Change of culture or culture of change? Introducing a path-agency-culture (PAC) framework to servitization research

Right from the beginning of servitization research, one of the depicted organizational challenges of this transformational process resided in the realm of culture, especially concerning an organizational culture that is bound to a dominant product culture that prohibits the transformation to an integrated PSS provider. Therefore, the underlying concept of culture within current servitization studies promotes predominantly cultural consistence and coherence, possible variability's, ambiguities and paradoxes are to a greater extent omitted. Analysing and questioning the underlying concepts of culture within servitization research to this point, this paper will shed light on the question, how a comprehensive understanding of organizational culture can offer further insights to support the servitization process of companies. Two concepts of culture that are linked to path research serve as a theoretical foundation: The first concept identifies organizational culture as a promoter of path dependence and therefore as an inhibiting factor within the servitization process. The role of agents is perceived rather passive within this view. The second concept of organizational culture stresses the role of culture as a promoter of path creation and therefore as an enabling factor within the servitization process. According to this view, social agents can actively use cultural means to create new paths for the organization. On this basis a conceptual framework for analysing organizational culture within servitization will be introduced that comprises the dimensions a.) path constitution, b.) role of agents and c) manifestations of culture. This framework embraces the ambiguity of culture within the transformation process as both, an inhibiting factor, as a culture that needs to be changed, and as an enabling factor, as a culture of change. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.