Manufacturing companies that adopt the servitization strategy usually show lack of knowledge regarding the service offering associated to their manufactured products. Acquiring external knowledge from service suppliers can be a way to tackle this problem. The objective of this study is to understand how manufacturing companies aiming at a servitization-driven business model innovation (BMI) integrate such knowledge from service suppliers. We focus on different types of collaboration that can occur and on the knowledge sharing (KS) dynamics of this collaboration. We employ a multiple-case study approach to analyze nine BMI processes from companies that transformed their traditional business model (BM) to a servitized BM. As a result, we obtain a theoretical framework that presents six possible KS dynamics for the servitization design by originally combining two main approaches for servitization-driven BMI (i.e. productoriented and service-oriented product-service systems) and three main configurations of relationships with service suppliers based on traditional new product development classifications of buyer-supplier integration (i.e. white, grey and black box configurations). Implications of combining a BMI and a buyersupplier KS perspectives to investigate the process of servitization for manufacturing companies are then discussed.
Renewable energy systems (RES) are becoming a strong component of local sustainable innovation strategies. Using a policy mix perspective, this paper investigates innovation policy criteria from municipalities' locational factors, cooperation activities among stakeholders, and local knowledge about RES as antecedents to see how they leverage the development of local RES. We studied these antecedents at a local level by analyzing a sample of 727 middle and large German municipalities using instrumental variables regression. Our results indicate that policymakers should focus on building local knowledge related to RES for local actors and with enhancing publicprivate cooperation activities. However, we did not find that locational factors such as direct incentives and energy and emissions reductions have a direct impact on RES. We suggest that these locational factors can provide indirect support for RES, as a starting point for the implementation of other policy criteria which we investigated in our study. Our findings also indicate greater RES development potential when policymakers adopt a facilitator role and support local innovation networks among different actors rather than keeping RES development activities within the municipality itself. In such an innovation network, stakeholders from nonmunicipality public and private institutions offer additional support to develop a local RES.
Paper aims: Identify the differences in the competences of the production engineering alumni and the importance attributed to it by the job market. Originality: This is funded on investigating the gap between the competences the academy and the job market attribute to the professional of production engineering. Research method: A questionnaire with production engineers was conducted to collect data that was analyzed using descriptive and predictive quantitative methods. Main findings: Soft skills have higher importance to the job market but are the less addressed by universities. Professional competence importance is dependent on the sector. The skills with the higher gaps are associated with the constant transformation of industries and the increasing complexity of decision-making. Implications for theory and practice: Theory should adopt a strategic orientation to guide the prioritization of competences and practice must adapt selection mechanisms to test for soft skills and customize it to the professional sector.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.