THE LINKAGES BETWEEN SERVICE TYPES AND NETWORK CAPABILITY CONFIGURATIONS IN SERVITISED ENVIRONMENTS

Abstract

The aim of the paper is analysis the linkages between the types of services (product-centric and knowledge-centric services) that manufacturers deliver to their customers and their (manufactures) network capabilities configurations. The present study intends to contribute to the servitisation literature by drawing from the resource-based view and configuration theory to investigate which components of network capabilities are most important to enable manufacturers to develop and deliver services. Manufacturers are moving from selling products to providing solutions, offering innovative combinations of products and services. Literature begin to highlight importance of different capabilities for product–centric service provision such as operational capabilities, digitalization capabilities, dynamic capabilities, network management capability and service innovation capability. Buyer-supplier relationships are critical for successfully providing services. Nonetheless, buyer–supplier relationships in servitised contexts have received little research attention until recently. Furthermore, many researchers study the abovementioned capabilities and their sub-components in isolation from one another. To explore the causal relationships a DEMATEL technique is adopted. The DEMATEL method has been successfully applied to many research fields with the purpose to render sophisticated problems and transform complex systems into structurally causal and effect relationships. Research approach is based on interviews (n = 15) in five manufacturing companies and data collected at four company workshops. Using sample data from Polish manufacturers it must be concluded that not all industrial services require the same configurations of network capabilities. When moving from product-centric to knowledge-centric services, the establishment of relationship-specific adaptations and cooperative norms increases.