New Service Development in Knowledge-Intensive Business Services: Literature Analysis

The paper presents and discusses the findings of the review of the extant literature related to New Service Development (NSD) in Knowledge-Intensive Business Services (KIBS). In particular, the study focuses on the existing models of the New Service Development process. It represents the first step for PhD research dedicated to NSD process in KIBS sector, and intends to analyse some of the models of the NSD process available in the literature. This kind of analysis has not been undertaken by the research about the topic until now. It touches all aspects concerning the NSD process. Starting from the brief description of the research evolution, it introduces basic concepts and definitions, describes main models, and illustrates the issues closely connected to the NSD activity, like concept generation, enhancing creativity, promoting client cooperation in the process and assessing the outcomes of the NSD process. One of the main problems in the case of KIBS companies is if the NSD models developed theoretically can work in practice or new services appear occasionally without any systematization.