A Socio-Technical Perspective on the Internet of Things: The Case of Advanced Services

The purpose of the study is to investigate how the Internet of Things (IoT) contributes to the manufacturers’ advanced service development and delivery. In order to better understand the creation of these IoT contributions, the study adopts a socio-technical research perspective which expands the scope of the investigation and integrates the technological, information and social factors that enable these IoT contributions. A multiple-case research method was employed to investigate the IoT contribution scenarios of 15 manufacturers offering advanced services, and to examine their dependence on other non-IoT factors using inductive and deductive thematic analysis. The analysis identified five advanced service value propositions which are enabled by ten ‘IoT-enabled IS artefacts’ which specify the distinct interactions between the technological, information and social subsystems that support the manufacturers’ advanced service value propositions. This study advances servitization research by showing that the IoT technology on its own is not sufficient for the creation of the IoT contributions. It shows instead the need for close interactions with a diverse range of other factors which are often not considered when developing the IoT strategy. The study further introduces the IS artefact notion as a unit of analysis that is an alternative to the commonly adopted techno-centric perspective used to conceptualise the IoT contributions. The study and its findings add to the development of a socio-technical perspective on the IoT in advanced services and generates a number of theoretical and practical implications.