Intra and inter-organizational paradoxes in product-service systems: Current insights and future research directions

Despite a strong imperative for servitization in a contemporary global marketplace characterized by increased dynamism, complexity, and hypercompetitiveness, firms implementing servitization and product-service systems are challenged by a variety of paradoxes that have been largely overlooked. This editorial introduces the Special Issue on "Intra and interorganizational paradoxes and actionable solutions in product-service networks ", summarizes and synthesizes insightful contributions to the Special Issue, and sets an agenda for future research at the interface of the paradox perspective and servitization/product-service systems literature. We address the need for theory-driven research in servitization and build an argument for a greater infusion of the paradox perspective into the servitization research. We also provide the groundwork for further exploration and examination of the servitization phenomenon and contemporary product-service systems applying the paradox perspective, especially across different levels of analysis and temporal aspects, through the development of future research agenda.