Business Models: A new perspective on knowledge-intensive services

Firms ’ specialization to core competencies as a response to intensive competition in technology and knowledge-intensive industries, such as software industry, emphasize network-intensive business behavior and the importance of utilizing resources beyond company boundaries. In recent years, outsourcing of services, including knowledge-intensive services (KIS), have attracted increasing attention in the research literature. However, KIS have not been sufficiently analyzed in connection with different types of business models. Taking theories of interorganizational exchange, including industrial network approach and the transaction cost theory as our basis, we analyze key knowledge-intensive services in four different types of business models of software companies. In our empirical analysis, we identify that the role and type of KIS vary systematically by business model-types. 1