Options
2016
Book Article
Titel
Standardization, innovation, and organization: A contingency perspective
Abstract
Pay-per-use services are an interesting phenomenon, both empirically and theoretically. Despite the alleged benefits, companies still struggle to succeed with pay-per-use services. Theoretically, it is common sense that existing service capabilities cannot easily be converted into organizational capabilities for pay-per-use services. Based on multiple case studies, the present article narrows down the existing empirical and theoretical gaps through an inductive research approach. Our findings make the following contributions to the field of services in product-oriented companies and to the servitization literature. We describe the organizational capabilities necessary for pay-per-use services (e.g., financing such services, aligning costs with equipment usage, and collaborating with customers). We reveal that companies should convert these capabilities into three core competencies (strategizing pay-per-use services, utilizing technologies for pay-per-use services, and de-risking pay-per-use services), in order to achieve competitive advantages. Companies that intend to leverage standardization to drive innovation have to set up their organizations appropriately. Data from four German companies reveal different ways for organizing the standardization activities. Companies may allocate a high level of resources by dedicating a specialized department; they may assign the standardization task to top managers; they may treat standardization within occasional projects; or create sophisticated solutions to facilitate the use of standards. Contingency theory is used to narrow down the number of factors that influence the organization of the standardization function. There are three relevant contingency factors: competition, size, and strategy. Company's age, technological complexity and volatility of customer demand are found to be less important. Instead, maturity of technology and the period of time, during which the company has been actively engaged in standardization work seem to be better contingencies. Another finding is that innovation appears to be a by-product and not the main driver of standardization work.