Servitization allows manufacturing firms to differentiate themselves from rivals and become more competitive. Scholars have studied the service paradox, but analysis of the relationship between servitization and firm performance has provided inconclusive results. In terms of the antecedents that influence this relationship, the literature has tended to focus on firm and product characteristics but not on companies' innovative behavior. This article probes the relationship between servitization and firm performance by focusing on two forms of innovation (technological and open) that may exert an influence. The study draws on the resource‐based view literature to explain the role of interactions between technological innovation, service innovation, and open innovation in enhancing firm performance. Longitudinal empirical analysis was conducted with a sample of Spanish industrial firms for the period 2010–2016. Two time‐lagged models were built and analyzed. The results show that technological innovation influences servitization. This relationship is moderated by open innovation. Servitization mediates the relationship between technological innovation and firm performance. The findings contribute to the literature on servitization and innovation management. Innovation is posited as an antecedent to the service paradox. Products, services, and open innovation should be considered when firms design innovation strategies to improve their performance. Such innovation strategies should lead to an increase in servitization. Service innovation should be supported by open innovation to strengthen technological innovation potential.

The present paper assesses whether the adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies can be related to backshoring. It does so by -firstly- investigating the implementation of such technologies by industrial firms with foreign production plants, the experiences and intentions of these firms regarding the location of production activities, and -secondly- by analyzing backshoring cases among them.It finds that backshoring is a rare phenomenon, and it is questionable whether there is a correlation, left alone causality, between the adoption of digital technologies in home-based manufacturing sites and backshoring hitherto. And while the future may hold more backshoring movements in store, they may not be primarily due to the adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies at home-based plants. Instead, other (foreign) location-specific factors seem to have greater weight in the decision-making processes around backshoring operations. I.e., deteriorating sales forecasts in offshore places where firms have production activities, increases in institutional uncertainty in such places, rationalization of global production apparatuses, and/or a lack of possibilities to deploy foreign manufacturing activities and output for third markets. Also against the backdrop of events like the outbreak of Covid19 and the uncertainty-raising effect it has on international business, the trade-off between producing off-shore or bringing manufacturing activities back home is not likely to depend on technology adoption levels at home and abroad either.