FDI, service intensity, and international marketing agility

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide a nuanced understanding of international marketing agility by connecting organizational capability literature with that of standardization and adaptation. The focus of the research is to clarify whether managing the tension between product standardization and service customization generates an extra premium in international markets. Design/methodology/approach Two disaggregated Chinese data sets, the Annual Survey of Industrial Enterprises and the China Customs Database, are used for developing an econometric model. Export quality improvement is the outcome variable in reflecting the effect of international marketing agility on performance. Findings International marketing agility is reached through upstream FDI intensity, particularly in the context of service FDI. Manufacturing sectors with higher service intensity have more agility, being more likely to generate export quality. Research limitations/implications This study makes three theoretical contributions by clarifying the concept of international marketing agility as an organizational capability generated by manufacturing standardization and service customization; investigating the influence of upstream FDI intensity for export quality while taking into account the industry contexts; and obtaining an enhanced understanding of the service intensity of manufacturing firms on export quality. Originality/value The authors offer a nuanced and contextualized understanding of international marketing agility and explore the complex relationships between FDI, service intensity and export quality

FDI, service intensity, and international marketing agility

This paper aims to provide a nuanced understanding of international marketing agility by connecting organizational capability literature with that of standardization and adaptation. The focus of the research is to clarify whether managing the tension between product standardization and service customization generates an extra premium in international markets. Two disaggregated Chinese datasets, the Annual Survey of Industrial Enterprises (ASIE) and the China Customs Database, are used for developing an econometric model. Export quality improvement is the outcome variable in reflecting the effect of international marketing agility on performance. This study makes three theoretical contributions by (1) clarifying the concept of international marketing agility as an organizational capability generated by manufacturing standardization and service customization; (2) investigating the influence of upstream FDI intensity for export quality while taking into account the industry contexts; and (3) obtaining an enhanced understanding of the service intensity of manufacturing firms on export quality

Treble innovation firms: Antecedents, outcomes, and enhancing factors

Drawing on the interplay between strategic ambidexterity, resource-based view, and digital servitization, we conceptualize how the rise of digitalization and service business models in industrial settings have materialized in a distinctive category of innovation-oriented manufacturing firms, labeled as treble innovation firms. We propose that said firms are characterized by simultaneously developing the three types of technological innovation —process, product, and digital service. We use a random and representative survey of 423 Spanish manufacturing firms to analyze antecedents, outcomes, and enhancers of digital service innovation adoption in firms that already possess process and product innovations (i.e., dual innovation firms). We report several findings. First, treble innovation firms epitomize the new norm (rather than the exception), representing 21.7% of all manufacturing firms. Second, product leadership and open innovation breadth increase the probability that dual innovation firms implement digital service innovation. Third, treble innovation firms achieve considerably greater profit margins than dual innovation firms. Finally, treble innovation firms can enhance said profit advantage by adopting resource retrenchment and value migration practices.Spanish GovernmentGovernment of Andalusia A-SEJ-196-UGR20Portuguese Foundation for Science and TechnologyEuropean Commission UID/ECO/00124/2013 LISBOA-01-0145FEDER007722Social Sciences Data Lab 2220

The Financial Consequences of Servitization in Manufacturing Firms: An Empirical Analysis

Prior body of servitization research falls short to fully capture the financial consequences of servitization. This paper aims at investigating the financial consequences of servitization in listed manufacturing companies in four countries, namely UK, USA, Germany and China. By means of secondary data obtained from Worldscope database, regression models will be developed to compare servitized and non-servitized manufacturing firms in the aforementioned countries. This study contributes to the current understanding of the financial consequences in the transition towards service provision and aims to enhance managerial decision-making processes regarding servitization by comparing different contexts and countries

Value Creation and Structural Change during the Third industrial Revolution. The Swedish Economy from a Vertical Perspective.

