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Scholars studying servitization argue that manufacturers moving into services need to develop new job roles or modify existing ones, which must be enacted by employees with the right mentality, skill sets, attitudes and capabilities. However, there is a paucity of empirical research on how such changes affect employee-level outcomes.

The authors theorize that job enrichment and role stress act as countervailing forces during the manufacturer's service transition, with implications for employee satisfaction. The authors test the hypotheses using a sample of 21,869 employees from 201 American manufacturers that declared revenues from services over a 10-year period.

The authors find an inverted U-shaped relationship between the firm's level of service infusion and individual employee satisfaction, which is flatter for front-end staff. This relationship differs in shape and/or magnitude between firms, highlighting the role of unobserved firm-level idiosyncratic factors.

Servitized manufacturers, especially those in the later stage of their transition (i.e. when services start to account for more than 50% of annual revenues), should try to ameliorate their employees' role-induced stress to counter a drop in satisfaction.

This is one of the first studies to examine systematically the relationship between servitization and individual employee satisfaction. It shows that back-end employees in manufacturing firms are considerably affected by an increasing emphasis on services, while past literature has almost exclusively been concerned with front-end staff.

President Trump's tenure was accompanied by a series of protectionist measures that intended to reinvigorate US-based production and make manufacturing supply chains more “local”. Amidst these increasing institutional pressures to localise, and the business uncertainty that ensued, this study investigates the extent to which manufacturers reconfigured their supply bases.

Bloomberg's Supply Chain Function (SPLC) is used to manually extract data about the direct suppliers of 30 of the largest American manufacturers in terms of market capitalisation. Overall, the raw data comprise 20,100 quantified buyer–supplier relationships that span seven years (2014–2020). The supply base dimensions of spatial complexity, spend concentration and buyer dependence are operationalised by applying appropriate aggregation functions on the raw data. The final dataset is a firm-year panel that is analysed using a random effect (RE) modelling approach and the conditional means of the three dimensions are plotted over time.

Over the studied timeframe, American manufacturers progressively reduced the spatial complexity of their supply bases and concentrated their purchase spend to fewer suppliers. Contrary to the aims of governmental policies, American manufacturers increased their dependence on foreign suppliers and reduced their dependence on local ones.

The research provides insights into the dynamics of manufacturing supply chains as they adapt to shifting institutional demands.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the applicability and utility of supply chain (SC) segmentation through demand profiling to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of infrastructure projects by identifying different types of project demand profiles.

A three-stage abductive research design was adopted. Stage 1 explored the applicability of SC segmentation, through demand profiling, to the portfolio of infrastructure projects in a utility company. Stage 2 was an iterative process of “theory matching”, to the portfolio, programme and project management literature. In stage 3, theoretical saturation was reached and “theory suggestions” were made through four propositions.

Four propositions outline how SC segmentation through project demand profiling could improve the effectiveness and efficiency of infrastructure projects. P1: the ability to recognise the different demand profiles of individual projects, and groups thereof, is a portfolio management necessity. P2: projects that contribute to the strategic upgrade of a capital asset should be considered a potential programme of inter-related repeatable projects whose delivery would benefit from economies of repetition. P3: the greater the ability to identify different demand profiles of individual/groups of projects, the greater the delivery efficiency. P4: economies of repetition developed through efficient delivery of programmes of repeatable projects can foster greater efficiency in the delivery of innovative projects through economies of recombination.

This work fills a gap in the portfolio management literature, suggesting that the initial screening, selection and prioritisation of project proposals should be expanded to recognise not only the project type, but also each project’s demand profile.

Solutions provision depends on effective and efficient supply chains. Existing discourse within servitization has remained at the organisational or inter-organisational level with a limited emphasis on the role of individuals. However, supply chains are not just relationships between organisations, they are complex, inter-personal relationships that span organisational boundaries. The limited focus on boundary spanners and their interactions means that managerial roles critical for the provision of solutions remain unidentified. The purpose of this paper is to identify the functions, roles and practices of boundary spanners that connect organisations and enable the effective provision of solutions.

A case study comprising 61 interviews in 11 firms was conducted in the UK network of a commercial vehicles manufacturer, to investigate boundary spanning for product and solutions provision.

The functions of boundary spanners move from communicating product and price features in product provision towards strategic communication, dissonance reduction, professional education, consultation and leveraging offerings in solutions provision. The study also identifies the boundary spanning roles and practices that form these functions for solutions provision.

This is the first study in servitization that identifies and describes the boundary spanning functions, roles and practices. By adopting the lens of boundary spanning, the research addresses the lack of empirical managerial-level enquiry within servitization research. It extends the theoretical discussion on the differences between supply chain management in servitized vs product contexts.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of the manufacturer-supplier relationship in service performance within service triads.

An abductive case-research approach was adopted, using three embedded cases and 26 interviews in complex, multilevel manufacturer-supplier relationships within the same service network. Cannon and Perreault’s (1999) multidimensional relationship framework was deployed to achieve granular and nuanced insight.

This study corroborates the idea that relational relationships within service triads and servitization improve performance. The role of each relationship dimension in service performance is discerned and their interplay is captured in an analytic model. Information exchange, supplier relationship-specific adaptations, and the degree of formalization of the relationship directly influence performance, while cooperative norms and operational linkages are further back in the causal ordering. The study also highlights the importance of contingent factors (the size of the service site, the proportion of its revenues coming from service contract activities) and how they affect the relationship dimensions.

The work was conducted in one network and the findings were generalized to theory rather than additional empirical settings.

This study is the first to derive a contextualized causal ordering of the Cannon and Perreault (1999) framework of relationship connectors and link it with service performance.

This paper analyzes how quality management in Ecuador’s national parks is explained through the quality practices contained in Deming’s quality principles from the point of view of employees.

