Digitally enabled advanced services: a socio-technical perspective on the role of the internet of things (IoT)

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate how the internet of things (IoT) contributes to manufacturers' advanced services development and delivery. To better understand the creation of these IoT contributions, the study adopts a socio-technical research perspective, which expands the scope of the investigation and integrates the technological, information and social factors that enable these IoT contributions.Design/methodology/approachA multiple-case research method was employed to investigate the IoT contribution scenarios of 15 manufacturers who offer advanced services and to examine their dependence on other non-IoT factors, using thematic analysis.FindingsThe analysis identified five advanced services value propositions, which are enabled by nine “IoT-enabled information systems (IS) artefacts” that specify the distinct interactions between the technological, information and social subsystems supporting the manufacturers' advanced services value propositions.Originality/valueThe study advances the servitisation research by demonstrating that IoT technology on its own is insufficient for the creation of the IoT contributions. It shows, instead, the need for close interactions with a diverse range of other factors, which are often not considered when developing an IoT strategy. The study also introduces the IS artefact notion as a unit of analysis that constitutes an alternative to the commonly adopted techno-centric perspective used to conceptualise IoT contributions. The study and its findings add to the development of a socio-technical perspective on the IoT in advanced services and thereby suggests a number of theoretical and practical implications.

Exploring digital servitization trajectories within product–service–software space

“…DS is an emerging research topic across various disciplines. The literature treats DS as a driver of business model innovation (Frank et al, 2019;Paschou et al, 2020;Arnold et al, 2016), such as value creation and capture processes (Sj€ odin et al, 2020), adoption of digital technologies (Schroeder et al, 2020), service-orientation of IoT technologies (Paiola and Gebauer, 2020;Rymaszewska et al, 2017) and platform ecosystems (Jovanovic et al, 2021;Kapoor et al, 2021 This study makes several important theoretical contributions in the DS literature. The study showed that business models are decomposable systems (Aversa et al, 2015b;G€ artner and Sch€ on, 2016), that is, the architecture for value creation can be decomposed into modules (Teece, 2010), allowing future trajectories to be developed by mixing and matching modules and manipulating them onto new trajectories (Schilling, 2000;G€ artner and Sch€ on, 2016;Aversa et al, 2015b).…”

“…Across differen sectors, digitalization is one of the most prominent catalysts of innovation (Nambisan et al, 2019;Yoo et al, 2012;Hanelt et al, 2020). Manufacturers have been particularly successful with the adoption of digital technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) (Schroeder et al, 2020). Digital technologies have enabled industry leaders such as Volvo and ABB to make products and services smarter and unlock innovation opportunities through the development of advanced platform-based services (Jovanovic et al, 2021).…”

Co-evolution of platform architecture, platform services, and platform governance: Expanding the platform value of industrial digital platforms

“…These technologies allowed digital components and electronics to be embedded in various "things" and enabled them to be smarter and progressively more interlinkedoften called the Industrial Internet of things (IIoT) (Porter and Heppelmann, 2014;Sestino et al, 2020;Suppatvech et al, 2019). Today, manufacturers link physical and digital worlds and collect data from diverse objects, devices, and machines (Bilgeri et al, 2019;Leminen et al, 2018;Schroeder et al, 2020). As a result, they are able to make new digital products that perform better in terms of productivity and profitability (McAfee and Brynjolfsson, 2012).…”

“…First, a major concern regarding the current platform research is that scholars largely exclude the design of platform architecture (Cennamo, 2019;Thomas et al, 2014;Tiwana, 2014) and associated features of the value proposition (Kiel et al, 2017;Leminen et al, 2020;Schroeder et al, 2020), from the unit of analysis. For instance, to reach the higher-order platform services such as optimization and autonomous services, a platform sponsor needs to add a complementary set of external modules to the platform core (Constantinides et al, 2018).…”

Service Customization: Optimizing Value Creation and Capture by Designing the Customer Journey

“…The interaction among humans and technical agents is conceptually discussed in the literature about socio-technical systems (e.g., [17]- [19]). Those human and technical actors interplay in service ecosystems and create and capture value [12] in the sphere of their service interaction [20].…”