In the increasingly knowledge-based economy, the role of the service sector, and in particular, of Knowledge Intensive Business Services (KIBS), is widely acknowledged. KIBS are considered 'bridges of innovation'. Furthermore, in addition to this pivotal role in supporting the competitiveness and development of other firms, KIBS sectors are, per se, increasingly relevant in terms of economic dimensions and employment. Creative KIBS span architecture, advertising, multimedia and internet applications, branding, design agencies, etc and leverage creative processes and creative individuals. The importance of these firms is directly related to the increasingly acknowledged role of creativity and innovation for competitiveness. In fact, while some KIBS have grown to significant sizes in the creative sector (e.g., IDEO and Continuum Innovation), normally, these firms fail to grow and consist of only the founding professionals and a limited number of close collaborators. As argued by Florida and Goodnight (2005), the company's most important asset is its creative capital and this is not just a collection of individuals' ideas, but a product of interaction. This paper relies on a sample of eight Italian creative KIBS to analyse the value creation and appropriation strategies adopted by companies that were able to transform their creative capabilities from an individual asset to a company one (creative capital). On the basis of a theoretical framework that is derived from the literature and based on three pillars (Unique Assets Development, Unique Assets, and Unique Assets Value Appropriation), we identify several peculiar assets and strategies that are adopted by creative KIBS. Furthermore, we highlight the importance of Unique Asset Embodiment strategies, i.e., the importance of strategies for formalizing and codifying the unique assets in specific technologies, archives, processes, and even products. We show that these strategies allow (i) to extract more value from the already adopted value appropriation strategies and (ii) to adopt specific strategies of value appropriation.
