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Keywords

knowledge-intensive service agencies tie scale; knowledge-intensive service agencies tie strength; service innovation resource rigidity; service innovation convention rigidity; innovation search

Abstract

Transformation from manufacturing to service is a continuous, dynamic change from product-dominated logic to service-dominated logic, which will subvert the traditional logic of value creation of manufacturing enterprises, requiring manufacturing enterprises to implement a fundamental shift in the value creation of various links and organisational elements. Obviously, such fundamental changes involving core organisational characteristics can easily encounter resistance from organisational inertia, thus hindering the process of service transformation in manufacturing companies. In practice, on the one hand, the continuation of existing product production and delivery processes can still ensure that manufacturing companies can access to stable revenues. On the other hand, due to the constraints of their original core business areas, it is difficult for manufacturers to anticipate and control market revenues in the service area. The combination of these two factors leads to a tendency for manufacturing companies to stick to their existing products and processes, and to resist changes around servitisation and service innovation, ultimately leading to service innovation inertia. Previous research has demonstrated that organisational redundancy helps to reduce the inertia of service innovation in manufacturing firms. However, a large number of manufacturing enterprises in China lack resources that can be invested in service innovation, let alone provide redundant resources for service innovation. Therefore, how manufacturing enterprises can obtain a steady stream of new resources has become a problem worth studying. Ties with knowledge-intensive service agencies is a channel and way for manufacturing firms to access heterogeneous resources through knowledge-intensive service agencies, which have the potential to help them break through the constraints of service innovation resource rigidity and practice rigidity. However, the key to overcoming service innovation inertia through knowledge-intensive service agencies ties lies in the ability of manufacturing firms to effectively explore, transfer and absorb external heterogeneous knowledge resources. Innovation search offers possibilities for this behaviour. Based on the innovation search perspective, this paper collects 282 valid questionnaire data from Chongqing, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Zhejiang as research samples to explore in-depth the mechanism of the impact of ties with knowledge-intensive service agency on the service innovation inertia of manufacturing enterprises and the moderating role of innovation search, and divides the ties with knowledge-intensive service agency into two dimensions, knowledge-intensive service agencies tie scale andknowledge-intensive service agencies tie strength, and divides the service innovation inertia into resource rigidity and convention rigidity. This study obtained several findings. First, ties with knowledge-intensive service agencyis negatively related to service innovation inertia of manufacturing firms. Second, compared to knowledge-intensive service agencies tie strength, knowledge-intensive service agencies tie scale has a greater negative effect on service innovation resource rigidity in manufacturing firms. Third, compared to knowledge-intensive service agencies tie scale, knowledge-intensive service agencies tie strength has a greater effect on service innovation practice rigidity in manufacturing firms. Fourth, innovation search has a positive moderating role in the negative correlation between the scale of ties with knowledge-intensive service agency and the strength of ties with knowledge-intensive service agency and the rigidity of service innovation resources in manufacturing firms. Fifth, innovation search has no moderating effect in the negative correlation between the scale of ties with knowledge-intensive service agency, the the strength of ties with knowledge-intensive service agency and the rigidity of manufacturing firms' service innovation practices. This study enriches and improves the research on the mechanism of ties with knowledge-intensive service agency and manufacturing firms' overcoming service innovation inertia from the perspective of relational networks, adds theoretical explanations of the boundary conditions of ties with knowledge-intensive service agency on manufacturing firms' service innovation inertia, and clarifies the intrinsic relationship among ties with knowledge-intensive service agency, manufacturing firms' service innovation inertia and innovation search.

DOI

10.16315/j.stm.2024.02.002

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