Assessment of servitization capabilities in the manufacturing industry from a maturity perspective

Sammanfattning: Investigating servitization capabilities in the manufacturing industry, through a maturity profile analysis. The purpose is to increase understanding of the relationship between capabilities and the contingency revolving maturity through an exploratory study that seeks to increase the knowledge of shared and divergent capabilities through cross-case analysis of organization incumbent to different maturity stages of servitization. The theoretical structure covered different servitization aspects, including research on product-service systems, assessment frameworks, and capabilities. The study closes the existing research gap through the efforts to explain the contingency of servitization capabilities from a maturity standpoint. Due to the need for more existing knowledge, the study models a qualitative format around a multi-case method. The data collection extended to 26 interviews, with informants representing nine manufacturing organizations, all processed using Eisenhardt’s method for qualitative assessment. The first step of the analysis included the creation of case profiles to reflect the maturity degrees discreetly. The second step was a within-case analysis which produced an individual assessment. Distilling the results through a combination of cross-case and literary analysis and the findings in a joint analysis & discussion part. The cross-case analysis combined several first-order capabilities from the within-case results and produced second-order capabilities, which were then determined to be either similar or different. The similarities are considered general and relevant outside the maturity context. While the differences were considered unique inherent for the respective maturity case from which they originated. Validating the findings through triangulation, using literature on servitization capabilities. Conclusively, the study presents the identified general capabilities crucial for servitization transformation in manufacturing and the unique ones inherent to certain degrees of maturity. Both sets of capabilities contribute novel insights to academic and industrial discourse. Out of the many general capabilities, fewer higher constructs are determined. Contrary, few unique capabilities were found within the individual cases. However, the divide increased when accounting for a wider context, i.e., capabilities unique for high-moderate versus low or moderate-low versus high. Using the general capabilities to revise the existing assessment tool with similar ones to build support.