Servitization innovation: A systematic review, integrative framework, and future research directions

Abstract

Servitization has emerged as an important research topic in the fields of innovation and technology management that connects products and services with the purpose of enhancing competitive advantages of focal firms. The manifestation of servitization varies across industry sectors, as it began from the manufacturing industry with rapid expansion into the digital economy enabled by the advancement of digital technology. Servitization innovation denotes the innovative approaches by which servitization is organized from the organizational governance perspective. Despite the steady increase in scholarly attention and accumulated body of knowledge on servitization, it remains unclear what are the archetypes of servitization innovation and what are the differences between the actors, mechanisms and instruments for servitization innovation. This paper aims to synthesize the received wisdom and contemporary understandings on servitization innovation by undertaking a systematic literature review of the field. From the technology-oriented perspective, we articulate the characteristics of servitization innovation within a pure manufacturing context and a digital context by proposing a typology of servitization innovation, namely organic, relational, and system. We conclude this review by presenting future research directions to further develop servitization innovation, especially within the context of technological innovation.