Purpose

Although many manufacturers depend on international sales, and product-related services continue to increase in importance, little is known about how manufacturers should deliver their product-related services across borders. This paper examines the international configuration decision of industrial service offerings across borders by investigating the impact of different service characteristics and the servitization strategy on this decision. Additionally, the paper sheds light on how digitalization and administrative heritage impact this decision.

Design/methodology/approach

116 industrial goods manufacturers from Switzerland and Germany were surveyed.

Findings

Servitization leads companies to centralize their service resources in their home countries. However, most service characteristics do not impact decisions regarding centralization, except for knowledge intensity, which leads to more centralization of resources. This implies that the resource configuration does not depend on each service individually but on the overall service strategy. Furthermore, the digital readiness of the host country directly and positively impacts resource centralization. Notwithstanding other variables, larger companies tend to decentralize service resources more than smaller companies.

Originality/value

This paper is among the first to study the international configuration impact of servitization and of individual service characteristics, thereby adding important knowledge regarding the provision of product-related services in the international context. Additionally, different aspects of digitalization are included to analyze its impact on companies and host countries.

中文翻译：

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数字时代产品相关服务的国际资源配置——前因分析

目的

尽管许多制造商依赖于国际销售，并且产品相关服务的重要性不断增加，但对于制造商应如何跨境提供其产品相关服务却知之甚少。本文通过调查不同服务特征和服务化策略对这一决策的影响，研究了跨境工业服务产品的国际配置决策。此外，本文还阐明了数字化和行政遗产如何影响这一决定。

设计/方法/方法

对来自瑞士和德国的 116 家工业品制造商进行了调查。

发现

服务化导致公司将其服务资源集中在本国。然而，大多数服务特性不会影响关于集中化的决策，除了知识强度，这会导致资源更加集中。这意味着资源配置不依赖于单独的每个服务，而是依赖于整体服务策略。此外，东道国的数字化准备情况直接和积极地影响资源集中。尽管存在其他变量，但大公司比小公司更倾向于分散服务资源。

原创性/价值

本文是最早研究服务化和个人服务特征的国际配置影响的论文之一，从而增加了有关在国际背景下提供产品相关服务的重要知识。此外，还包括数字化的不同方面，以分析其对公司和东道国的影响。