Knowledge Intensive Services' Suppliers and Clients

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business service, accordingly receive very little attention in what follows, and often
such attention as they are given is merely a consequence of their being collapsed
together with KIBS in data or analyses we are reviewing. Knowledge-intensive
service activities within firms, however, receive a little more attention. They are not
the focus of the study, but are important to the analysis of KIBS in two ways. First,
they reflect the make-or-buy, market-or-hierarchy, internalisation-versusexternalisation,
in-house-versus-outsourcing (etc.) dynamics that play a role in
KIBS development. Second, they are important in that the utilisation of KIBS
inputs into firms, and indeed the definition of what these inputs should be, will
often relate to the “absorption capacity” of the clients, which is in part a matter of
their internal knowledge-intensive service activities.
1.2.2 A note on other knowledge intensive activities
This essay is mainly focused on the literature about KIBS. However, it should be
remembered that not all Knowledge Intensive Service Activities (KISA) are
supplied by KIBS. Some are supplied by public sector organisations, such as public
laboratories, Universities, government agencies. Some are supplied by firms that
are in the main not service firms. Many services are supplied on an in-house base to
“clients” within the company. Furthermore, manufacturing firms often supply
services (mainly, but not always complementary to their material products) to their
clients, and non-knowledge-intensive services may supply KIBS-type outputs to
their clients (usually services complementary to their main service products).
Some Knowledge-Intensive Service activities are carried out on an in-house basis
for their parent organisations, and do not supply any KIBS for third parties. And
some Knowledge-Intensive Services are supplied mainly to final consumers, as
public services (e.g. health) or private professional ones (consumer financial advice
or computer repair). KIBS mainly service private businesses, or supply similar
types of service to public organisations (this forms a very important source of
business for them in some countries).
Services are increasingly evident elements of many productive activities. In part
this represents a division of labour within organisations similar to that occurring
across organisations when KIBS emerge as specialised firms. KISA which were
earlier “invisible” parts of the bundle of activities comprising another job have been
differentiated into specialised occupational roles and even parts of the organisation.
But also, new KISA emerge to meet requirements associated with technological
and organisational change and the challenges of changing business environments.
The value-chain of economic activities that are embodied in final and intermediate