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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to provide a theoretical lens on digital servitization (DS) for future research purposes. By developing a multilevel framework that helps structure and untangle its complexity, the authors aim to increase understanding into the persistent challenge of DS.Design/methodology/approachBuilding on a problematization approach, critical incident technique was applied to a comparative, longitudinal, multiple-case study in which DS journeys from one Italian and one Belgian manufacturing firm were analyzed.FindingsAnalysis revealed that different levels and elements of the multilevel framework were simultaneously involved in the identified critical incidents. This huge interconnectedness severely challenged the DS journeys. Managerial (un)responsiveness played a central role in the organizational outcome for both firms.Originality/valueThe authors answer the call for a more holistic approach toward DS. A multilevel framework is provided to be employed by future researchers and practitioners alike. A mid-range theory for DS and propositions for future research are developed.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to explain how the application of fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) and experiments can advance theory development in the field of servitization by generating better causal explanations.Design/methodology/approachFsQCA and experiments are established research methods that are suited for developing causal explanations but are rarely utilized by servitization scholars. To support their application, we explain how fsQCA and experiments represent distinct ways of developing causal explanations, provide guidelines for their practical application and highlight potential application areas for a future research agenda in the servitization domain.FindingsFsQCA enables specification of cause–effects relationships that result in equifinal paths to an intended outcome. Experiments have the highest explanatory power and enable the drawing of direct causal conclusions through reliance on an interventionist logic. Together, these methods provide complementary ways of developing and testing theory when the research objective is to understand the causal pathways that lead to observed outcomes.Practical implicationsApplications of fsQCA help to explain to managers why there are numerous causal routes to attaining an intended outcome from servitization. Experiments support managerial decision-making by providing definitive "yes/no" answers to key managerial questions that address clearly specified cause–effect relationships.Originality/valueThe main contribution of this study is to help advance theory development in servitization by encouraging greater methodological plurality in a field that relies primarily on the qualitative case study methodology.

PurposeThis Impact Pathways paper aims to provide a timely and structured discussion of real-world problems at Marks and Spencer and in retail in general, evoked through the current COVID-19 pandemic.Design/methodology/approachThe article presents collaborative research based on more than five hours of interviews and several iterative paper writing steps between management scholars and Marks & Spencer's Head of Procurement - Logistics and Supply Chain. Continuous discussions for more than ten months among the research team assure the timeliness and relevance of the findings. The exceptional position of the executive and his career biography allowed the integration of a variety of intra-organisational and inter-organisational stakeholders.FindingsThis paper highlights the impacts of the current COVID-19 pandemic on operations and supply chain management (OSCM) in the retail industry, structured in upstream, internal and operational, and downstream and customer perspectives. The paper concludes with a practice-infused research agenda, which aims to trigger relevant research about the current and potential future crises.Research limitations/implicationsAlthough the research agenda is directly related to the COVID-19 pandemic and the retail industry, the future research pathways are expected to inform business responses to potential future external shocks other than pandemics and in different industries as well.Originality/valueDespite a plethora of studies already published on COVID-19 and OSCM, little is known on how the outbreak affects specific firms and industries. This paper offers an overview of COVID-19 related change as it happens at the retailer and in the retailing industry in general. This article is among the first to provide a practice-infused call for research on urgent issues being faced by business leaders directly relevant to our domain.

