TY - JOUR

T1 - Servitization through open service innovation in family firms

T2 - Exploring the ability-willingness paradox

AU - Rondi, E.

AU - De Massis, A.

AU - Kraus, S.

PY - 2021/10/31

Y1 - 2021/10/31

N2 - Services constitute strategic components of firms’ value proposition, specifically for manufacturing firms currently called to servitize their products to develop product-service systems. In order to develop new services, they need to acquire, assimilate, transform and exploit external knowledge, thereby partnering with external stakeholders, a strategy labelled open service innovation. Yet research on innovation management in general and open innovation in particular has mostly focused on product innovation, leaving this area of research scantly understood. This is particularly true for manufacturing firms involving a family in the business, namely family manufacturing firms, acknowledged for adopting distinctive innovation behavior. With the intention of addressing this gap, we conceptually investigate open service innovation in family manufacturing firms by embracing a relational perspective. In so doing, we identify drivers and contingencies of family manufacturing firms’ innovation behavior that might trap them in their own net(work) and suggest managerial solutions to escape from such trap.

AB - Services constitute strategic components of firms’ value proposition, specifically for manufacturing firms currently called to servitize their products to develop product-service systems. In order to develop new services, they need to acquire, assimilate, transform and exploit external knowledge, thereby partnering with external stakeholders, a strategy labelled open service innovation. Yet research on innovation management in general and open innovation in particular has mostly focused on product innovation, leaving this area of research scantly understood. This is particularly true for manufacturing firms involving a family in the business, namely family manufacturing firms, acknowledged for adopting distinctive innovation behavior. With the intention of addressing this gap, we conceptually investigate open service innovation in family manufacturing firms by embracing a relational perspective. In so doing, we identify drivers and contingencies of family manufacturing firms’ innovation behavior that might trap them in their own net(work) and suggest managerial solutions to escape from such trap.

KW - Family business

KW - Open innovation

KW - Service innovation

KW - Servitization

U2 - 10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.06.040

DO - 10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.06.040

M3 - Journal article

VL - 135

SP - 436

EP - 444

JO - Journal of Business Research

JF - Journal of Business Research

SN - 0148-2963

ER -