The emergence of digitally connected products and big data analytics (BDA) in industrial marketing has attracted academic and managerial interest in smart services. However, suppliers' provision of smart services and customers' adoption of these services have received scarce attention in the literature, demonstrating the need to address the changing nature of customer-supplier interactions in the digital era. Responding to prior research calls, this study utilizes ethnographic research and a storytelling lens to advance our knowledge of how stories and BDA can enhance customers' attitudes toward suppliers' smart services, their behavioral intentions and their actual adoption of smart services. The study's findings demonstrate that storytelling is a collective sensemaking and sensegiving process that occurs in interactions between customers and suppliers in which both parties contribute to the story development. The use of BDA in storytelling enhances customer sensemaking of smart services by highlighting the business value extracted from the digitized data of a reference customer. By synthesizing insights from servitization, storytelling, BDA and the customer reference literature, this study offers managers practical guidance regarding how to increase smart service sales. An example of a story used to facilitate customer adoption of a supplier's smart services in the manufacturing sector is provided.

Telling stories that sell : The role of storytelling and big data analytics in smart service sales

The study complements the dominant interpretations of positioning in marketing management research by introducing a relational perspective on positioning in the industrial markets. Instead of focusing on products, brand, or company image only, the study focuses on the exchange logic of the relationship. The study suggests that exchange logic of the relationship i.e. relationship logic comprises a fundamental unit of positioning in the industrial markets. Accordingly, the study defines that relationship logic stems from the dynamics of the action, structural and management dimensions that integrate the buyer and supplier organizations into their mutual relationship. Through a longitudinal empirical study of a relationship between buyer and supplier companies in the food service industry, we show how the relationship has been repositioned from goods-dominant to service-dominant relationship logic. The results reveal elements on the action and structural dimensions, their mutual dynamics and managerial reframing actions that catalyze changes in the relationship logic, i.e., reposit the relationship. The results are organized into a framework that delineates the relationship positioning dimensions, and discusses the implications of such relationship positioning to guide further academic research and managerial practice.

A transition from goods-dominant to service-dominant exchange logic in a B2B relationship : a relationship positioning perspective


Purpose
Servitization has been used widely by manufacturing firms to secure strategic positions in industrial transformation. However, its impact on firms’ market power remains to be investigated, especially in developing countries. This study aims to investigate servitization’s impact on firms’ market power, along with the moderating roles of research and development (R&D) intensity and firm size.


Design/methodology/approach
Using the two-stage least squares with instrumental variables (2SLS-IV) method, the authors conduct an empirical analysis of servitization in China based on panel data for 1,797 publicly traded manufacturing firms during the period 2012–2018.


Findings
The findings show that servitization helps increase a firm’s market power. Furthermore, heterogeneity analysis suggests that embedded servitization increases a firm’s market power, whereas hybrid servitization reduces it. The findings also indicate that this effect varies depending on critical firm conditions. Servitization’s effect on firms’ market power increases with R&D intensity but decreases with manufacturer expansion.


Research limitations/implications
This study describes the positive effects of servitization on firms’ market power in response to calls for research that will adopt a comprehensive business performance perspective on the servitization field.


Practical implications
The findings provide guidance for what type of servitization manufacturing firms should choose and how it fits with their size and R&D capabilities.


Originality/value
This pioneering empirical study uses a large longitudinal data set and the 2SLS-IV method to examine the effects of embedded servitization and hybrid servitization on firms’ market power. The findings provide a new perspective on ongoing discussions of “desertification” and the “service paradox.”


The impact of servitization on manufacturing firms’ market power: empirical evidence from China

PurposeThis study investigates the different effects of the (mis)alignment between servitization strategies (i.e. product-oriented and customer-oriented services) and inter-organizational information technology (IT) capabilities (i.e. IT reconfiguration and integration) concerning the environmental performance of servitized manufacturing firms.Design/methodology/approachUsing hierarchical regression analysis, this study examines the theoretical model based on multi-respondent survey data from 1,149 senior managers of 383 manufacturers in China.FindingsProduct-oriented services have a non-significant effect on environmental performance, whereas customer-oriented services exert a significantly positive effect. The alignment between product-oriented services and IT reconfiguration, and that between customer-oriented services and IT integration, improve environmental performance. In contrast, the misalignment between product-oriented services and IT integration, and that between customer-oriented services and IT reconfiguration, hurt environmental performance.Originality/valueThis study elucidates the different effects of the (mis)alignment between servitization strategies and inter-organizational IT capabilities on environmental performance. It also resolves the inconsistency regarding the implications of servitization on environmental performance.

Environmental performance of servitized manufacturing firms: the (mis)alignment between servitization strategies and inter-organizational information technology capabilities

Man Chen

Papers

Effects of top management team faultlines in the service transition of manufacturing firms