Servitization in International Markets: Capabilities, Ecosystems and the Orchestration of Value Across International Borders

Introduction

Servitization, the shift from product-centric offerings to integrated product–service systems, has evolved into a mature and well-established field of research (Kowalkowski et al., 2022). Since its early conceptualisation, the domain has expanded significantly across operations, marketing, strategy, and innovation, with bibliometric and systematic reviews identifying several thousand publications and a structured body of knowledge spanning capabilities, business models, and organisational transformation. Despite this substantial progress, the international dimension of servitization remains comparatively underdeveloped. Much of the literature has focused on firm-level transformation within relatively bounded contexts, offering limited insight into how capabilities, ecosystems, and value orchestration unfold across diverse institutional, cultural, and geographic settings. Addressing this gap, this special issue focuses explicitly on servitization in international markets, with particular emphasis on the capabilities, ecosystems, and mechanisms required to orchestrate value across borders.

Across a range of sectors, manufacturers are looking for opportunities to grow revenue through the introduction of novel services that are focused on customer outcomes and value-in-use, rather than product-centric approaches focused on value-in-exchange. Given the research momentum that has built over the last 20 years, there is now a wealth of research exploring the servitization topic, whereby manufacturers look to transform their offering portfolio from more product-centric offerings towards services aimed at increasing revenue, customer value, and competitive advantage (Baines et al., 2017; Raddats et al., 2019). These services vary from base (e.g. spare parts) and intermediate services (e.g. scheduled equipment servicing) to transformative advanced services (e.g. outcome-focused solutions based on shared risk and reward) (Baines et al., 2009), which can offer greater value co-creation potential. Other research uses terms like product-service systems (Kohtamäki et al., 2026) and Services that Support Products (SSPs) versus Services that Support Customers (SSCs), focus on the concept of hybrid offerings (Ulaga & Reinartz, 2011; Schaarschmidt et al., 2022). These efforts are aimed at achieving growth, more stable cash flows, and higher profitability than firms can achieve from focusing on product-centric business models (Eggert et al., 2014; Gomes et al., 2021; Kohtamäki & Partanen, 2016).

Moving from such product-centric offerings to service-oriented offerings requires major operational and relational adaptations and firms face considerable challenges from both inside and outside of the organization. For example, in terms of Business Model Innovation (Paiola & Gebauer, 2020), including the emergence of subscription-based service models (Kowalkowski & Ulaga, 2024; Nansubuga & Kowalkowski, 2024). In relation to the development of digitalization capabilities (Kohtamäki et al., 2022; Marcon et al. 2022; Sjödin et al., 2023), whereby technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing and predictive analytics (AI), and platform ecosystems allow for new data-based service offerings to be developed (Kapoor et al., 2022; Story et al., 2017) and new innovation approaches (Burton et al., 2024; Bustinza et al., 2024; Rabetino et al., 2024; Xing et al., 2023), including co-creation processes (Kohtamaki et al., 2019). It also increasingly requires ecosystems of actors co-creating to deliver the value associated with these new service-based offerings (Kohtamaki et al., 2022), which can create tensions as ecosystem actors move into value spaces and territories occupied and/or coveted by other actors (Zolkiewski et al. 2023). Related papers also review the value architecture of servitization (e.g Garcia Martin et al., 2019). Furthermore, more recent studies focus on sustainability in relation to servitization (Behl et al., 2024; Bustinza et al., 2024; Kohtamäki et al., 2024).

Despite pressures to develop such offerings, many organisations face significant challenges in successfully implementing servitization, and there is a well-documented performance paradox (Brax, et al., 2021; Kohtamaki et al., 2018; Wang et al., 2018); because of the competing demands and resulting intra- and inter-organizational tensions that arise when looking to integrate products and services into new outcome-based offerings (Dmitrijeva et al., 2022; Tóth et al., 2022).

Theoretically, the topic of servitization draws on diverse theoretical underpinnings and spans different disciplines, including engineering, operations, marketing and strategy, which has led to knowledge accumulating within related scholarly communities, but not necessarily effectively crossing into other relevant scholarly communities in an integrated way (Rabetino et al., 2018). Thus, while extant literature now provides a well-developed view on the servitization topic, there are calls to study the international dimension more explicitly (Xing et al., 2023). Indeed, cross-fertilization between the areas of international business, innovation and servitization may hold significant promise around developing a more nuanced understanding of servitization performance and how firms can succeed globally in relation to servitized offerings.

Of the work that has explicitly considered international servitization, papers explore: capabilities (Abu Farha et al., 2023; Khan et al., 2023; Li et al., 2019), innovation outcomes (Bustinza et al., 2020); market entry modes (Agnihotri et al., 2023; Da Rocha et al., 2024), service design (Marvi et al., 2026); and key internal and external boundary conditions, such as the moderating impact of inter-organizational marketing capabilities and international market complexity (Zahoor et al., 2023), global distribution channels (Shleha et al., 2023) and risk-taking and technological turbulence (Chatterjee, et al., 2023). Some consider larger firms, or do not explicitly state firm size and make up, but more focus on SMEs (Chatterjee et al., 2023; Da Rocha et al., 2024; Amoozad-Mahdiraji et al., 2024; Zahoor et al., 2003). In terms of geographic focus, the Gulf region (Zahoor et al., 2023; Abu Farha et al., 2023) and India are the most researched (e.g. Behl et al., 2023; Chatterjee et al., 2023). Some also foreground digitalization as a core element of their research (e.g. Behl et al., 2023; Hani et al., 2025; Singh et al., 2026).

