Purpose

An abundance of literature suggests that organisations adopting a cooperative approach achieve greater rewards than those that act in opposition or isolation. An emerging body of work also highlights the multiple actors involved in servitization. Despite this, in some contexts the benefits of servitization are not apparent. This paper examines business relationships in the oil industry and how they affect levels of servitization.

Design/methodology/approach

A mixed method study employing qualitative and quantitative methods was used to fully explore the context. In the quantitative phase, 48 oil industry specialists responded to a scenario based on game theory. This aimed to determine if the relationships between their respective organisations are cooperative or adversarial. Abduction drove a second qualitative phase. This consisted of a series of semi-structured interviews used to explore the servitization level and influence of servitization on relationships and vice versa.

Findings

The statistical results suggest that all parties used adversarial strategies despite the publicised intent to work cooperatively. The interviews suggested that increasing (decreasing) servitization could increase (decrease) cooperation and, in turn, value co-creation but revealed nuances to this effect. It also adds to our understanding of the darker side of servitization by illustrating the impact of mimetic isomorphism.

Originality/value

The findings add to understanding of the complex dynamics around servitization by showing that it is only at advanced levels of servitization that cooperative behaviour is observed, and base and intermediate levels result in non-cooperative behaviour and thus illustrate the importance of adopting a multi-actor lens to explore servitization.

中文翻译：

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我们应该合作吗？服务化的博弈论见解

目的

大量文献表明，采用合作方式的组织比采取反对或孤立行动的组织获得更大的回报。一项新兴的工作也突出了服务化中涉及的多个参与者。尽管如此，在某些情况下，服务化的好处并不明显。本文考察了石油行业的业务关系以及它们如何影响服务化水平。

设计/方法/方法

采用定性和定量方法的混合方法研究被用来充分探索背景。在定量阶段，48 位石油行业专家对基于博弈论的场景做出了回应。这旨在确定他们各自组织之间的关系是合作的还是对抗的。绑架推动了第二个定性阶段。这包括一系列半结构化访谈，用于探索服务化水平和服务化对关系的影响，反之亦然。

发现

统计结果表明，尽管公开了合作的意图，但各方都使用了对抗策略。访谈表明，增加（减少）服务化可以增加（减少）合作，进而促进价值共同创造，但揭示了这种效果的细微差别。它还通过说明模拟同构的影响，增加了我们对服务化阴暗面的理解。

原创性/价值

研究结果表明，只有在服务化的高级水平才会观察到合作行为，而基础和中级水平会导致非合作行为，从而说明了采用多参与者的重要性，从而加深了对围绕服务化的复杂动态的理解镜头探索服务化。