Reconciling and reconceptualising servitization research: drawing on modularity, platforms, ecosystems, risk and governance to develop mid-range theory

PURPOSE: This research bridges disparate research on servitization, namely product–service systems (PSS) and integrated solutions (IS), to provide valuable insights for the progression of the field. It acts as a reconciliation of these research streams and offers a reconceptualised agenda incorporating recent research on platforms, ecosystems, modularity, risk and governance as key conceptual themes to synthesise and build theory. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: This is a conceptual, theory development article focused on advancing thinking on servitization by identifying systematic and theoretically informed research themes. It also proposes future research opportunities to advance theoretical contributions and practical implications for servitization research. FINDINGS: By reviewing and synthesising extant PSS and IS research, this article identified five core themes – namely modularity, platforms, ecosystems, risks and governance. The importance of these five themes and their linkages to PSS and IS are examined and a theoretical framework with a future research agenda to advance servitization is proposed. ORIGINALITY/VALUE: This paper considers the similarities and differences between PSS and IS in order to develop a theory and to reconcile formerly disparate research efforts by establishing linkages between core themes and identifying valuable synergies for scholars. The importance of the core themes and current gaps within and across these themes are shown, and a mid-range theory for servitization is positioned to bridge the servitization-related PSS and IS communities

Network orchestration in a large inter-organizational project

Multiple organizations working jointly on shared activities in inter-organizational projects for a defined period of time are used increasingly to coordinate the supply of complex products, subsystems, and services across many industries. Despite the growth in inter-organizational networks as an organizational form, scholars have only recently begun to identify how lead organizations orchestrate the coordination of multiple parties with disparate goals, responsibilities, and capabilities. Prior work offers limited insights into the choice of network governance forms, and how coordination is undertaken by the network orchestrator to govern these networks. We conducted a longitudinal study of four networks to deliver vital services into a large project. We identified how the choice of network governance form was based on task complexity. A shared governance form was chosen for networks developed to deliver routine services, whereas a lead organization governance form was chosen for networks set up to deliver complex services. However, findings showed that the selection of an appropriate governance form was not sufficient for ensuring high performance. The network orchestrator's mode of coordination (formal or informal), the intensity of coordination (active or passive), and fit with the form of governance form (shared or lead organization governed) was important in driving performance

A cost and performance comparison of Public Private Partnership and public hospitals in Spain

© 2016 Caballer-Tarazona and Vivas-Consuelo. Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.The Erratum to this article has been published in Health Economics Review 2016 6:20[EN] Public-private partnership (PPP) initiatives are extending around the world, especially in Europe, as an innovation to traditional public health systems, with the intention of making them more efficient. There is a varied range of PPP models with different degrees of responsibility from simple public sector contracts with the private, up to the complete privatisation of the service. As such, we may say the involvement of the private sector embraces the development, financing and provision of public infrastructures and delivery services. In this paper, one of the oldest PPP initiatives developed in Spain and transferred to other European and Latin American countries is evaluated for first time: the integrated healthcare delivery Alzira model. Through a comparison of public and PPP hospital performance, cost and quality indicators, the efficiency of the PPP experience in five hospitals is evaluated to identify the influence of private management in the results. Regarding the performance and efficiency analysis, it is seen that the PPP group obtains good results, above the average, but not always better than those directly managed. It is necessary to conduct studies with a greater number of PPP hospitals to obtain conclusive results.Caballer Tarazona, M.; Vivas Consuelo, DJJ. (2016). 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Sustainability in supply and value chain management

This chapter presents the case for integrating sustainability principles into supply and value chain management provision at higher education level as an urgent matter for consideration. It draws on the key declarations including Global Action Programme (GAP) of UNESCO that support the incorporation of sustainability values and practices into all aspects of learning to underscore the need for embedding supply and value chain management curriculum with sustainability. The shared experience and insights from scholarly engagement with integrating sustainability principles at three levels in higher education facilitates sustainability knowledge transfer. Grounded in the extant literature, a critical discussion of the integration process including pedagogical practices reveals prospects and challenges to scaling up of sustainable supply and value chain management education

Delivering better outcomes through customer-led project management: the case of the major project BT 21st Century Network in the UK

Traditional approaches of major project management take the strategy of selecting a supplier-led prime/systems integrator. Although this strategy pushes a significant amount of risk to the supplier, project performance may suffer due to lower engagement of the customer in the anticipation of potential issues involving a major project. Thus, this research investigates the implications of the customer, as opposed to a selected external supplier, assuming the role of systems/prime integrator, as a Problem Structuring Method (PSM) to better deal with the soft side and uncertainties of the project. A case study approach is conducted on the major project BT 21st Century Network (BT21CN) to demonstrate that customer-led systems integration projects may provide more balance in the relationship and distribution of risks between supplier and customer, having a positive impact on project performance, accelerating the development of BT’s organisational capabilities, and producing better project outcomes in the long term

Learning to contract differently: How a multinational business adapted their contracting capabilities to local requirements

Our study explores how multinational corporations (MNCs) learn to contract in a new country. Through in-depth study of a French MNC and its boilerplates, we posit that MNCs use problem-solving approach to adapt their contracting capabilities to a new country and simultaneously continue to contract traditionally in their own country