Although servitization is a buzz word in the current manufacturing industry, challenges have been identified in different aspects, leading to contested performance outcomes, which make manufacturing firms hesitant to embark on the journey of servitization. In this paper, conceptualizing servitization as two service-oriented strategies, namely services supporting the product (SSP) and services supporting the clients’ actions (SSC), we investigate the servitization–performance link and find that both servitization strategies have no effect on firm performance. However, given that a main-effect-only analysis provides an incomplete picture of servitization–performance relationship, considering three critical factors, namely service-oriented organizational structure (Structure), service-oriented human resource management (HR), and service-oriented corporate culture (Culture), adopting a combined configuration and contingency approach, based on analysis of data collected from 207 Chinese manufacturing firms, we find that contingent configurations, i.e., the SSP–Culture–Structure configuration and the SSC–Culture–HR configuration, are positively associated with firm performance. Our findings identify the existence of the “service paradox,” unveil the contingent configurations of servitization and three critical internal organizational elements, highlight the intrinsic attributes of the three factors in the context of servitization, and address the complex servitization effects on firm performance and the solution of the “service paradox” by making proper internal organizational changes.

While customer loyalty is among the underlying reasons for servitized firms, the servitization–customer loyalty link is underexplored. In this article, informed by organizational information processing theory, we study the servitization–customer loyalty link and explore the joint effects of organizational practices on the link. We characterize servitization as services supporting products (SSP) and services supporting clients’ actions (SSC), and conceptualize organizational practices as organizational information processing capabilities comprising the use of different information technology (IT) tools, which include organizational IT (OIT) and social media (SM), and individual service-oriented cognition, which is manifested in service-oriented corporate culture (Culture). Based on a sample of 207 Chinese manufacturing firms, we find that while servitization does not necessarily enhance customer loyalty, successful servitization implementation depends on proper combinations of IT tools and Culture. Specifically, the SSP–OIT–Culture interaction and SSC–SM–Culture interaction are positively associated with customer loyalty. Our findings not only provide evidence against the conventional intuition that customer loyalty can be achieved by adopting servitization, but also explicitly show how to enhance customer loyalty by proper organizational practices, which provide new insights into both servitization and organizational information processing theory.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of product innovation novelty on the relationship between customer involvement and new product development (NPD) cost performance.Design/methodology/approach: The authors use organizational information processing theory and adopt hierarchical regression and slope difference test to assess the relationships between constructs and test the hypotheses.Findings: The authors evaluate the concept of product innovation novelty from the perspectives of suppliers and customers and infer that these two types of product innovation novelty exert a moderate effect on the relationship between customer involvement and NPD cost performance. First, product innovation novelty for customers strengthens the positive effects of customer involvement on the NPD cost performance. Second, product innovation novelty for suppliers weakens the positive impact of customer involvement on the NPD cost performance. The authors also find that the interaction between product innovation novelty for suppliers and product innovation novelty for customers weakens the positive impact of customer involvement on NPD cost performance.Originality/value: The findings of this study explain the reasons for the controversies surrounding the impact of customer involvement on cost performance and discuss the role of product innovation novelty in customer involvement in NPD process. The results of this study can be used to establish whether customer involvement improves or weakens NPD cost performance and identify the role of product innovation novelty in NPD. The conclusions derived from this study can provide theoretical knowledge and managerial insights for both academicians and corporate professionals.

Compared with the conventional hotel providing a standardized service, individual supply on an accommodation-sharing platform makes consumers uncertain about service quality, which is mainly caused by information asymmetry between the consumers and individual hosts. In this paper, we develop a game-theoretic model to study the accommodation-sharing platform’s optimal quality information disclosure and its determining factors with consideration of consumer uncertainty. We find that it is optimal to provide either opaque, i.e., completely uninformative, or transparent, i.e., fully informative, quality information. We also examine the impacts of the incumbent hotel and market heterogeneity on the platform’s quality disclosure. The results show that market heterogeneity and the hotel’s service cost jointly affect the platform’s information disclosure strategy. In general, the sharing platform provides opaque information when market heterogeneity is relatively low but provides transparent information when market heterogeneity is relatively high. However, when market heterogeneity is medium, the hotel’s service cost plays a key role in affecting its pricing strategy, hence the information disclosure strategy of the platform. Specifically, a sufficiently high price of the hotel prompts the platform to disclose transparent information. These findings provide guidance for sharing platforms to design their information disclosure systems.

Purpose: From the dedication–constraint perspective, this study aims to complement ongoing discussions on the effects of switching costs on performance and explain the role of customer involvement and relationship quality in the relationship between switching costs and performance.Design/methodology/approach: After collecting data from Chinese manufacturing firms, the authors employed structural equation modeling to test their theoretical model incorporating switching costs, new product development performance, relationship quality and customer involvement.Findings: The findings show that switching costs negatively affect three dimensions of new product development performance covering new product development market performance, new product development speed, new product development cost. More importantly, relationship quality positively moderates the relationship between switching costs and new product development performance, while customer involvement takes positive moderation effects.Originality/value: These conclusions contribute to the knowledge of switching costs and supplier–customer relationship, and provide theoretical contributions and managerial insights for both academics and practitioners.