PurposeTo increase sustainability of their products and enable new business opportunities, manufacturers explore servitization in consumer markets. Yet, the literature has not addressed this development. This study is one of the first to investigate the challenges and benefits for manufacturers and their supply chains when engaging in business-to-consumer (B2C) servitization.Design/methodology/approachThe study explores two unique cases of manufacturers of complex consumer products that aim to extend their service offerings to the end-users. Data were collected via semi-structured interviews, observations and secondary data.FindingsFirst, the authors identify two factors as prerequisites for a servitized set-up: internal collaboration within the manufacturer and product characteristics (e.g. product complexity). Second, the authors identify the network as an important factor for B2C servitization, which includes the triadic set-up between manufacturer, installer and consumer. Third, the authors identify moderating institutional settings, such as regulations and consumer needs.Originality/valueThis research elaborates existing B2B servitization theory into an empirically informed theoretical framework for B2C contexts. It expands the view on servitization by introducing the network perspective to service a large number of geographically dispersed customers.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to test the moderated-mediated model using a dataset drawn from 204 manufacturing firms in Australia, and Hayes' PROCESS macro software was used for analyzing the research model.Design/methodology/approachThis study examines how firms can leverage the strategic value of their key supplier for improving their product performance by developing strategic collaborations with the key supplier as a mediating factor. Furthermore, it also seeks to understand the role that commitment plays in strategic relationships by testing how the mediating role of strategic collaboration is moderated by the level of buyer-suppliers relational capital.FindingsThe findings show that strategic collaborations mediate the relationship between the strategic value of key supplier and buyer's product performance, and the mediating effect is moderated by the relational capital between the buyer and the key supplier in such a way that the stronger the relational capital the stronger the indirect effect of strategic value of key supplier on buyer's product performance.Practical implicationsThe findings show that firms could derive significant benefits from the strategic value of their key supplier in improving their product performance. However, the benefits can only be realized if firms can build successful strategic collaborations in the first place. At the same time, this study also demonstrates the importance of relational capital in terms of commitment and trust with the key supplier that influences the effectiveness of strategic collaborations in realizing the outcome of the collaborations.Originality/valueThis study addresses the gap in the literature by disentangling the complex relationship between a key supplier's strategic value and a buyer's product performance and the role that both collaboration and relational capital play in this relationship. By integrating strategic collaborations and relational capital of buyer-supplier relationships, this study not only confirms the links by testing key supplier's strategic value, strategic collaboration and product performance, but also extends the previous studies by incorporating the moderating role of relational capital as a contingent factor.

PurposeAs a popular supply chain finance (SCF) strategy, reverse factoring has been widely adopted by buyer firms. However, the extant literature provides scant empirical evidence on the performance effect of reverse factoring. The purpose of this study is to seek to narrow this gap by empirically examining the relationship between reverse factoring and operating performance and the contingency conditions of this relationship.Design/methodology/approachBased on a sample of 167 announcements of reverse factoring implementation made by publicly listed Chinese manufacturing firms between 2014 and 2018, this paper employs a long-term event study approach to analyze the operating performance effect of reverse factoring as well as the moderating effects of production and innovation capabilities.FindingsThe event study results indicate that reverse factoring has a positive effect on buyer firms' operating performance in terms of cost efficiency and operating margin. In addition, both production and innovation capabilities positively moderate the relationship between reverse factoring and operating margin. However, neither of them moderates the relationship between reverse factoring and cost efficiency.Originality/valueThis is the first study that empirically examines the impact of reverse factoring on operating performance based on secondary data. Furthermore, it sheds light on the SCF literature by providing insights into the contingency effects of production and innovation capabilities, which also extends our understanding of the application of extended resource-based view in SCF research.

PurposeThis study empirically investigates how supply chain finance (SCF) initiatives together with different firm capabilities and resources (i.e. information technology (IT) capability, operational slack and political connections) affect the financial risk of service providers.Design/methodology/approachThis study collects secondary longitudinal data to test for a direct impact of SCF initiatives on service providers' financial risk. It further investigates the moderating effects of the service provider's IT capability, operational slack and political connections. Additional tests and analytical strategies are performed to ensure the robustness of the results.FindingsThe findings indicate that SCF initiatives help service providers mitigate financial risk. The risk reduction is greater for service providers with higher IT capability, operational slack and political connections, but the last factor applies only to multinational corporations, not domestic companies.Research limitations/implicationsThe data used in this research is limited to SCF service providers publicly listed in the United States, which may restrict the generalisability of the findings. Nonetheless, the research urges scholars to focus more on the financial risk implications of SCF in different market contexts.Practical implicationsThis study encourages service providers to embrace the power of SCF initiatives for mitigating financial risk and allows them to evaluate their SCF investments in light of different firm capabilities and resources.Originality/valueThis is the first study investigating the impacts of SCF initiatives and various firm capabilities and resources on service providers' financial risk. The empirical findings provide important implications for future research and practices.