This thesis analyses structural changes and the role of technology in the Swedish economy since the 1970s. With the attention directed towards interdependencies between sectors, a vertical perspective is applied on the economy. This contrats to the most often used horizontal perspective, in which individual sectors, such as manufacturing and services, are studied in isolation. With an integration of evolutionary economics and input-output economics, the aim of this thesis is to investigate to what extent five horizontally oriented notions - (1) more vertically disintegrated production processes, (2) a deindustrialized economy, (3) the growing importance of the business services sector as a distributor and generator of growth enhancing knowledge, (4) the distinction between a low productivity service sector and a high productivity manufacturing sector and (5) reduced competitiveness - remain valid when a vertical perspective is applied on the contemporary Swedish economy. Are the notions dependent on the particular perspective applied? To what extent will the vertical perspective gradade the general understanding of value creation and structural change? Investigating the five notions with input-output techniques, it is argued that a vertical perspective contributes to a new and more complete understanding of value creation and structural change in the Swedish economy during the Third industrial revolution. The emphasized notions are still valid, but they are dependent on the perspective applied to a non-negligible extent. A vertical perspective on value creation and structural change therefore gradates the interpretations of some generally accepted notions concerning the contemporary Swedish economy. Not the least, the chosen perspective illuminates some of the underlying mechanisms behind the structural changes among horizontally represented sectors. In this way, this thesis complements the existing knowledge concerning structural change and the role of technology in the growth process

Value-added of services in exports of all sectors and implications for public policies

Services provide relevant contributions to the economy, both as final products and through servicification mechanisms. With services intermediate inputs, services developed internally in firms of all sectors and services included in sales bundled with goods, the services sector accounts for the major share in global exports. This supports the need to consider the potential of services to shape the performance of downstream sectors. Services influence innovation, productivity and competitiveness of all sectors. This role is influenced by several policy areas such as education, data, infrastructure, technology, innovation, regulatory frameworks, competition, business facilitation, institutional frameworks, regional cooperation and trade. This study concludes that policy coherence is necessary to address the multiplicity of different policy areas involved. Policy coherence will contribute to improve the effectiveness of policy measures that envisage economic development benefits from servicification. This comprises the need for policy coherence between different policy areas, most notably between industrial and trade policy and between regulatory frameworks and trade policy. Policy coherence is also required between different economic sectors. Institutional coordination, harmonization and standardization and implementation strategies play a role in policy coherence. While economies in all development levels will benefit from an increased focus on policy coherence, this call may be more urgent in several developing economies.Os serviços contribuem de forma relevante para a economia, quer como produtos finais quer por meio dos mecanismos de servicificação. Com insumos intermediários de serviços, serviços desenvolvidos internamente em empresas de todos os setores, e serviços incluídos nas vendas em pacote com bens, o setor de serviços representa a maior parte das exportações globais. Isso aponta para a necessidade de considerar o potencial dos serviços para moldar o desempenho dos setores a jusante. Os serviços influenciam a inovação, a produtividade e a competitividade de todos os setores. Este papel é influenciado por várias áreas de política, como educação, dados, infraestrutura, tecnologia, inovação, enquadramentos regulatórios, concorrência, ambiente de negócios, enquadramentos institucionais, cooperação regional e comércio. Este estudo conclui que a coerência das políticas é necessária para abordar a multiplicidade de diferentes áreas de política envolvidas. A coerência das políticas contribuirá para melhorar a eficácia das medidas que visam os benefícios do serviço para o desenvolvimento económico. Isto inclui a necessidade de coerência entre as diferentes áreas de política, principalmente entre a política industrial e comercial, e entre os enquadramentos regulatórios e a política comercial. A coerência das políticas também é necessária entre os diferentes setores económicos. A coordenação institucional, a harmonização e estandardização, e as estratégias de implementação desempenham um papel na coerência das políticas. Embora as economias em todos os níveis de desenvolvimento possam beneficiar de um foco maior na coerência das políticas, esse apelo pode ser mais urgente em várias das economias em desenvolvimento