Servitization strategy as a roadmap for the accounting machine

Antonio Leotta, Carmela Rizza and Daniela Ruggeri ()
Additional contact information
Antonio Leotta: University of Catania
Carmela Rizza: University of Catania
Daniela Ruggeri: University of Catania

Journal of Management & Governance, 2020, vol. 24, issue 3, No 3, 587-622

Abstract: Abstract In the last decades contributions on servitization strategy have investigated the role of accounting in supporting it, highlighting the helpfulness of pragmatic constructivism in better understanding the accounting role. Following this advice, we reinterpret the metaphor of the accounting machine from the perspective of pragmatic constructivism and investigate how the accounting machine is used to prevent the so-called servitization paradox. Moving from the relevance of this paradox, the paper aims to examine how awareness of the servitization strategy could facilitate managers in the use of accounting information, communicating the business consequences of the strategy in decisions related to new product development (NPD) projects, typically characterized by cost and investment levels that are not fixed, leaving more room for preventing the servitization paradox. Accordingly, we conducted an interpretive case study in a division of a multinational manufacturing company operating in the semiconductor industry. The case evidence showed how managers become conscious of the functions and services that customers expect from a new device. More specifically, what emerges is how awareness of the servitization strategy helped managers in the use of accounting information throughout the NPD project’s maturity stages, characterized by different degrees of uncertainty. An actor perspective of uncertainty was followed in re-interpreting the different accounting machine that emerged from the evidence. All the evidence of the three NPD stages was interpreted as a process of co-authoring proactive and pragmatic truth.

Keywords: Servitization; Strategy; Accounting tools; Accounting machine; Pragmatic constructivism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10997-018-9444-6 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:jmgtgv:v:24:y:2020:i:3:d:10.1007_s10997-018-9444-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... 29/journal/10997/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10997-018-9444-6

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Management & Governance is currently edited by Lino Cinquini

More articles in Journal of Management & Governance from Springer, Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().