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Literature is relatively sparse on describing how companies should align their determinants for service innovations with their different types of service strategies. This study seeks to explore the alignment between three types of service strategies and determinants for service innovations.

A qualitative, multi‐case research design on 12 Western European capital goods manufacturers including 24 service innovation projects was employed. The study is based on multiple sources of evidence: internal documentation of service innovation and development projects and, most importantly, interview data and participation in internal innovation workshops. Traditional inductive research methods were used to analyze the case studies.

These indicate that aligning service strategies with determinants for service innovations is very complex. The configurations of the determinants are associated with the innovation success. Alternative configurations of determinants can create counterproductive effects and can limit the success of service innovation projects as well as implementation of service strategies.

The study is based on interviews and case studies, but the external validity (generalizability) of the alignments could not be assessed accurately. Future research would benefit from insights obtained from quantitative data. The findings supplement existing research on success factors for the service business in manufacturing companies.

The findings imply that managers contemplating a specific service strategy have to consider the service innovation and reframe the determinant for service innovations accordingly. Companies trying to implement an after‐sales service strategy should focus on a narrow range of determinants for service innovations. The resulting configurations guide managers to set up an efficient and effective service innovation management that helps them to implement their service strategy through successful service innovation project.

This empirical study shows that the configuration of determinants for service innovation differs for each service strategy. Whereas, the few similarities in determinants on service innovation are mainly other applications of existing theories on service innovation, the differences modify the existing theories.

This paper aims to explore practices and technologies successfully servitised manufacturers employ in the delivery of advanced services.

A case study methodology is applied across four manufacturing organisations successful in servitization. Through interviews with personnel across host manufacturers, their partners, and key customers, extensive data are collected about service delivery systems. Analyses identify convergence in their practices and technologies.

Six distinct technologies and practices are revealed: facilities and their location, micro-vertical integration and supplier relationships, information and communication technologies (ICTs), performance measurement and value demonstration, people deployment and their skills, and business processes and customer relationships. These are then combined in an integrative framework that illustrates how operations are configured to successfully deliver advanced services.

The analyses are reductive and rationalising. Future studies could identify other technologies and practices. Case study as a method is inherently limited in the extent to which findings can be generalised.

Awareness and interest in servitization is growing, yet adoption of a servitization strategy requires particular organisational capabilities on the part of the manufacturer. This study identifies technologies and practices that underpin these capabilities.

This paper contributes to the understanding of the servitization process and, in particular, the implications to broader operations of the firm.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a conceptual framework for product service system (PSS) design for machine tools and discuss the PSS implementation issues focusing on the Indian machine tool business sector.

The paper opted for an exploratory survey conducted in the Indian machine tool sector including 39 in-depth interviews with employees of different organizations representing middle and senior management having decision-making authority. It also involves proposing a framework to address the stakeholder’s requirements for services that offers foundation for PSS designers.

The paper helps get an insights about key issues for PSS implementation by the Indian machine tool sector. The hybrid PSS model proposed in the paper can address the stakeholder’s requirements for flexibility in business models through different business phases.

The paper offers suggestions for the development of PSS for machine tools for designers and identify issues to be considered particularly in Indian machine tools business context.

This paper provides an insight to judge the feasibility of PSS concept for machine tools in Indian context and offers framework for PSS designers.

This research bridges disparate research on servitization, namely product–service systems (PSS) and integrated solutions (IS), to provide valuable insights for the progression of the field. It acts as a reconciliation of these research streams and offers a reconceptualised agenda incorporating recent research on platforms, ecosystems, modularity, risk and governance as key conceptual themes to synthesise and build theory.

This is a conceptual, theory development article focused on advancing thinking on servitization by identifying systematic and theoretically informed research themes. It also proposes future research opportunities to advance theoretical contributions and practical implications for servitization research.

By reviewing and synthesising extant PSS and IS research, this article identified five core themes – namely modularity, platforms, ecosystems, risks and governance. The importance of these five themes and their linkages to PSS and IS are examined and a theoretical framework with a future research agenda to advance servitization is proposed.

This paper considers the similarities and differences between PSS and IS in order to develop a theory and to reconcile formerly disparate research efforts by establishing linkages between core themes and identifying valuable synergies for scholars. The importance of the core themes and current gaps within and across these themes are shown, and a mid-range theory for servitization is positioned to bridge the servitization-related PSS and IS communities.

This study aims to explore the stories of two young refugee women, Sue Mar and Amora, and how their adolescent identities, experiences, and beliefs, partially shaped by their English teacher, helped pave their paths to higher education.

This study is guided by the lens of critical literacy as “a way of being and doing” (Vasquez et al., 2019). The authors chose portraiture, a participant-centered methodology, as a response to the historical marginalization of refugees, to bring their voices to the forefront (Lawrence-Lightfoot and Davis, 1997). They draw from interviews conducted with Sue Mar and Amora, document analysis, and an interview with the English teacher.

In Sue Mar and Amora’s portraits, aspiration and determination are seen as primary factors in their college-going. In addition, Sue Mar and Amora were propelled by their English teacher’s support through the cultivation of a loving relationship, high expectations, and critical pedagogical practices. Their family and community fostered beliefs about the power and potential of education, and other refugees served as important role models.

Researchers should explore refugee students’ experiences accessing higher education.

English educators should connect literature to the lived experiences of their students to show that they value their students’ knowledge and past experiences.

