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2018 | OriginalPaper | Buchkapitel

The Effect of Service Modularity on Flexibility in the Digital Age – An Investigation in the B2B Context

Autoren: Torben Stoffer, Thomas Widjaja, Nicolas Zacharias

Verlag: Springer International Publishing

Erschienen in: Exploring Service Science

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Abstract

The goal of this study is to investigate the moderating role of digitalization on the well-known positive effect of service modularity on service flexibility. This is important since research findings on the role of service digitalization in this context are scarce and still equivocal. Following research on digital business strategy, we propose and provide empirical evidence that service digitalization positively moderates the effect of service modularization on service flexibility. By doing this, we furthermore enhance this research by considering service digitalization as a continuum ranging from low (i.e., services mainly provided by personnel) to high (i.e., services mainly provided by IT). In addition, we show that service flexibility has a positive effect on service value which is an important factor for firms’ market success. Hereby we aim to contribute to research on service modularization and technology management. Our research is based on survey-data of 147 companies offering IT services in the B2B context and is analyzed using the partial least square method.

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See Tables 1, 2, and 3.

Table 1.

Measurement Items with respective loadings for the main constructs.

Service Modularity (SM)
Adapted from Vickery et al. [ 7]; reflective; 7-Point Likert scale with anchors 1 = “strongly disagree” and 7 = “strongly agree”
SM1	The service is composed of service modules (or self-contained processing units)	0.797
SM2	The service is broken down into service modules that can operate independently	0.788
SM3	Service modules can be added to or removed from the service without changing other service modules	0.882
SM4	The service is designed so that service modules can be added or removed without significant changes to other service modules	0.902
SM5	The service is designed to be rapidly disassembled and reconfigured	0.755
Service Flexibility (SF)
Adapted from Nelson et al. [ 14]; reflective; 7-Point Likert scale with anchors 1 = “strongly disagree” and 7 = “strongly agree”
SF1	The service can be adapted to meet a variety of needs	0.835
SF2	The service can flexibly adjust to new demands or conditions	0.905
SF3	The service is versatile in addressing needs as they arise	0.862
Service Value (SV)
Adapted from Stock and Zacharias [ 19]; reflective; 7-Point Likert scale with anchors 1 = “strongly disagree” and 7 = “strongly agree”
SV1	The service offers unique advantages to our customers	0.760
SV2	The service offers higher quality than services of our competitors	0.803
SV3	The service offers higher value than services of our competitors	0.766
SV4	The service solves the problems of our customers	0.724
SV5	The service delivers high benefits for our customers	0.753
Service Digitalization (SD)
Percentage scale between 0% and 100% with steps of 5%
SD1	Please rate the percentage of the service provision which is done by IT-systems	1.000
Investment Cost (IC)
Adapted from Benaroch et al. [ 49]; selection among predefined ranges in EUR with the boundaries 50,000, 0.1 million, 0.5 million, 1 million and 5 million as well as more than 5 million
IC1	What is the amount in EUR approved for this service?	1.000
Firm Age (FA)
Adapted from Demirkan et al. [ 50]
FA1	What is your companies age in years?	1.000
Revenue (R)
Selection among predefined ranges in EUR with the boundaries: 0.1 million, 1 million, 5 million, 10 million, 50 million, 100 million, 500 million, 1 billion and 1.5 billion as well as more than 1.5 billion
R1	What is your company’s turnover in the past year?	1.000

Table 2.

Indices for the assessment of internal consistency reliability.

Construct	Cr. α	CR	AVE
Service Modularity (SM)	0.886	0.915	0.684
Service Flexibility (SF)	0.835	0.901	0.753
Service Value (SV)	0.819	0.873	0.580
Service Digitalization (SD)	1.000	1.000	1.000
Investment Cost (IC)	1.000	1.000	1.000
Firm Age (FA)	1.000	1.000	1.000
Revenue (R)	1.000	1.000	1.000

Table 3.

Correlations and Indices for the assessment of discriminant validity.

Construct	SM	SF	SV	SD	IC	FA	R
SM	0.827
SF	0.252	0.868
SV	0.267	0.340	0.761
SD	0.244	−0.056	0.133	1.000
IC	0.101	0.041	−0.012	0.077	1.000
FA	−0.022	0.027	0.074	0.022	−0.028	1.000
R	−0.057	−0.008	0.064	−0.011	0.463	0.067	1.000

Due to the significantly positive effect between service modularization and service value (cf., Fig. 1), we additionally can confirm a complementary mediation [ 48].

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Titel

The Effect of Service Modularity on Flexibility in the Digital Age – An Investigation in the B2B Context

Buch

Exploring Service Science

Print ISBN: 978-3-030-00712-6

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-030-00713-3

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00713-3

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00713-3_1

Autoren:

Torben Stoffer
Thomas Widjaja
Nicolas Zacharias

Verlag

Springer International Publishing

Sequenznummer

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