Provider involvement in business service definition: A typology
Författare
Summary, in English
This paper proposes a typology for provider roles in defining business services. The starting point of the study is the underlying rationale of much of the service purchasing literature that buyers have or can easily access the necessary know-how to procure business services. If this does not hold, the implication is that buying firms would shy away from buying complex services. An alternative perspective recognizes that purchasing business services requires its own set of sourcing capabilities, which may be lacking. Buying firms may have limited know-how in terms of defining and articulating their requirements or not be fully aware of them in the first place. However, the buyer's lack of sourcing capabilities need not be an injunction to internalize the service. In these circumstances, service providers step in, help buying firms specify their requirements and play a key role in defining what is procured and how. We build on this interactive view of service definition to undertake a comparative case analysis of four business service contracting situations arrayed along two dimensions buyer perceived uncertainty and provider's buyer-specific experience. We conclude that service providers play different roles in each case. These are classified as translating, re-engineering, developing, and fine-tuning roles. (c) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Avdelning/ar
Publiceringsår
2013
Språk
Engelska
Sidor
1398-1410
Publikation/Tidskrift/Serie
Industrial Marketing Management
Volym
42
Issue
8
Länkar
Dokumenttyp
Artikel i tidskrift
Förlag
Elsevier
Ämne
- Transport Systems and Logistics
Nyckelord
- Service definition
- Sourcing capabilities
- Buyer-supplier interactions
- Contracting
- Business services
Status
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Övrigt
- ISSN: 0019-8501