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Emerging markets face the developmental circumstances of a weak foundation in both manufacturing and services. Although servitization is viewed as an opportunity to realise industry transformation and upgrading, ways for emerging market firms to implement a high-level servitization strategy is still understudied. This study examines combinations of causal conditions for emerging market firms to implement a high level of servitization.

Anchored in the strategy tripod model, this study examines the configurations for implementing a high-level servitization strategy by using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) and data from the China Stock Market and Accounting Research Database (CSMAR).

The findings identify three kinds of configurations for achieving a high-level servitization strategy: market-cultivational servitization, competition-driven servitization and government-related servitization. Furthermore, the mechanisms for implementing a high-level servitization strategy differ within the regional marketization level and state-owned equity. Specifically, the improvement of the regional marketization level helps manufacturing firms realise a high level of servitization by strengthening service capacity, and state-owned equity helps firms gain distinctive legitimacy to integrate suppliers and providers into the servitization context.

The proposed multilevel perspective frameworks enable manufacturing firms in emerging markets to achieve a high level of servitization strategy.

This paper explores the impact of institutional environment, industry conditions and firm-level microfoundations on servitization, therefore providing a reference framework for emerging market firms interested in implementing high-level servitization strategies.

This study examines the significance of the hybrid offerings of servitization by manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This study also examines why and how hybrid offerings matter for manufacturing SMEs. The study also investigates the moderating role of risk-taking ability (RA) and technology turbulence (TT) on manufacturing SMEs' performance.

This study has used literature from the areas of servitization, hybrid offerings and internationalization related to SMEs. Also, with the help of theories and literature, a model has been developed conceptually. This model has been validated using a structural equation modeling (SEM) technique on survey data collected from manufacturing SMEs.

This study finds the significance of manufacturing SMEs' servitization for internationalization effort. Also, this study highlights the moderating impacts of RA and TT on the performance of manufacturing SMEs.

This study provides valuable inputs to the management of SMEs, especially practitioners that are involved in formulating strategies for hybrid offerings, including servitization activities for the manufacturing SMEs. This study also contributes to the overall body of literature on hybrid offering and servitization.

The study adds values to the overall body of literature for both servitization and internationalization. This study focuses mainly on the significance of hybrid offerings, including servitization by the manufacturing SMEs. Few studies have dealt with such hybrid offerings by manufacturing SMEs as part of the SMEs' internationalization effort. Thus, this study can be considered unique. Moreover, the study investigates the moderating role of RA and TT for SME performance, which adds value toward the body of knowledge in the extant literature.

This paper aims to disentangle the mechanism linking digital servitization and manufacturing firm performance. The contributions of the service networks and slack resources are analyzed.

Drawing on a survey of manufacturing firms that have implemented or are implementing digital service projects in China, this paper examines the mediation effect of service networks and the moderated mediation effect of slack resources to capture the role of service networks and slack resources in the relationship between digital servitization and manufacturing firm performance.

Both basic and advanced digital services can equally contribute to manufacturing firm performance. Service networks mediate the relationship between basic digital servitization and manufacturing firm performance. No moderated mediation effect of slack resources is found, but slack resources negatively moderate the effects of basic digital services on service networks and positively impact service networks.

The mediating mechanism of service networks in the relationship between digital servitization and manufacturing firm performance is theorized, and it is clarified that service networks mediate the association between basic digital services and manufacturing firm performance but not advanced digital services. Additionally, there is no significant difference in performance implications when manufacturing firms provide basic versus advanced digital services, answering the call for research on the various types of digital servitization. This paper also identifies firms’ slack resources as the boundary conditions under which basic digital services influence service networks and the positive impacts of slack resources on service networks, bridging the network literature, organizational slack literature and digitalization literature under the framework of service ecosystem research.

The aim of this study is to gain important insights on integration oriented servitization identifying essential dimensions of effective structures, coordination approaches and management controls adopted by manufacturing firms that integrate forward towards distribution, sales and services.

