Bridging the Conceptual Divide on International Knowledge-Intensive services: The 4C framework

With the increasing importance of services and especially knowledge-intensive services in the contemporary global business environment, it is imperative to understand service characteristics. However, a unified understanding of international services, is still missing. Thus, we develop a conceptual framework that identifies the characteristics of the services, based on three major research challenges identified by reviewing the fields of international business, economic geography, urban-regional science, and service management. The framework consists of four interconnected service characteristic components, i.e. connectivity, configuration, collaboration, and creation of value. We use an EU public policy illustrative case to exemplify the international applicability of the framework.