From Goods to Services and from Linear to Circular: The Role of Servitization’s Challenges and Drivers in the Shifting Process

Abstract

To move closer to achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a change from the traditional paradigm of the linear economy towards the circular economy is of paramount importance. One of the key promoters of this shift is servitization, which involves a shift from a purely transactional product-selling model to customer satisfaction through providing the service inherent to the product. Although servitization is a promising field for academics and practitioners, its adoption faces different challenges and drivers that need to be understood and addressed. A latent issue is the lack of common language around the topic. In the present study, a systematic literature review has been conducted to allow the identification and classification of the main challenges and drivers. Based on the findings, we propose a classification framework that identifies, classifies, and groups common challenges and drivers to different areas of knowledge on servitization through intensity heat maps. From a managerial point of view, our results highlight the importance of embracing servitization as a collective effort from the different departments within a company.

From After-Sales to Advanced Services: A Network Analysis on the Impacts of Digital Servitization Evolution

“…A processual approach [8,40], considering the evolutions of DS by manufacturers from PSSs to service platforms, can help disentangle the complexity inherent in the strategy. While the literature has so far focused mainly on the adoption of DS [41], researchers are calling for in-depth research addressing "how digital technologies enable advancing towards further stages of the service business or completely new forms of business" [13] (p. 288). In fact, since it implies continuous evolution, the transformation happening after the adoption can reveal critical advancements [14].…”

Circular Project Selection: How Companies Can Evaluate Circular Innovation Projects

“…Internal barriers for a CE include poor leadership, a lack of top-management support, and an oppositional corporate culture, mindset, and incentive system [18,20,50,54]. Furthermore, companies have often set a strong focus on linear business models and fear the uncertain returns of circular solutions [41,50,55]. Internal drivers can be a strategic CE agenda [21], the reduction of operating costs, new growth opportunities, and competitive advantages [21,47,49,52,56].…”

Toward Servitized Research: An Integrated Approach for Sustainable Product-Service Innovation

“…To date, studies have investigated environmental factors such as environmental uncertainty [58], the intensity of the competition [49], the complexity of customer needs [59], the impact of legal and technological developments [60] and the presence of KIBS [61]. However, many macro-environmental challenges and drivers still remain empirically underexplored, such as broader regulatory, social, cultural and political influences [30,45], while other elements deserve to be further investigated, such as how to operationalize and test the concept of territorial servitization [51]. In short, there is still ample opportunity to study the impact of different environmental dimensions, not only on sustainable PSI drivers, decisions and outcomes [36], but also on strategies, offerings and transition paths [37].…”

“…A firm's environment is argued to consist of many different dimensions that are relevant to PSI, such as the intensity of the competition and complexity of customer needs [59,104], the presence of KIBS [52], the speed of technological developments and the stability of rules and regulations [30,60]. On top of interviewing decision-makers about these matters, researchers can also use quantitative measures.…”

“…Today, the servitization research field has reached several barriers. First, as an area of research, it lacks a strong identity due to the fragmented and detached research contexts of the different sub-communities, each with their own preferred levels of analysis, methods and terminologies [30]. This has increased complexity and limited knowledge accumulation [2].…”