Digital Ecosystems for Business e-Services in Knowledge-Intensive Firms Youakim Badr, Yong Peng, Frédérique Biennier 1 INSA-Lyon, Université de Lyon 7, Avenue Jean Capelle, F-69621Villeurbanne, France {youakim.badr, yong.peng, frederique.biennier}@insa-lyon.fr Abstract. In this day and age, firms compete by the skills and knowledge of their employees to deliver a range of customized solutions to meet their clients’ needs. Knowledgeable workers thereby play a pivotal role in today’s knowl- edge-based economy. In knowledge-intensive business service (KIBS) firms, service providers exchange explicit knowledge with service customers through various delivery channels. Information and communication technologies have led to the development of various delivery channels to provide e-services to customers and, consequently, the emergence of digital ecosystems fostering the flourishing of knowledge-intensive firms. In this paper, we study the develop- ment of digital ecosystems of business services. We particularly examine the design of the digital business ecosystem as a holistic system consisting of dis- tributed and fine-grained elements, known as service systems. Based on the challenging characteristics of services, a service system exhibits its computa- tional features in terms of Software-as-a-Service components and exchanges business knowledge encapsulated as business artifacts. 1 Introduction Nowadays, firms increasingly focus on their core business processes and propose their expertise to partners in order to improve their productivity and co-produce new services and products. This new business model intensively relies on information and communication technologies and has led to the emergence of virtual enterprises, e- marketplaces, e-services and online collaborations (B2B, B2A and B2C). It also en- ables the development of business networks across various sectors in which knowl- edge is considered to be one of the main sources of sustained growth. Knowledge is applied in innovation and entrepreneurship, research and development, product design and software. Knowledgeable workers thereby play a pivotal role in today’s knowl- edge-based economy. In knowledge-intensive business service (KIBS) firms, service providers exchange explicit knowledge with service customers through various deliv- ery channels. Information and communication technologies have led to the provision of e-services and the emergence of digital ecosystems fostering the development of knowledge-intensive firms. Conversely, the Digital Ecosystem (DE) concept emerged worldwide as an sustainable environment of interrelated software components. The digital business ecosystem concept refers to the adoption of information and commu-