Towards service-oriented organisational culture in manufacturing companies

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to bring new insight into the barriers of service business development in installed base manufacturing companies by studying the transformation from an organisational culture perspective. It proposes a new framework that can be used both in studying the transition and in supporting the change within an organisation.

Design/methodology/approach
– A case study‐based approach was applied together with conceptual work based on literature in order to construct the framework. The study was carried out in two manufacturing companies and the framework was tested on four other occasions. The data collection methods included interviews, organisational culture surveys and workshops.

Findings
– The paper provides a service culture and capability framework with tentative descriptions of transformations in the basic elements needed to facilitate the significant progress of a service business. It also gives empirical examples of how the transformation can manifest itself in organisational culture.

Research limitations/implications
– The framework is promising, but further research is needed in terms of theoretical and empirical validation.

Practical implications
– The paper contributes to supporting the transformation from a product‐oriented culture towards a more customer‐oriented and service‐oriented culture. It suggests that the transformation can be facilitated by exploring and communicating new core task demands and synchronised development of customer relations, management, service development practices and service business understanding. It argues that this is also a possibility for renewing an entire organisation and improving its readiness for the future.

Originality/value
– This paper offers an essential, but little known organisation culture perspective to the theoretical discussion on industrial service business development.