How Service Modularization Affects Innovation Performance in Professional Service Firms

Abstract

Abstract: The professional service industry has been set up late but developed rapidly in China due to the popularization of the service modularization to the industry. Then, how has the modularization helped improve the performance of the professional service firms (PSFs) in China? This paper conducts a multiple-case explorative study to four professional service enterprises by introducing the knowledge creation theory into the modularization theory and proposes a function mechanism model of the professional service industry's service modularization on the innovation performance based on the knowledge codification. The study results indicate that the service modularization of PSFs (i.e. the modular self-discipline and the interface standardization) can improve the innovation performance through promotion of the individual knowledge structuring and the enterprise knowledge dominancy (the customer response). This conclusion has solved the discrepancies available in the existing literature and will provide a unique thinking to study the modularization from the perspective of the knowledge management.

Key words: professional service firms (PSFs), innovation performance, service modularization, knowledge codification

CLC Number:

F270

Wei Jiang, Liu Yang, Zhao Jiangqi. How Service Modularization Affects Innovation Performance in Professional Service Firms[J]. Science Research Management, 2013, 34(9): 1-10.

References

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