Year: 2020
Type: dissertation
Abstract: This is a paper-based dissertation, consisting of a ‘cape’ and three articles, one of which is singleauthored.\nThe topic is servitization at work.\nServitization is a competitive strategy that, typically, Western industrial manufacturing companies\nimplement in order to secure their continued existence in increasingly competitive markets.\nServitization means combining products with a service component. With increasing servitization\nimplementation, companies move away from focusing on the sales of products and instead\nemphasize their use, for example by repairing them, renting them out or by operating and\nmaintaining machines for clients. But more recent literature also highlights that companies face\nmany challenges when implementing servitization, up to the point where some close their service\nbusiness again. This indicates that servitization has important implications to it other than ‘just’\nselling services.\nThis dissertation argues that some of these implications have gone by unnoticed because much of\nthe literature is both rooted in and itself perpetuating a number of widely-held assumptions.\nTaking on a pragmatic stance, it explores how servitization is at work, despite the challenges\nassociated with it. In so doing, it challenges three taken-for-granted notions in the literature,\nnamely that customers demand services by default, that products are stable and that servitization\nis one definite thing. It draws on the infralanguage and methodology provided by Actor-Network\nTheory. In particular, it mobilizes the ideas around qualification, inscription and multiplicity.
Source: Econstor (Econstor)
Author: Kai Basner
Institution: Copenhagen Business School
Language: English
Subfield: Marketing
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3042911607