Service innovation in digitalized product platforms: An illustration of the implications of generativity on remote diagnostics of public transport buses

Abstract

The digitalization of products stimulates service innovation and new business opportunities for industrial manufacturing firms. These opportunities are driven by generativity, which denotes digital technology's capacity in enabling organizations to innovate. While generativity on the one hand provides opportunities for digital service innovation, on the other hand it challenges the traditional business logic of industrial manufacturing firms. The traditional stable product-centric businesses where resources of a product platform are controlled by industrial manufacturing firms become destabilized and driven towards a flexible service innovation. The aim of this research is to explore the implications of generativity for service innovation in digitalized product platforms. We show the paradoxical relationship between generativity and control by following a bus manufacturer's endeavour in service innovation with digitalized public transport buses. We contribute with empirical illustrations of the implications for service innovation with three different degrees of control in digitalized product platforms.