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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.

Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) often lead to significant changes in the focal supply networks, hence disrupting firm-level relationships. Little is known about the supply network implications of M&As, which can be a major issue, especially for firms acquiring competitors that share suppliers, customers and associated resources. Using social capital as a theoretical lens, this research aims to investigate the implications of an acquisition on supply network relationships.

The acquisition of a large truck manufacturer by its competitor is investigated using an exploratory case study methodology. A total of 24 interviews were conducted across ten companies in the focal supply network with an analysis of financial data.

The findings from the study provide evidence that firms seeking to acquire such relationships cannot directly buy the social capital embedded within those relationships. They identify pre-acquisition characteristics and post-integration factors to understand how the supply network as a whole draws on the structural, cognitive and relational dimensions of social capital to address discrepancies in the merging network.

This study depicts an empirically grounded, theory-based account of a post-acquisition supply network integration process, showing how an M&A can drastically impact customer and supplier network relationships. The main contribution of this paper lies in extending our understanding of how social capital cannot be simply transferred from one organisation to another during an M&A. Rather, this work illustrates how social capital in supply networks is transformed by considering the pre- and post-acquisition social capital dynamics of the merging networks.

Research suggests that to structure for servitization, organizations should separate their front- and back-end units by reference to high vs low contact activities. However, these prescriptions are overly simplistic and largely based on anecdotal evidence that fails to account for context. The purpose of this paper is to explore the design decisions taken by organizations in support of servitization.

A large-scale exploratory case study was conducted, consisting of embedded cases in three divisions of a UK-based, global manufacturing firm.

Each division provided different combinations of offerings (i.e. product-, use- and result-oriented). The findings suggest that front-end/back-end configurations differ according to the offering and can exist concurrently within the same organization, challenging the assumption that different configurations within an organization are not possible. The findings show that underlying contextual factors, such as the complexity and temporality of the offering, as well as the power of the customer, have implications for the structuring of servitizing organizations.

This is a context-specific, qualitative case study conducted within a large original equipment manufacturer, yet the findings are analytically generalized.

In identifying the relevance of different design decisions in terms of customer contact, decoupling of activities and grouping of employees, the findings challenge the extant view that organizations simply split activities between the front- and back-end functions. The research identifies an additional design configuration – integrated project teams – involving a dominant customer dictating organizational interfaces. This research exposes the need for further investigation into how to organize for servitization in project-based contexts.

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.

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.

Inter-organisational collaboration is becoming increasingly important in complex projects; some project customers even formally require evidence of collaborative competence from potential providers. The purpose of this paper is to explore the governance of collaboration and the ways in which it is enacted in practice for complex projects.

The study is based on a qualitative analysis of 29 semi-structured interviews, primary data from meetings and events supported by secondary data, including standards and industry-specific contract templates.

The paper identifies how collaboration can be effectively governed in complex projects through the emerging role of the collaboration standard and its impact on contractual and relational governance mechanisms. The standard sets higher-level institutional guidelines that affect the way in which collaboration is governed in complex projects. It helps formalise informal relational practices whilst also providing guidelines for building flexibility in contracts by including coordination- and adaptation-oriented provisions conducive to collaboration.

The paper demonstrates the emerging role of the collaboration standard and its influence on contractual and relational mechanisms deployed in complex projects. It shows how the standard can formalise and codify informal collaborative practices and help transfer related learning across projects, thereby contributing towards the dual requirement for standardisation and flexibility in project settings.

This paper aims to adopt service-dominant logic (SDL) to empirically explore network configurations resulting from the provision of goods, goods and services, and solutions.

This paper uses a single, in-depth, exploratory case study in a truck manufacturer and its supply network. An abductive approach is adopted. In total, 54 semi-structured interviews were conducted.

Three value propositions are clearly discernible within the truck provider. These range from a truck to a “solution”. These propositions have different supply network configurations: dyadic, triadic and tetradic. The extent to which different network actors contribute to value co-creation varies across the offerings.

This paper is based on a single, in-depth case study developed in one industrial context. Whilst this represents an appropriate approach given the exploratory nature of the study, further empirical investigation is needed across different industries.

This paper is one of the first to empirically examine supply networks using SDL. A rich understanding of the challenges faced by a truck manufacturer in providing different value propositions and the resulting network configurations are discussed. In so doing, evidence is provided of a more complex, tetradic network configuration for solutions, with varying degrees of interplay between actors in the flow of operand and operant resources to create value.

The purpose of this paper is to take a professional service operation (PSO) perspective to reconceptualise a persistent pedagogical dilemma of teaching large classes into a process design challenge. This enables developing a solution that reduces labour intensity and improves the customisation of teaching.

This work is based on a single-case analysis of an undergraduate operations management course taught at a UK-based global top-50 business school. The research process follows the design science approach where a prior course design is analysed and a redesign is presented, refined and tested using data on student satisfaction.

The course redesign is based on the flipped learning pedagogy, and uses a combination of process analysis and educational science perspectives. The redesign seems to provide the benefits to students without increasing labour intensity. The developed six-step systematic approach should reduce the labour intensity of university-level teaching operations, while providing additional possibilities for customisable in-class active learning.

The empirical findings from the single-case design cannot be directly generalised to other contexts. However, the developed six-step systematic approach for redesigning the university-level teaching process should be applicable to other teaching operations to drive value creation and improve processes.

This study shows how the resource-constrained value creation of teaching operations can be improved systematically using process analysis perspectives. The work also scrutinises the flipped learning pedagogy from a PSO perspective and shows its benefits for improving teaching operations compared to traditional lecturing.