Introduction: the issue

Abstract

Professional business services are one of the most dynamic industries in our advanced economy. These services are at the crossroads of three major developments, the increasing role of scientific and professional knowledge in business, the rise of a service economy, and changes in the organization of professional work in individual companies and in the economy at large, leading towards complex network structures. ‘Knowledge workers’ are central to advanced economies, but the organization of knowledge-intensive work, both at the level of the indivudual firm and at the level of inter-firm networks, remains nonetheless a stepmotherly treated subject in the management and economic literature. This book aims to provide some answers to both conceptual and practical issues in this respect.