011 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.