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The purpose of this paper is to explore maintenance strategies for manufacturing equipment in Chinese firms.

Data were collected from Chinese companies using a questionnaire administered during face‐to‐face interviews and two established methodologies in strategic management research, exploratory factor analysis and cluster analysis, were used to analyze the data.

The results suggest that despite increasing competitive capabilities of Chinese firms, their maintenance strategies are often restricted to corrective maintenance. Only very few Chinese firms have already implemented predictive maintenance approach, total productive maintenance programs or the strategic outsourcing of maintenance activities.

The research limitations stem from typical issues related to the use of exploratory factor analysis and cluster analysis (for example reliance on the subjective judgment of the researcher or the provision of clusters although no meaningful groups are embedded in the sample).

The findings highlight potential strategies for Chinese firms to improve their maintenance management.

This paper deals with a neglected area of operations management by exploring the maintenance approaches in fast growing Chinese manufacturing industries.

Despite the proven benefits of high‐performing spare parts logistics, recommendations on how to organize spare parts logistics in China are rather rare. The absence of spare parts logistics concepts for China is surprising, since the spare part business is the profit pool of the capital goods industry: spare parts create about 17 percent of the industry's total revenue. The margins involved in this spare parts revenue are, on average, 25 percent compared to 2‐3 percent of the capital goods. This paper aims to offer recommendations to increase spare parts logistics performance.

The authors conducted an extensive benchmarking project with a variety of firms (focus group and single case study) in order to gain a better understanding of spare parts logistics in China. By reviewing the first benchmarking findings with a single company that struggled to achieve sufficient spare parts logistics performance, additional insight was gained into how spare parts logistics should be organized in China.

The paper attempts to provide a better understanding of the necessary changes for improving logistics performance in the Chinese market. It analyzes the necessary changes to achieve a cutting‐edge logistics solution, and shows how companies can implement the solution.

Research limitations come from the qualitative nature of the research.

Managers can use the results obtained in this study to challenge their current logistics practices and develop a project procedure on how to initiate logistics projects that lead to cutting‐edge logistics performance.

Rather than concentrating on performance benchmarks of the supply chain of spare parts or specific aspects of spare parts management, the paper develops the setting up of a cutting‐edge logistics solution for China and Asia. The cutting‐edge solution is based on two main pillars: companies should try to develop logistics solutions for Asia that consider existing Asian and Chinese constraints instead of taking the logistics practices used in mature markets and trying to adapt them to the Chinese market, and the development of the logistics solution should be in intensive collaboration with the logistics providers.

This study seeks to examine how Chinese culture affects business‐to‐business marketing strategies and service revenue in manufacturing companies.

The paper used a combination of qualitative research approaches, namely interviews, longitudinal study and bi‐polar case studies. The sequence of the qualitative research approaches was chosen to maximize internal and external validity.

The findings expose the impact of the characteristics of Chinese culture on a firm's potential to generate high service revenues in business marketing.

The study has possible location‐ and industry‐specific limitations.

The implicit logic for increasing service revenue starts with overcoming typical and, in some respects, limiting cultural characteristics. These characteristics limit business‐to‐business marketing for increasing service revenue. Monitoring the effects of Chinese culture and gaining an understanding of how they have to be managed provides some guidance for managers to generate high service revenues.