The study adopts a theory-guided qualitative abductive methodology to conduct a comparative case-study of two manufacturing firms in the same industry integrating forward to enhance servitization but with significantly different performance outcomes. The findings are uncovered from a broad spectrum of primary and secondary data spanning two decades.

The consistently high-performing firm puts equal emphasis on production and downstream distribution, sales and services and motivate individuals to engage in entrepreneurial efforts to develop combined product-services offerings that are valued by customers. The underperforming firm prioritizes operating efficiency driven by engineering prowess and managed through planning, standardization, authority and central controls.

The study is based on two representative firms operating in a specific industry context, which has ramifications for the generalizability of results and calls for replication studies to substantiate and extend findings.

Forward integration from manufacturing into distribution, sales and services represents a specific servitization strategy that needs structure and particular coordination approaches to be effective in complex dynamic product-markets. The characteristics of the outperforming case company provide useful insights on effective integrated servitization efforts.

Forward integration is a commonly adopted strategy among manufacturing firms that constitute the backbone of modern economies and effective governance of these integration oriented servitization efforts has important implications for societal value creation.

This study builds on rationales from management science including economic theory, corporate strategy and different micro-foundational lenses and thereby hone recent calls for broader theoretical foundations to enlighten studies of the servitization puzzle.

This research aims to identify, examine and evaluate barriers to the adoption of digital servitization in manufacturing firms in the case of the Sri Lankan manufacturing sector and analyze the inter-relationships among digital servitization barriers.

Based on the comprehensive literature review, 13 barriers were identified. The grey decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (grey-DEMATEL) approach was used to uncover and analyze the relationships among barriers in terms of their overall influence and dependencies.

A prominent barrier to the success of adopting digital servitization in the Sri Lankan manufacturing sector is the lack of digital strategy in developing activities related to the design of digital service packages, organizational structures and processes. Supply chain integration is the most influential factor, which plays an important role in developing a competitive advantage by encouraging innovation process capabilities in servitized companies.

Industry practitioners can develop guidelines for adopting digital servitization practices based on the importance and interdependencies of different barriers and thereby prioritize projects within a program of digital servitization adoption in their organizations.

Research studies on barriers to digital servitization are limited to exploratory nature and have adopted mainly the qualitative approach, such as in-depth interviews. No empirical study has investigated the inter-relationships among digital servitization adoption barriers in the manufacturing sector. This study provides a holistic view of different barriers to the adoption of digital servitization in the manufacturing sector as a basis for developing comprehensive digital servitization strategies to manage and leverage complexity in digital transformation.

Despite servitization being widely regarded as an essential catalyst to improve manufacturing firms' survival and competitiveness, how to attain servitization remains debatable. The primary objective of this research is to explore whether or not, how, and when the dynamic capabilities affect servitization in the digital economy background. This research investigates the relationships between servitization and dynamic capabilities by incorporating firm ownership, firm lifecycle stage, digital economy level and environmental uncertainty as contingency factors in the research framework.

This research develops and verifies a conceptual framework for manufacturing servitization by employing the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) in analyzing the secondary longitudinal data from 148 China-listed manufacturing firms involved in servitization from 2015 to 2020.

The analytical results of fsQCA identify several configurational solutions for the success of manufacturing servitization. Each factor can be an enabler for servitization success despite none of the factors discovered as an absolute condition. Manufacturing servitization success within the digital economy depends on the interactions between dynamic capabilities and contingency factors such as digital economy level, environmental uncertainty, firm ownership, and lifecycle stage.

All of the construct's measurements in this research adopt secondary data, and further investigation calls for primary data (e.g. survey) for higher validity.

This research extends the current view of servitization by proposing an integrative conceptual framework, allowing manufacturing servitization to be examined more pertinently and comprehensively. Second, the research is an initial attempt that adopts fsQCA in servitization studies. The study sheds light on the mechanisms of attaining servitization by revealing the importance of dynamic capabilities and their interactions with the contingency factors. Third, the research extends the application scopes of dynamic capability theory, firm lifecycle theory, contingency theory, and institutional theory. Fourth, the research findings enrich the understanding of servitization in the digital economy and give business practitioners insights on leveraging dynamic capabilities in different conditions to attain successful servitization under the current circumstances.