Quantitative research was conducted with the participation of 254 employees from all national parks in Ecuador who rated the quality management practices (leadership, talent management, work climate and training) in their respective parks.

The results show that leadership, talent management, work climate and training significantly explain the service quality in the national parks. This study contributes to the adaptation of Deming’s quality principles to national parks via individual and joint analysis of the relationship between leadership, talent management, work climate and training with service quality in order to highlight which practices are the most important to service quality.

The paper provides a comprehensive overview of the key factors that influence service quality in the National Parks of Ecuador. Its multidisciplinary approach and exhaustive research make this work an invaluable tool for understanding and improving the preservation of natural resources and the tourism experience in these protected areas.

Este trabajo analiza cómo la gestión de la calidad en los parques nacionales del Ecuador se explica a través de las prácticas de calidad recogidas en los principios de la calidad de Deming desde el punto de vista de los empleados.

Se realizó una investigación cuantitativa en la que participaron 254 empleados de todos los parques nacionales del Ecuador quienes valoraron las prácticas de gestión de la calidad (liderazgo, gestión de talento, clima laboral y formación) en sus respectivos parques.

Los resultados muestran que el liderazgo, la gestión del talento, el clima laboral y la formación explican significativamente la calidad de servicio en los parques nacionales. Este estudio contribuye en la adaptación de los principios de calidad de Deming a parques nacionales a través del análisis individual y conjunto de la relación entre liderazgo, gestión de talento, clima laboral y formación con la calidad del servicio para destacar qué prácticas son las más importantes para la calidad del servicio ofrecido.

The study investigates how supply base structural complexity influences both supply chain agility and resilience. It employs Normal Accident Theory and Portfolio Theory to disentangle the effects of three structural facets of complexity – numerousness; technical and functional diversity; geographical distribution of suppliers – on the two capabilities simultaneously.

The study is grounded in the Italian footwear industry. 31 manufacturing firms with their global supply base have provided a cross-sectional time series database over a 10-year period (310 observations).

The results show that supply base numerousness has nonlinear effects on both supply chain agility and resilience. The directions of these effects are opposites. They also show that supply base diversity has an inverted U-shaped effect on supply chain agility while it is insignificant for resilience. Finally, the results show that suppliers' geographical dispersion is detrimental to both capabilities.

This is the first study that considers the multifaceted effects of supply base complexity on both supply chain agility and resilience. In doing so, it also sheds light on some of the most common trade-offs that firms address when they seek a balance between different strategies, such as increasing agility without damaging supply base resilience and vice versa. Considering the resource constraints firms normally face, by disentangling the dual effects of each complexity facet, this study helps decision-makers to develop scalability and leverage the supply base characteristics in order to survive and prosper in uncertain markets.

The outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) has severely disrupted businesses around the world. To address the impact of operational and strategic business disruptions, this paper contributes to the practice of a firm's management in terms of identifying the determinants of organizational resilience (OR) and creating a hierarchical model of the potential sources of a firm's adaptive capability.

A novel research framework integrating Pareto analysis, grey theory and total interpretive structural modeling (TISM) has been applied to, first, identify the sources of a company's resilience and, second, to determine contextual relations among these sources of OR.

The findings of the survey highlight three primary sources that allow companies to build companies' resilience: access to financial resources, digitization level and supply chain (SC) collaboration. The authors' model shows that resilience cannot be viewed as a particular feature but rather as a dynamic intertwined network of different co-dependent sources.

The proposed hierarchical model indicates that the most crucial sources of company's resilience in the recent pandemic are access to financial resources, digitization level and SC collaboration.

The study takes an original investigation on cognitive grounds, touching on the problem of firms' resilience to the unique nature of the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The study also represents one of the few attempts to use integrated Pareto analysis, grey theory and TISM to examine this critical area of firm management.

The research paper aims to analyse the scholarly literature on advancing HR analytics as an intervention for attrition, a problem that lingers on organisational performance. This study aspires to provide an in-depth literature review and critically assess the knowledge gaps in HR analytics and attritions within organisational performance.

The review analyses the corpus of 196 research articles published in ostensible journals between 2011 and 2023. To identify research gaps and provide valuable insights, this study synthesises relevant studies using School of thought (S), Context (C), Methodology (M), Triggers (T), Barriers (B), Facilitators (F) and Outcomes (O) (SCM-TBFO framework). This study employs the R programming language to conduct a systematic literature review in accordance with the “preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analysis” (PRISMA) guidelines.

The emerging discipline of HR analytics encompasses the potential to manage attrition and drive organisational performance enhancements effectively. The study of SCM-TBFO encompasses a multidimensional approach, incorporating diverse perspectives and analysing its complex aspects compared to various approaches. The School of thought includes the human capital theory, expectancy theory and resource-based view. The varied research contexts entail the USA, United Kingdom, China, France, Italy and India. Further, the methodologies adopted in the studies are artificial neural networking (ANN), regression, structure equation modelling (SEM) case studies and other theoretical studies. HR analytics and attrition triggers are data mining decision systems, forecasting for firm performance and employee satisfaction. The barriers include leadership styles, cultural adaptability and lack of analytic skills, data security and organisational orientation. The facilitators were categorised into data and technology-related facilitators, human resource policies and organisational growth and performance-related facilitators. The study's primary outcomes are technology adoption, effective HR policies, HR strategies, employee satisfaction, career and organisational expansion and growth.

The primary goal of the literature review is to provide a comprehensive overview of the current state of HR analytics and its impact on organisational performance, particularly in relation to attrition. Further, the study suggests that attrition, a critical organisational concern, can be effectively managed by strategically utilising HR analytics and empowering data-driven interventions that optimise performance and enhance overall organisational outcomes.