Currently, the expectancy that surrounds the Fourth Industrial Revolution, commonly referred to as Industry 4.0 (I4.0), is huge. In this context, the purpose of this paper is to unveil whether and how organizational and managerial practices are associated to different levels of adoption of I4.0 technologies.,To reach this aim, the authors carried out a survey involving Italian manufacturing firms. Then, the authors used a cluster analysis and t-test to analyze data.,Results show that two clusters of firms based on their level of adoption of I4.0 technologies (high vs low) can be identified. Then, using a t-test, the authors found statistically significant higher levels of a number of organizational and managerial practices for firms with a higher level of adoption of I4.0 technologies.,This paper contributes to the debate surrounding I4.0 by stressing the organizational and managerial challenges that firms willing to undertake an I4.0 transformation have to face, which goes beyond the sole application of I4.0 technologies.,Entrepreneurs and managers need to be aware that the path toward I4.0 requires not only focusing on the application of the I4.0 technologies, but also on the development of a series of organizational and managerial practices that become key to face the fourth Industrial Revolution.,The authors posit here that I4.0 requires firms to bridge the capability gap, as well as overcome cultural barriers preventing entrepreneurs and managers to change their way of doing business. To this regard, this study highlights I4.0 is an all-encompassing paradigm that involves many dimensions of the firm.

https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/EJIM-02-2018-0030/full/pdf

Organizational and managerial challenges in the path toward Industry 4.0

Businesses rely on knowledge interfaces to gather and integrate knowledge that drives innovation and builds competitive advantage. But key knowledge interfaces such as cross-functional teams (CFTs), frontline employees (FLEs), and learning orientation have not shown consistent effects on innovation outcomes in prior research. This study addresses that problem by testing a mediation model that extends the service-dominant logic service innovation framework developed by Ordanini and Parasuraman. Based on analyses of 160 new service development (NSD) projects, the authors find that CFTs, FLEs, and learning orientation consistently influence NSD sales and process efficiency outcomes when they first create a service having (1) superior attributes and expert frontline employee service delivery (service marketability) and/or (2) a well-targeted launch with formal promotion to internal and external markets (launch effectiveness). Those NSD project characteristics in turn yield favorable new service performance re...

Employee Collaboration, Learning Orientation, and New Service Development Performance:

From a Service-Dominant Logic (S-DL) perspective, employees constitute operant resources that firms can draw to enhance the outcomes of innovation efforts. While research acknowledges that frontline employees (FLEs) constitute, through service encounters, a key interface for the transfer of valuable external knowledge into the firm, the range of potential benefits derived from FLE-driven innovation deserves more investigation. Using a sample of knowledge intensive business services firms (KIBS), this study examines how the collaboration with FLEs along the new service development (NSD) process, namely FLE co-creation, impacts on service innovation performance following two routes of different effects. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) results indicate that FLE co-creation benefits the NS success among FLEs and firm’s customers, the constituents of the resources route. FLE co-creation also has a positive effect on the NSD speed, which in turn enhances the NS quality. NSD speed and NS quality integrate the operational route, which proves to be the most effective path to impact the NS market performance. Accordingly, KIBS managers must value their FLEs as essential partners to achieve successful innovation from an internal and external perspective, and develop the appropriate mechanisms to guarantee their effective involvement along the NSD process.

/pdf/frontline-employees-collaboration-in-industrial-service-3cjdvt1z9s.pdf

Frontline employees’ collaboration in industrial service innovation: routes of co-creation’s effects on new service performance

Is Boreout a Threat to Frontline Employees' Innovative Work Behavior?

https://www.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/jpim.12338

Frontline employees’ innovative service behavior as key to customer loyalty:insights into FLEs’ resource gain spiral

During product recovery, firms rely on their customer service agents to recover customers’ product failures and deliver superior customer service. However, customers who contact the firm about a product failure often are dissatisfied, which makes customer service agents’ jobs challenging. Therefore, firms continuously try to improve their internal customer service operations to increase benefits for customer service agents and, by extension, their customers. The authors hypothesize that the way firms design (agent codesign and design acceleration) and implement (agent enablement) an internal customer service innovation has direct and joint effects on the magnitude of benefits of the innovation to customer service agents, termed internal innovation magnitude. The authors test the conceptual model using data on 38 internal customer service innovations at a Fortune 500 high-technology firm. The findings extend the internal marketing literature by demonstrating that service employees represent a critical sour...

Developing Customer Service Innovations for Service Employees: The Effects of NSD Characteristics on Internal Innovation Magnitude:

During product recovery, firms rely on their customer service agents to recover customers’ product failures and deliver superior customer service. However, customers who contact the firm about a product failure often are dissatisfied, which makes customer service agents’ jobs challenging. Therefore, firms continuously try to improve their internal customer service operations to increase benefits for customer service agents and, by extension, their customers. The authors hypothesize that the way firms design (agent codesign and design acceleration) and implement (agent enablement) an internal customer service innovation has direct and joint effects on the magnitude of benefits of the innovation to customer service agents, termed internal innovation magnitude. The authors test the conceptual model using data on 38 internal customer service innovations at a Fortune 500 high-technology firm. The findings extend the internal marketing literature by demonstrating that service employees represent a critical source of user-generated feedback. The findings also contribute to marketing practice by suggesting that accelerating the design process not only saves costs but also increases benefits for the internal users of the innovation.

Dustin Hindman

Papers

Developing Customer Service Innovations for Service Employees: The Effects of NSD Characteristics on Internal Innovation Magnitude:

Developing Customer Service Innovations for Service Employees: The Effects of NSD Characteristics on Internal Innovation Magnitude