Delving into this emerging literature it is apparent that, many of these papers are conceptual – generating conceptual frameworks and propositions for future research, or review papers. For example, Agnihotri et al., (2023) develop propositions and a conceptual framework centered on exploring the interactions between digitalization and customer relationship investment. Bıçakcıoğlu-Peynirci and Morgan (2023) conceptual paper considers key boundary conditions related to slack resources and digital marketing capabilities in relation to how well they support industrial firms provide service offerings that support products (SSPs) or customers (SSCs), developing a framework that they argue serves as a guide for future research endeavors. Da Rocha et al’s., (2024) systematic literature review (SLR) investigates the issue of international market entry enabled by digital platforms in small firms, while Liu et al., (2023) reviews existing literature on hybrid offerings and firm internationalization strategies. Hani et al’s., (2025) SLR explores how data-driven service innovation helps to create, communicate and deliver value through hybrid business offerings in global markets and Marvi et al’s. (2026) develop a systematic review of service design and its application in a global context. Finally, Davies et al’s., (2023) SLR, which while not explicitly ‘international’ does cover off a key topic that is challenging all firms operating in the global economy, namely the importance of supply chains and ecosystems as key drivers for servitization success.

Some are qualitative, such as Khan et al., (2023), which explores the role of dynamic capabilities and network configuration in both developed and emerging markets. Several are quantitative, notably, Zahoor et al., (2023), who explore the relationship between international human capital and international product-service innovation and key boundary conditions (inter-organizational marketing capability and international market complexity) in the UAE and Bustinza et al., (2020) who provide a cross-country exploration of product-service innovation in relation to multinational corporations (MNCs) operating from five world regions, through the interrelationships between exploration and exploitation capabilities and performance outcomes for developed country versus emerging country MNCs. Shleha et al., (2023) explore the global distribution of high-tech products from a single Polish manufacturer and sales performance outcomes. Other articles have explored the moderating impacts of risk-taking ability and technological turbulence (Charterjee et al., 2023); open innovation and consumer integration in the servitization process (Abu Farha et al., 2023), and international marketing agility and service customization and export quality (Li et al., 2019).

This growing focus on international servitization is an important development for the topic and our contribution to the world of business, especially in these uncertain times. Understanding servitization from the perspective of international markets offers valuable insights for a variety of business organizations, from large, multinational corporations (MNCs), through to small- and medium-sized firms (SMEs), as well as firms exporting to and from developed and emerging economies. The intensification of change in terms of geopolitical and economic forces makes it harder to successfully servitize internationally, making it an increasing priority for both academic scholars and business leaders.

We encourage researchers to offer insights through different, but complementary lenses: 1) by applying established international marketing concepts to the servitization domain; or 2) through the extension of servitization theories and knowledge into the international context, focusing on what is explicitly different in this context from what is currently known. These two complementary approaches offer key opportunities to contribute to the developing debate around international servitization and how to build value across international borders.

As guest editors, we invite the submission of methodologically rigorous review articles, conceptual and empirical papers and, given the interdisciplinary nature of the topic, we also welcome submissions from a variety of relevant disciplines as well as cross-disciplinary work that helps to extend our understanding of market-focused servitization activities. Authors are encouraged to consider a wide array of approaches that might effectively illuminate the complexities of servitizing in an international context, including submissions that build on diverse theoretical perspectives that might help to advance our understanding of the challenges facing servitizing firms in a complex global context. This could include rich qualitative studies (e.g., in-depth interviews, case studies, ethnographies/netnographies), insightful quantitative analyses (e.g., cross-cultural surveys, experiments, archival and secondary data, digital trace data), longitudinal data sets and multi-method designs.

Feedback opportunities prior to submission

Special session at the 2027 Spring Servitization Conference, May 2027:

Authors will be able to indicate that they are developing a paper for the Special Issue as part of the submission process, and these authors will have both a presentation slot, as normal, and an opportunity to join a workshop during the conference to receive feedback from the guest editors. Submission deadline for the conference is January 2027. Further details will be available on the conference website once it is launched.

Presenting or attending this special session does not guarantee publication in the special issue, nor is it a prerequisite for publication in the special issue. This special session simply offers an opportunity for authors to refine their manuscripts with input from key Servitization authors prior to the formal double blind review process.

List of topic areas

• Servitization and international market positioning: implications for B2B and B2C customer relationships.
• Designing, pricing, and governing outcome-based offerings across diverse legal, regulatory, and cultural contexts.
• Scaling advanced services and outcome-based business models in international markets.
• Capabilities for international servitization: organisational, relational, and digital foundations.
• Orchestration and governance of cross-border service ecosystems and global partnerships.
• Buying, selling and the deployment of new services in a global context.
• The role of digital platforms, data governance, and AI in enabling globally integrated service offerings.
• Value capture and protection in international servitization, particularly under outcome- and performance-based contracts.
• Servitization and global trade: implications for tariffs, localisation, and the shift from products to services.
• The reconfiguration of global value chains through servitization and its implications for value distribution across economies.
• Sustainability and environmental performance in international servitization contexts.
• The role of servitization in supporting firms' net zero and broader sustainability transitions globally.
• Institutional and cultural influences on the adoption and diffusion of servitization across countries.

Submissions Information

Submissions are made using ScholarOne Manuscripts. Registration and access are available at: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/imrev

Author guidelines must be strictly followed. Please see: www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/journal/imr

Authors should select (from the drop-down menu) the special issue title at the appropriate step in the submission process, i.e. in response to ““Please select the issue you are submitting to”.

Submitted articles must not have been previously published, nor should they be under consideration for publication anywhere else, while under review for this journal.

Key deadlines

Opening date for manuscripts submissions: 01/09/2027

Closing date for manuscripts submission: 01/12/2027