Servitisation in Value Creating Relationships : Views from Headquarters, Subsidiaries and Customers

Kansainväliset tuotantoyritykset pyrkivät yhä useammin lisäämään palveluiden määrää tarjousvalikoimassaan ja luomaan arvoa olemalla palveluorientoituneita. Tämä prosessi tunnetaan palvelullistamisena ja se perustuu pitkälti yritysten kykyyn ymmärtää asiakastarpeita ja -haluja ja vastata niihin. Tämä saattaa olla hankalaa kansainvälisille yrityksille, sillä tieto asiakkaista on asiakasvastaavilla, mutta päätökset resurssien jaosta tehdään tyypillisesti emoyrityksessä, jossa ei välttämättä ole suoraa asiakaskontaktia. Teoreettinen viitekehykseni perustuu omaksumiskyvykkyyteen ja antaa pohjan arvonluonnin tarkasteluun ilmiönä yrityksen henkilökohtaisissa ja rakenteellisissa suhteissa. Tutkimus keskittyy yhteen kansainväliseen teknologiayritykseen, jonka organisaatiossa on vastikään aloitettu palvelullistamishanke. Tässä kontekstissa tutkin seitsemää asiakasvastaparia. Keräsin yhteensä 32 haastattelua, joista 7 tuli asiakkailta, 13 asiakasvastaavilta tai tytäryhtiöiden tukihenkilökunnalta ja 12 emoyrityksen työntekijöiltä. Data on koodattu ja analysoitu käyttämällä NVivo-ohjelmistoa. Tuloksissa on useita näkökulmia arvoon prosessiluonteisena ilmiönä, ja ne osoittavat, että arvonluontiin liittyviä tekijöitä löytyy sekä henkilökohtaisista suhteista asiakkaiden ja asiakasvastaavien välillä sekä organisaatiotason suhteista tytäryritysten ja emoyrityksen välillä. Lisäksi voidaan todeta, että asiakkailla on myös suora yhteys organisaatiotasolle asiantuntijarakenteiden ja digitalisaation kautta ja näitä voidaan hyödyntää arvon luonnissa. Tutkimuksen keskeinen kontribuutio on palvelutoiminnan yhdistäminen tytäryhtiöiden ja emoyritysten keskinäisiin suhteisiin liittyvään tutkimukseen. Esitän työssä myös uuden tavan käsitteellistää omaksumiskyvykkyyttä liittämällä yhteen mikro- ja mesotasot. Asiakkaiden, tytäryhtiöiden ja emoyrityksen näkökulmat työssä mahdollistavat monipuolisen näkemyksen arvonluonnista palvelullistamisen kontekstissa.International manufacturing companies are increasingly adding services to their portfolios or trying to become more service-oriented in their customer relationships in a bid to create value. This process is known as servitisation and it is largely based on the company’s ability to understand customers’ needs and wants, and respond accordingly. This can be difficult for international companies, because their customer knowledge is acquired by key account managers in subsidiaries, while decisions about resource deployment are typically done by the headquarters (HQ) without direct customer contact. My theoretical framework based on absorptive capacity conceptualises value creation through knowledge absorption as a phenomenon in the personal and organisational levels of a company. This research focuses on one international manufacturing company, which recently started a servitisation initiative. In this context, I examined seven customer dyads as embedded cases. I interviewed 32 respondents: 7 customers, 13 key account managers or support staff in the subsidiary, and 12 HQ staff. I coded and analysed the data using NVivo software. The results present new perspectives on value as a process phenomenon, and show factors in the personal relationship between the customers and key account managers, and the organisational relationship between the subsidiary and the HQ, which can affect value creation or even prevent it. Furthermore, it was found that the customer has a direct connection with the company’s organisational level through expertise structures and digitalisation, which can be leveraged for value-in-use within the partnership. This study contributes to the intersection of servitisation and subsidiary – HQ relationships, and offers a novel conceptualisation of absorptive capacity connecting micro and meso-levels of research. Incorporating customer, subsidiary and HQ voices in the study enables a rich understanding of value creation.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

An entrepreneurial framework for value co-creation in servitization

The importance of value co-creation in servitization is increasingly emphasized but remains largely unexplored from the entrepreneurship theoretical perspective. This study develops an entrepreneurial framework for value co-creation in servitization by conducting a qualitative case study with middle managers from a multinational industrial company. The empirical findings suggest that value co-creation facilitates the discovery and creation of service opportunities through middle managers' entrepreneurial actions, that is, boundary spanning and bricolage. We also find that servitization reinforces value co-creation through middle managers' exploitation or exploration of service opportunities. The study not only offers new knowledge on the mutual influence between value co-creation and servitization, but also discusses the importance of middle managers as individual level actors in value co-creation. In addition, this study acts as a call for entrepreneurship frameworks for research on servitization.peerReviewe

Value co-creation in multinational enterprises’ services marketing at the bottom-of-the-pyramid markets

Abstract This book chapter addresses determinants of value creation by multinational enterprises (MNEs) in the still largely neglected research context of bottom of the pyramid (BoP) markets. Consisting of consumers living below the poverty line, BoP markets exhibit significantly different characteristics compared to the affluent developed or the aspirational emerging markets. Dealing with a wide range of diversity within a market where it is difficult to obtain reliable, generalisable information means that MNEs tend to face challenges upon entering them. Yet, the potential demand offered by BoP markets cannot be ignored and MNE’s have shown increasingly that they are willing to innovate market-specific approaches to cater to BoP needs. We discuss the applicability of service-dominant (S-D) logic in subsistence context and identify commitment to the market, strategic CSR, and service quality as key firm-level determinants of effective service marketing in BoP markets. We further identify social trust, technological outreach and performance orientation characteristics in target BoP market as key country-level determinants. Finally, the book chapter offers a number of academic and managerial implications

Risk and social value creation in volatile BOP markets:a case study from Somalia

Abstract The current chapter addresses the operations of an emerging market (EM) origin firm in a Base of the Pyramid (BOP) market. We focus on the under-researched empirical context of Somalia using a single case study of a Turkish construction firm operating there to analyse these aspects. Our study reveals that risk of volatility does not deter foreign firms from entering and operating in such markets, especially when the home country image is positive, and there are historical and religious linkages between home and host countries. We further discovered that the case firm dealt with institutional voids by earning legitimacy from powerful local networks and using a positive country-of-origin image to run the business successfully in an uncertain context. Finally, the case firm created social value for BOP consumers not only by developing affordable quality houses, but also indirectly by dealing fairly with local partners and engaging in skills development for both own employees as well as of partner firms

Absorptive capacity, value creation and new service development in multinational enterprises:the role of knowledge flows between customers, subsidiaries and headquarters

Abstract Absorptive capacity has been widely used in management and international business (IB) studies to explain the way organisations use external information to their benefit in commercial exchanges. This chapter attempts to extend the concept by applying it to the relationships between customer-subsidiary-headquarter (HQ) of multinational enterprises (MNEs), where the subsidiary acts as the focal unit for knowledge flows. We further use absorptive capacity concept to explain the knowledge inflows, in terms of new service development and knowledge outflows, leading to value creation. Based on in-depth theoretical discussions, we present propositions addressing the organisational and social dynamics in the four phases of absorptive capacity, from acquisition and assimilation, to transformation and exploitation