Suchergebnisse

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to organize and connect past research from different servitization-related scholarly communities.


Design/methodology/approach
This study reviews more than 1,000 articles by combining author co-citation and qualitative content analyses.


Findings
The structure and boundaries of the field are mapped, and the characteristics of the three identified servitization-related communities are assessed qualitatively. These three communities are product-service systems, solution business, and service science. The findings demonstrate that a narrow range of theories and qualitative methods dominate in existing research.


Originality/value
Through the lens of the sociology of science, this review critically evaluates servitization-related research and offers a list of themes that are considered important to the future development of the field. Regarding future research, the main recommendations are as follows: increasing the use of well-established theories from adjacent mature fields, borrowing ideas from different research communities to stimulate knowledge accumulation within and across communities, and reducing the level of description while increasing the number of confirmatory, quantitative, and longitudinal research designs. Finally, the development of formal structures for socialization (e.g. conferences and special issues) could allow the field to achieve a greater degree of scientific maturity and would influence the direction and pace of the development of servitization-related research.

This edited book intends to provide knowledge on tools and practices of servitization to facilitate the formulation and implementation of servitization-based strategies, service infusion and manufacturing service transition globally. Including 22 practically relevant contributions, this book aims to help scholars and practitioners seeking to facilitate servitization in companies through original perspectives and advanced thinking in related issues such as business models, strategic change, practices, processes, routines, value creation and appropriation. Employing practice theory as a useful frame, the contributions span theoretical approaches such as product-service systems, service science, services-dominant logic and cocreation, resource-based views, industrial organization and institutional theory. The book presents tools and frameworks to enable and support servitization and engender understanding of servitization-as-practice.

Manufacturers have shifted their focus from products to smart solutions in search of higher returns and additional growth opportunities. This shift, described as servitization, or lately as a digital servitization, is not a simple process. Academic study has revealed that its issues are complex, problematic, contingent, and even paradoxical, involving multiple organizational layers, such as operations, strategic, relational, and even ecosystemic layers. Recent literature studies have called for improved theories in servitization, and even alternative narratives. In this handbook, the chapters take different perspectives towards servitization, digital servitization or Product-Service-Software systems, presenting and debating over concepts such as organizational transformation, change management, strategic management, business models, innovation and product-service operations. The handbook provides an opportunity to develop improved theoretical grounds for servitization, and thus to elaborate and develop the field further. This volume will be of great interest for the servitization community, including scholars, Ph.D. and master students, but also company managers, developers and consultants facilitating company's servitization efforts.