KNOWLEDGE - INTENSIVE BUSINESS SERVICES - CHARACTERISTICS, SCOPE, AND SECTORAL APPROACH

This article is focused on knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS). The article aims to present specificity of knowledge-intensive business services, their industry characteristics and to assess the compliance of the industry classifications with the definition proposed, taking into account performing a scientific research. The available definitions of these services were reviewed, classification of these definitions was made, and a definition of KIBS was proposed as a synthesis of the approaches previously analyzed. The proposed understanding of KIBS aims at delimiting this economic phenomenon against other services and emphasizes its specific features. The article also presents the classification of KIBS companies in the sectoral approach (NACE Rev 2, Polish Classification of Activities - PKD), defining their compliance with the proposed definition and specificity of the research focus. The study is conceptual, based on scientific literature review. As a result of the analysis, a proposal for a comprehensive definition of the discussed issue was developed, systematization of the scope KIBS and comparison of previous sectoral approaches were performed.