The Root Causes of Servitization Challenges: An Organisational Boundary Perspective

This paper explains how servitization disrupts long-established internal and external boundaries of product-focused manufacturers and investigates the root causes of servitization challenges. It draws from the collective experiences of 20 senior executives from ten multinational manufacturers involved in servitization, using a multiple case study approach, and employ a codebook thematic analysis technique. We develop an integrative framework based on the theoretical notions of power, competency and identity boundaries to offer insights into the root causes of various servitization-related challenges. This study contributes to the extant research by establishing rational links between organisational boundaries (internal and external) and servitization challenges in the interest of building a coherent and systematically integrated body of theory that can be successfully applied and built upon by future research.