TY - JOUR

T1 - Product biographies in servitization and the circular economy

AU - Spring, Martin

AU - Araujo, Luis

N1 - This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Industrial Marketing Management. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Industrial Marketing Management, 60, 2017 DOI: 10.1016/j.indmarman.2016.07.001

PY - 2017/1

Y1 - 2017/1

N2 - This paper questions the assumption in much of the marketing and product-service literature that products can be treated as stable platforms for the delivery of services. Instead, it uses the notion of the product biography to argue that products are chronically unstable, both physically and institutionally, and focusses on the managerial and institutional effort required to temporarily stabilise and qualify products for exchange or service value-creation. The context of the circular economy, which presents particularly acute challenges of qualification, is used to stimulate insights into how the product biography approach can inform the servitization debate. In particular, the circular economy perspective emphasises the need to see products as qualified by and constitutive of a distributed network, rather than defined once and for all by their producer, and points to entrepreneurial opportunity in the moments of transition between singularised, unique specimens and general, commodified, manageable objects – and vice versa. The wider and multiple product biographies occasioned by the circular economy also lead to reconfiguration of networks, as new potential valuations give rise to new entrepreneurial spaces.

AB - This paper questions the assumption in much of the marketing and product-service literature that products can be treated as stable platforms for the delivery of services. Instead, it uses the notion of the product biography to argue that products are chronically unstable, both physically and institutionally, and focusses on the managerial and institutional effort required to temporarily stabilise and qualify products for exchange or service value-creation. The context of the circular economy, which presents particularly acute challenges of qualification, is used to stimulate insights into how the product biography approach can inform the servitization debate. In particular, the circular economy perspective emphasises the need to see products as qualified by and constitutive of a distributed network, rather than defined once and for all by their producer, and points to entrepreneurial opportunity in the moments of transition between singularised, unique specimens and general, commodified, manageable objects – and vice versa. The wider and multiple product biographies occasioned by the circular economy also lead to reconfiguration of networks, as new potential valuations give rise to new entrepreneurial spaces.

KW - Products

KW - Service

KW - Servitization

KW - Product biography

KW - Circular economy

KW - Internet of Things

KW - Repair

U2 - 10.1016/j.indmarman.2016.07.001

DO - 10.1016/j.indmarman.2016.07.001

M3 - Journal article

VL - 60

SP - 126

EP - 137

JO - Industrial Marketing Management

JF - Industrial Marketing Management

SN - 0019-8501

ER -