Mitigating adverse customer behaviour for product-service system provision: An agency theory perspective

Offering product-service systems (PSS) arguably results in economic, environmental and social benefits but also entails significant challenges related to relational dynamics between the provider and the customer. Although prior studies suggest that adverse customer behaviour during PSS provision is likely, they provide a limited theoretical understanding of the conceptualization of such relational problems and, more importantly, offer few possible ways to address these problems. By applying the lens of agency theory, this study examines PSS provider-customer relational problems and solutions. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify agency problems and propose mechanisms to mitigate adverse customer behaviour in PSS provision. Based on a multiple case study approach involving two manufacturing companies, several results are presented. First, we identify and describe two underlying reasons for adverse customer behaviour. These reasons are associated with goal differentiation and monitoring challenges. Second, different agency mechanisms(i.e. sharing, monitoring and trust) are presented as approaches to mitigate the likelihood of adverse customer behaviour. The matching of agency problems with agency mechanisms to mitigate these problems lays the groundwork for developing a framework for agency situation evaluation during the formation and ongoing phases of the PSS agreement. In addition, the choice of agency mechanism is found to be correlated with the maturity and type of customer relationship and can change over time as new customers become known and then become loyal. The proposed framework has major theoretical implications for the PSS literature as well as managerial implications for large manufacturing companies engaged in PSS provision.