Policymakers should consider the role that community colleges play in the lives of refugee students and should support programs including tuition reduction for refugee students.

As only 6% of refugees currently attend college (UNHCR, 2023), it is essential to understand factors that contributed to students’ college-going.

This “research note” sets out to fuel the debate around the practices and technologies within operations that are critical to success with servitization. It presents a study of four companies which are delivering advanced services and reports on the organisation and skill-sets of people within these.

This has been case-based research at four manufacturers leading in their delivery of services.

It describes the desirable behaviour of people in the front-line of service delivery, identifies the supporting skill-sets, how these people are organised, and explains why all these factors are so important.

This paper contributes to the understanding of the servitization process and, in particular, the implications to broader operations of the firm.

The servitization of manufacturing is a diverse and complex field of research interest. The purpose of this paper is to provide an integrative and organising lens for viewing the various contributions to knowledge production from those research communities addressing servitization. To achieve this, the paper aims to set out to address two principal questions, namely where are the knowledge stocks and flows amongst the research communities? And what are generic research concerns being addressed by these communities?

Using an evidenced-based approach, the authors have performed a systematic review of the research literature associated with the servitization of manufacturing. This investigation incorporates a descriptive and thematic analysis of 148 academic and scholarly papers from 103 different lead authors in 68 international peer-reviewed journals.

The work proposes support for the existence of distinct researcher communities, namely services marketing, service management, operations management, product-service systems and service science management and engineering, which are contributing to knowledge production in the servitization of manufacturing. Knowledge stocks within all communities associated with research in the servitization of manufacturing have dramatically increased since the mid-1990s. The trends clearly reveal that the operations community is in receipt of the majority of citations relating to the servitization of manufacturing. In terms of knowledge flows, it is apparent that the more mature communities are drawing on more locally produced knowledge stocks, whereas the emergent communities are drawing on a knowledge base more evenly distributed across all the communities. The results are indicative of varying degrees of interdependency amongst the communities. The generic research concerns being addressed within the communities are associated with the concepts of product-service differentiation, competitive strategy, customer value, customer relationships and product-service configuration.

This research has further developed and articulated the identities of distinct researcher communities actively contributing to knowledge production in the servitization of manufacturing, and to what extent they are pursuing common research agendas. This study provides an improved descriptive and thematic awareness of the resulting body of knowledge, allowing the field of servitization to progress in a more informed and multidisciplinary fashion.

This paper aims to present a framework that will help manufacturing firms to configure their internal production and support operations to enable effective and efficient delivery of products and their closely associated services.

First, the key definitions and literature sources directly associated with servitization of manufacturing are established. Then, a theoretical framework that categorises the key characteristics of a manufacturer's operations strategy is developed and this is populated using both evidence from the extant literature and empirical data.

The framework captures a set of operations principles, structures and processes that can guide a manufacturer in the delivery of product‐centric servitized offering. These are illustrated and contrasted against operations that deliver purely product (production operations) and those which deliver purely services (services operations).

The work is based on a review of the literature supported by data collected from an exploratory case study. Whilst it provides an essential platform, further research will be needed to validate the framework.

The principal contribution of this paper is a framework that captures the key characteristics of operations for product‐centric servitized manufacture.

The purpose of this study is to examine a buyer's adoption of servitization and the associated implications for the relationships with its suppliers.

The authors use the case study approach to examine the tripartite relationship between a manufacturing company and two of its two suppliers. The paper explores the perspectives of employees on multiple organisational levels, and collects evidence on both sides of a relationship. The authors use template analysis utilising Cannon and Perreault's relationship connectors framework to analyse the data.

There are overarching implications of servitization adoption for buyer‐supplier relationships. The implications are notable in all five relationship connectors. Parties expected more open exchange of information, operational linkages were strengthened and changes in the structural arrangements of relationships were witnessed. Legal contracts are complemented by relational norms. The authors also observed a departure away from a win‐lose mentality and increased levels of supplier adaptation to support the buyer's provision of integrated solutions.

The findings are confined to this tripartite relationship and to an extent are context specific.

The study unveils buyer‐supplier relationships in a servitized context and provides managers with a better understanding of some of the potential implications that the adoption of a servitization strategy may have for managing buyer‐supplier relationships.

This is the first empirical study that explores the implications of servitization on buyer‐supplier relationships. It advances the understanding of the implications that the adoption of servitization has on the manner in which two parties interrelate and conduct commercial exchange.

The debate about services‐led competitive strategies continues to grow, with much interest emerging around the differing practices between production and servitized operations. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to this discussion by investigating the vertical integration practice (in particular the micro‐vertical integration, otherwise known as the supply chain position) of manufacturers who are successful in their adoption of servitization.

To achieve this the authors have investigated a cross‐section of four companies which are successfully delivering advanced services coupled to their products.

Manufacturers who have embraced the servitization trend tend to retain capabilities in design and production, and do so because this benefits their speed, effectiveness and costs of supporting assets on advanced services contracts.

These are preliminary findings from a longer term research programme.

Through this research note the authors seek to simultaneously contribute to the debate in the research community and offer guidance to practitioners exploring the consequences of servitization.

Successful servitization demands that manufacturers adopt new and alternative practices and technologies to those traditionally associated with production operations. A prevailing challenge is to understand these differences and their underpinning rationale. Therefore, in this research note, the authors report on the practices of four case companies, explore the rationale underpinning these, and propose an hypothesis for the impact on vertical integration of successful servitization.