Toward Servitized Research: An Integrated Approach for Sustainable Product-Service Innovation

Wim Coreynen, Arjen van Witteloostuijn, Johanna Vanderstraeten

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

This article proposes to bring the sustainable product-service innovation (PSI) field into a next phase—after two phases of exploring why and how firms achieve sustainable PSI growth, we suggest to further focus on finding when they actually do so. Based on prior studies, we pinpoint and describe two main shortcomings in the current body of PSI literature: (1) an overemphasis on the firm level, and (2) an overuse of descriptive case studies. These shortcomings are used as step-ping-stones for formulating a research approach that integrates Multiple Levels (namely, the firm, its environment, and its people), mixes different Methods (both qualitative and quantitative) and that turns researchers to Action (through advice and training). This MLMA approach offers ample new research opportunities and turns the servitization research community into a servitized community by leveraging academic insights to better support firms in improving their economic and environmental performance.

Original languageEnglish
Article number8422
Number of pages21
JournalSustainability
Volume13
Issue number15
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Aug 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Acknowledgments: The first author is grateful for the financial support by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 71874152, 71732008, 71572187), the National Office for Philosophy and Social Sciences (Grant No. 21AZD010) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities during his time as postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Intellectual Property Management (IIPM) at the School of Management at Zhejiang University (ZJU) in Hangzhou, P.R. China.

Funding Information:
The first author is grateful for the financial support by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 71874152, 71732008, 71572187), the National Office forPhilosophy and Social Sciences (Grant No. 21AZD010) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities during his time as postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Intellectual Property Management (IIPM) at the School of Management at Zhejiang University (ZJU) in Hangzhou, P.R. China.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

Keywords

  • Action research
  • Mixed methods
  • Multiple levels
  • Product-service innovation
  • Theory integration

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