Call for papers: On the Sustainable Relationship between Product-service innovation and Outcomes - Pitfalls and Solutions

Abstract

The aim of this special issue is to publish case studies with a high theoretical basis that are not only impactful for scholars; they also need to be specifically relevant for practitioners and executives. Therefore, enquiry into the paradoxes faced by manufacturers during the servitization transition, characterised by both pitfalls and solutions, that can help to generate good practices leading to successful servitization pathways are welcome. It is this sense that this special issue calls for a more critical and nuanced approach that unravels, through the lens of successful manufacturing firms’ examples, successful transition pathways to servitization, playing special attention to the role of PSI as a unique resource and distinctive capability generator. Covered topics will include the analysis of firms facing servitization paradoxes in the form of balancing product and solution logics i.e. having a product engineering vs. a customer-centric solutions mindset, continuously developing the product business vs. explorative learning towards a new solutions business, etc. (see Kohtamäki, Rabetino, & Einola, 2018 to get more detailed information about these paradoxes). Additionally, other topics covered are, on one hand, the identification of unique resources developed by PSI as increased product installed base, new business model development, or increased sales force and distribution network; and, on the other hand, distinctive capabilities generated in terms of data-processing and interpretation, risk assessment and mitigation, modularity, life-cycle orientation, ecosystem positioning, product and service innovation balance, or synergistic product and service culture (Story et al., 2017; Ulaga and Reinartz, 2011). We expect to receive company field cases studies dealing with these issues.