The Influence Of Chinese Manufacturing Enterprises' Servitization On Their Competitive Advantages

The revolution of information technology and fast expansion of economic globalization have led far-reaching influence on world economy.In the new round of international division of labor,countries around the world are racing to join in.With the transformation of comparative advantage,the global manufacturing landscape will be reshaped.Due to the backflow of manufacturing in developed countries and transfer of emerging market countries in compete for middle-and-low-end manufacturing industries,Chinese manufacturing industry has ushered in both new opportunities and challenges.Under such background,one the one hand,trend of servitization rises in manufacturing industry located in developed countries,which arouses great interest among scholars,management and government decision-makers.On the other hand,closure phenomenon is not uncommon among Chinese manufacturing industries,especially those private-owned ones.It is not because of low-end and underdeveloped but for high risk with low profit dilemma.How to realize the revival of Chinese manufacturing?We believe it is not only a must to cultivate technological innovation,but concentrating our efforts to the operational model of enterprises.Based on the judgment indicators,such as per capita GDP,three industrial structure,the proportion of agricultural workers and the urbanization rate,China has come into the mid-late phase of industrialization."Reindustrialization" strategy,which emphasizes on efficiency improvement and service transformation,has caused great impact on the resource endowment and comparative advantage of developing countries,and might block "Flying geese paradigm" to catch up.Because Chinese construction of a new type of industrialization has confronted severe challenges,it is urge to rapidly develop servitization of manufacturing and producer services.Nowadays,developing countries has boosted in integration of informationization and industrialization for the fast growth in mobile Internet,cloud computing,big data technology,providing opportunities for servitization of manufacturing enterprises.For example,in manufacturing sector,application of intelligence and information technology improves resource allocation efficiency,optimization of the production of organizations and operation management mode,and has given rise to the development of the platform economy.From the point of supply-and-demand relationship of the development manufacturing industry,on the one hand,consumers can not only buy products,but obtain differentiated supply and personalized service during purchase,On the other hand,enterprise generally highlight production but devalue service and their business model is too monolithic.In addition,the problem of mismatch between supply and demand is becoming increasingly prominent,so it is urgent to change the development mode of manufacturing industry.Therefore,when continuing material investment,it is necessary to emphasize on the research design of products and service innovation to improve the quality and effectiveness of production.Moreover,Chinese manufacturing enterprises are supposed to extend to higher value-added sectors,which can effectively drive the "three major shifts" of China's manufacturing enterprises,further realize sustainable development.For one thing,servitization strategy can't only integrate services and manufacturing together,which could make the products of manufacturing enterprises more unique,hardly to copy or imitate,and provide additional value for customers for another,servitization can go beyond products and concentrate on integrating the whole value chains,making service the core for value creation and value access.Although servitization of manufacturing enterprises has gained support from both academia and industries,only half of them have begun to servitization.Can servitization bring some negative effects for manufacturing enterprises when helping them promote competence,sales as well as competitive advantage?In line with the aforementioned research background,we focused on the servitization of Chinese manufacturing enterprises and its influence on enterprise competence and competitive advantage.Thus,we organized our dissertation in the following six chapters.Chapter one is introduction section,which mainly outlines the backgrounds,meanings,fundamental questions,framework and technical roadmap,as well as the definitions of key constructs that used in the subsequent chapters of the whole dissertation.In chapter two,we conducted literature review of the antecedents and outcomes of service transformation both at home and abroad to clarify the status quo and trends of servitization transformation,demonstrate the relationship of this dissertation with extant literature and act as foundations for the whole dissertation.Especially,we focused on the conceptualization and connotation of servitization,and then the theoretical foundation of servitization as well as the classifications,characteristics and antecedents of servitization.In addition,we deduced the relationships between servitization with enterprise competence,and servitization with competitive advantage.In chapter three,we analyzed the status quo and trends of the servitization of Chinese manufacturing enterprises.Based on the literature review and normative analysis as well as the manual retrieve,we selected data of 178 listed manufacturing enterprises in China's Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets during 2005 to 2016.Then,we used cross-sectional methodology to systematically analyze the status quo,characteristics,patterns and development tendency of the servitization of these Chinese manufacturing enterprises.In chapter four,we established our research model and hypotheses.Based on literature review and theoretical analysis,we developed a model that reflects the relationships among servitization,enterprises competence and competitive advantage.Especially,we examined the influence of servitization on competitive advantage via enterprises competence.Meanwhile,we developed our hypotheses.In chapter five,we conducted empirical analysis and tested our hypotheses.Using multivariate regression analysis,we found the following results.Firstly,servitization has positive effect on competitive advantage;secondly,servitization has positive effect on enterprise competence.In other words,the higher of the servitization,the stronger the enterprise competence,such as profitability,innovation ability,marketing ability,environmental protection ability;Thirdly,enterprise competence has positive effect on competitive advantage such that the stronger the enterprise competence,the more significant the competitive advantage;Fourthly,enterprise competence mediates the relationship between servitization and competitive advantage:profitability fully mediates the relationship between servitization and competitive advantage,innovation ability partially mediates the relationship between servitization and competitive advantage,marketing ability partially mediates the relationship between servitization and competitive advantage,environmental protection ability partially mediates the relationship between servitization and competitive advantage.Lastly,management innovation partially moderates the relationship between servitization and competitive advantage.In chapter six,we discussed about our conclusion,managerial implication,limitations and directions for future research.Specifically,we summarize the conclusions,theoretical and practical contributions,main innovation points,possible limitations as well as the directions for future research of the servitization about Chinese manufacturing enterprises.In sum,this dissertation used Chinese manufacturing enterprises samples,thus the conclusions are especially conducive for them to understand the influence of servitization on both enterprise competence and competitive advantage.The main contributions and innovative points are as follows:firstly,we identify the classification and characteristics of the servitization tactics of Chinese manufacturing enterprises,and provide theoretical guidance for avoidance of the blindness of servitization and the risk of transformation;secondly,we adopted manual retrieve method to pick up data of those listed manufacturing enterprises in China to analyze the status quo and trend of servitization of Chinese manufacturing enterprises;thirdly,we developed a theoretical model of servitization with enterprises' competitive advantage,and explored the mediation effect of enterprise competence.In addition,we modify the research methodology to make our empirical conclusion more scientific and relevant.