Employee reactions to servitization as an organizational transformation

When managing the organizational transition from offering products to services, employee engagement and buy-in to the servitization strategy is a core determinant of the success of the transformation. However, upon commencing such a transition, a lack of service employees (Burton, Story, Raddats, & Zolkiewski, 2017; Lütjen, Tietze, & Schultz, 2017) as well as difficulties retaining skilled and trained service specialists (Huikkola, Kohtamäki, & Rabetino, 2016) present major impediments for traditional manufacturers to overcome to integrate services into their businesses. Although the specific needs of each industry and organization may vary, focusing on employees is justified due to the necessity of aligning their operational roles and competencies with the future service practices (Baines, Lightfoot, Smart, & Fletcher, 2013; Lütjen et al., 2017). More specifically, organizational transformation involves changes that require employees to respond to a new set of job requirements and perform in the context of a different business approach. In this context, the reactions of employees, visible in the level and direction of their efforts during the transformation (Herscovitch & Meyer, 2002), are divided between two extremes, support and rejection, with resistance in the middle (Rese & Maiwald, 2013).