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- Brozovic, Danilo, 1979-
(författare)
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Service Provider Flexibility : A Strategic Perspective
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis is about service provider flexibility and how provider flexibility facilitates customer value creation in contexts where customer processes and activities change. Provider flexibility is delineated as a mechanism of value creation and defined as the ability of the service provider to respond to changes or to bring about changes that support its customers’ value creation. Although provider flexibility has been implied as a relevant factor in value creation, previous studies focusing on some kind of provider flexibility would benefit from a deeper understanding of the strategic role that service provider flexibility plays in value creation.The purpose of this study is to provide a framework that explicates the strategic role of provider flexibility in value creation. The role of provider flexibility in the adjustment of the provider’s processes and activities and the development of opportunities based on insights from customer interactions are thus emphasized. Moreover, while these insights from customer interactions can offer valuable development opportunities for the service provider, these opportunities yield returns only with the transfer of the insights back to the service provider’s organization.The research process evolves along five research articles that develop the understanding of the strategic role of provider flexibility in value creation. The study builds on the empirical data from five service organizations of large industrial firms. The empirical insights from the articles are expanded and their conclusions further developed by iteratively and abductively substantiating the research model. The discussion explicates how exercising provider flexibility—in the form of organizational flexibility in the provider sphere, interaction flexibility in the joint sphere, and flexibility in use in the customer sphere—contributes to value creation. Moreover, findings show that the provider and the customer are entwined in a service system surrounding their service relationship. Provider flexibility in this aspect functions not merely as a mechanism of value creation, but also as a carrier of knowledge and information about the customer. Having this dynamics in mind, the provider continues to use provider flexibility to reinvent itself and constantly evolve the organization.This thesis contributes to the literature by providing a framework that explicates the strategic role of provider flexibility in value creation. More specifically, the contributions are: 1) an increased understanding of how provider flexibility in value creation is exercised, placing provider flexibility at the core of the encompassing process of value creation, and thus explicating the manner in which the encompassing process of value creation can unfold; and 2) an increased understanding of the strategic role of the work of part-time marketers by delineating the process of provider flexibility in value creation where different aspects of provider flexibility in value creation are linked.
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| 2. |
- Brozovic, Danilo, 1979-
(författare)
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Strategic Flexibility : A Review of the Literature
- 2018
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Ingår i: International journal of management reviews (Print). - : Wiley. - 1460-8545 .- 1468-2370. ; 20:1, s. 3-31
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Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- Previous literature reviews of strategic flexibility have a number of shortcomings: they lack a specific focus in the field, provide an excessive definitional focus or lack a clear empirical overview of research in the field. To overcome these shortcomings, this paper aims to systematically analyse the literature on strategic flexibility by identifying its main characteristics, linking the different aspects together in a new conceptual framework, and considering the means to measure it. This comprehensive analytical model analyses various aspects of strategic flexibility in the relevant literature (156 contributions). Thus, the systematic and critical approach of this paper offers a novel perspective in understanding strategic flexibility, and contributes to the field by providing a consolidation of the literature and indicating future research avenues.
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| 3. |
- Nordin, Fredrik, 1967-, et al.
(författare)
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The Spineless Organization : The Most Extreme Form of Service Organization?
- 2016
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Ingår i: Conference Proceedings. - 9789082568004 ; , s. 449-453
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Flexibility is generally considered an important driver of customer-perceived value (Lapierre, 2000). In contemporary business environments where the rapid development of new technologies, globalization, and an upheaval in industrial markets have led to increased uncertainty for firms acting in these markets (Sanchez, 1995, Hitt, Keats & DeMarie, 1998), this appears even more pertinent. Further, it is even more relevant for firms that strive to reposition themselves as part of their customers’ businesses (Normann, 2001). Although flexibility may seem like a natural part of service activities, the service literature is rather vague about this notion. For the most part, prior studies merely note that flexibility is important in a service context, with unsubstantiated claims such as “a degree of flexibility, after all, is central to good service” (Lovelock, 1993, p. 46)or “whereas typical manufacturing values often focus on efficiency, economies of scale, and the notion that variety and flexibility are costly, service-oriented values centre on innovation, customization, and the view that flexibility and variety create profits” (Gebauer, Fleisch & Friedli, 2005, p. 21). Indeed, there is an emerging body of research focusing on how flexibility can contribute to customer’s value creation (e.g., Hansen, Samuelsen & Silseth, 2008, Brozovic, Nordin & Kindström, 2016), but no one takes this issue as far as we attempt to do in this article by conceptualizing the “spineless organization”. A spineless organization is here defined as an organizational unit that always puts the customer's needs at the centre and is able tomeet them rapidly and efficiently regardless of what they are about and whether they were expected or not.
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