PurposeIn this study, we examine the implementation of purchase order finance (POF) which is an innovative supply chain finance (SCF) solution by an innovative SCF lender (i.e. supply chain service provider (SCSP)). The effect of information integration between the SCSP (lender) and product designers (borrowers) on the lender's POF decisions and the borrowers' new product launch is investigated.Design/methodology/approachWe conduct a case study in the Chinese smartphone industry. A mixed methods design is used, and data are collected from both the supply chain service provider (SCSP) and product designers. We first conduct a qualitative study. Hypotheses are developed concerning the relationships between information integration, in terms of social interaction and information system integration, POF and new product launch. We then conduct a quantitative study. The multilevel structural equation modelling method is used to test the hypotheses.FindingsWe find that information system integration is positively associated with POF but has no significant effect on new product launch. Social interaction is negatively associated with POF but positively associated with new product launch. POF is positively associated with new product launch.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the literature by empirically examining the implementation of POF from both the lender's and borrower's perspectives. We find that information system integration and social interaction have different effects on POF and new product launch. The results thus provide insights into how a lender makes POF decisions and reveal the benefits of POF for borrowers.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine how, and by whom, institutional logics are determined in the action of sustainable organisation. The authors analyse a supply chain network structure to understand how multiple stakeholders' perceptions of sustainability emerge into a dominant logic and diffuse across an organisational field.Design/methodology/approachStakeholder network theory provides novel insights into emerging logics within a chocolate supply chain network. Semi-structured interviews with 35 decision-makers were analysed alongside 269 company documents to capture variations in emergent logics. The network was mapped to include 63 nodes and 366 edges to analyse power structure and mechanisms.FindingsThe socio-economic organising principles of sustainable organisation, their sources of power and their logics are identified. Economic and social logics are revealed, yet the dominance of economic logics creates risks to their coexistence. Logics are largely shaped in pre-competitive activities, and resource fitness to collaborative clusters limits access for non-commercial actors.Research limitations/implicationsPowerful firms use network structures and collaborative and concurrent inter-organisational relationships to define and diffuse their conceptualisation of sustainability and restrict competing logics.Originality/valueThis novel study contributes to sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) through presenting the socio-economic logic as a new conceptual framework to understand the action of sustainable organisation. The identification of sophisticated mechanisms of power and hegemonic control in the network opens new research agendas.

PurposeThis study examines the role of financial service providers (FSPs) in assessing the supply chain credit of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and how they help SMEs obtain supply chain finance (SCF) through an established digital platform using big data analytics (BDA).Design/methodology/approachThis study conducted data mining analysis on the archival data of China's FSPs in the mobile production industry from 2015 to 2018, using neural networks in the first stage and multiple regression in the second stage.FindingsThe findings suggest that digital platforms sponsored by FSPs have a discriminative effect based on implicit BDA on identifying the quality and potential risks of borrowers. The results also show that tailored information utilised by FSPs has a supportive effect based on explicit BDA in helping SMEs obtain financing.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the emergent research on BDA in supply chain management by extending the contextual research on information signalling and platform theory in SCF. Furthermore, it examines the distinctive financing decision models of FSPs and provides a solution that addresses the information deficiency and overload of both lenders and borrowers and plays a certain reference role in alleviating the financing problems of SMEs.

PurposeThis study shows various pathways manufacturers can take when embarking on digital servitization (DS) journeys. It builds on the DS and modularity literature to map the strategic trajectories of product–service–software (PSSw) configurations.Design/methodology/approachThe study is exploratory and based on the inductive theory building method. The empirical data were gathered through a workshop with focus groups of 15 servitization manufacturers (with 22 respondents), an on-site workshop (in-depth case study), semi-structured interviews, observations and document study of archival data.FindingsThe DS trajectories are idiosyncratic and dependent on design architectures of PSSw modules, balancing choices between standardization and innovation. The adoption of software systems depends on the maturity of the industry-specific digital ecosystem. Decomposition and integration of PSSw modules facilitate DS transition through business model modularity. Seven testable propositions are presented.Research limitations/implicationsWith the small sample size from different industries and one in-depth case study, generalizing the findings was not possible.Practical implicationsThe mapping exercise is powerful when top management from different functional departments can participate together to share their expertise and achieve consensus. It logs the "states" that the manufacturer undergoes over time.Originality/valueThe Digital Servitization Cube serves as a conceptual framework for manufacturers to systematically map and categorize their current and future PSSw strategies. It bridges the cross-disciplinary theoretical discussion in DS.