What Really is a Knowledge - Intensive Firm ? - ( Re ) Framing Research in the “ Knowledge Economy ”

The concept of a knowledge intensive firm (KIF) is seemingly an important category of organizations that is being increasingly studied. The underlying inference from the literature is that the KIF constitutes a category of organizations that is distinct and different from other organizational categories. The research reported in this paper explores how scholars are using the concept in their studies, analyzing how it is portrayed in the literature, and critiquing the implications that are drawn from these studies. As categories are important for ordering reality and in shaping meaning, the consequence of our analysis surfaces a number of problems that this research raises for the perpetuation of the knowledge economy rhetoric and its potential flaws. We suggests that what is needed is not a better definition of a KIF, but a better understanding of the classification systems and their underpinning assumptions that guide how we present research on knowledge in organizations.