Service and customer orientation of corporate culture in a French manufacturing SME

Abstract

The role of corporate culture in achieving servitization strategies is a recurrent issue in the servitization literature. The assumption is that corporate culture can have a profound impact on the effectiveness of the organization. Hence, manufacturing firms that pursue a servitization strategy should align their corporate culture, and move from a product-oriented culture to a service-oriented one. Based on action research, we have investigated the service and customer orientation of the corporate culture of a French manufacturing SME that has successfully developed product-related services. Our results show that its corporate culture is characterized by embeddedness between product and service organization, and a strong customer orientation. This leads us to challenge the way corporate culture is dealt with in the servitization literature.