Despite the widespread application and implementation of servitization strategy by manufacturing firms worldwide, little attention has been devoted to its adoption by European-Mediterranean countries, such as Italy. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to fill this gap by investigating if and how Italian manufacturing firms adopt a servitization strategy.

According to the paper’s aim, the survey methodology has been chosen and a specific questionnaire has been constructed by adopting and adapting the questions used by Baines et al. (2010). Key respondents were CEOs and General Managers of the manufacturing firms surveyed.

Findings show the main features and determinants of the adoption of a servitization strategy by Italian manufacturers as well as a comparison between them and UK manufacturers, determining both theoretical and practical implications.

This paper investigates the manufacturing firms located exclusively in the Italian region of Lazio. Thus, even though it is reasonable to believe that they can be considered as representative of the Italian reality, future enrichment of the sample could provide further insights into the investigation of the Italian case.

The paper examines the little-researched adoption of servitization by Italian manufacturing firms, contributing to the servitization research and providing evidence on its trends in a specific European-Mediterranean region.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the available literature on the relationship between servitization strategy and firm performance, which identifies the main streams and theoretical foundations of research and provides guidelines for future research in this area.

The paper discusses the relationship between servitization strategy and manufacturing firm performance by gathering and analyzing existing research published between 1988 and 2019 through bibliometric analysis and content analysis, and then unpacking the processes and impacts servitization has on firm performance.

This paper analyzes the evolution of the concept and servitization strategy of manufacturing organizations, and the relationship between servitization strategy and manufacturing company performance. Then, the authors establish an integrated theoretical framework aimed at conveying the factors and providing a practical reference.

The paper establishes an integrated theoretical framework on servitization and firm performance. The results of the systematic analysis of the literature can be used to inform managers about implementing servitization. Managers need to measure the benefits of servitization from two aspects: financial performance and non-financial performance. And managers need to consider some internal and external influencing factors to achieve a strategic–environmental–organizational fit that will bring better benefits to the firm.

The paper contributes to the existing research in three different ways. First, the study perfects the gap of research on the range of all of the factors within the relationship between servitization strategy and manufacturing company performance. Second, the study demonstrates a clear indication of how existing studies’ differences influence the research outcomes. Third, this paper proposes research problems and future research directions.

For most manufacturing firms, technological innovations are usually the key strategies to gain their competitive advantages. However, competing strategically through service provision is becoming an important strategy for most industries. A growing demand for packaged product and service delivery is blurring the traditional boundaries between manufacturing and service firms. This trend is called “servitization.” Prior research had different perspectives on the relationship between technological innovations and servitization. Some argued that as servitization exerts the innovative convergence of products and services, the possession of appropriate readiness and absorption capacity through technological innovations for a manufacturing firm is critical to the success of servitization. In contrast, some argued that the knowledge gained from developing technological innovations cannot be applied to the creation of services due to the fundamental difference between technology and service. These contradicting arguments motivated the authors to study the relationship between technological innovations and servitization a step further. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

To address the research gap, the authors conducted an empirical study based on the large-scale samples from the second Taiwan Community Innovation Survey (Taiwan CIS). A multivariate logistic regression model was applied in the research.

The authors found that different types of technological innovations, namely product innovation and process innovation, have different impacts on servitization. The innovativeness level of the technological innovation moderates the relationship between technological innovation and servitization. Based on the above findings, this research specifically explains the causes of the contradictory results of the prior research.

The values of this research are twofold. Its academic contribution rests on bridging the literature of innovation and servitization, and on providing a model to clarify the relationships among technological innovation type, level of innovativeness and servitization. Its practical contribution lies in its establishment of a guideline that illuminates manufacturing firms reinforcing service delivery through their existing technological innovation trajectory.

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.