Servitization and Organizational Performance: Is Organizational Learning Ambidexterity a Missing Link?

摘要

In order to secure their competitiveness, more and more manufacturing firms adopt the servitization approach. However, the existing literature on its impact reveals mixed results. For example, while Neely (2008) finds that manufacturing firms with higher service provision generate lower revenues, Kastalli and van Looy (2013) find that service sales enhance revenue. Moreover, other scholars identify a nonlinear relationship between servitization and firm value (Fang, Palmatier, and Steenkamp 2008), profits (Suarez, Cusumano, and Kahl 2013), and sales growth (Kohtamaki et al. 2013). These mixed findings suggest that research in this field should shift focus from asking "whether or not" to investigating "why and/or how" and "when and/or for whom" manufacturing firms implement servitization in order to achieve a sustained competitive advantage.