TY - JOUR

T1 - To Own or to Use?

T2 - 73rd Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management - AOM 2013

AU - Tietze, Frank

AU - Hansen, Erik G.

N1 - Conference code: 73.

PY - 2013

Y1 - 2013

N2 - Increasingly firms develop technology based sharing approaches where users rent, lease and share products, instead of purchasing them. Particularly, the product service system (PSS) concept has recently caught attention by scholars from different disciplines, although surprisingly little from the innovation research community. The writings from our colleagues however lead us to suspect that PSS developing firms might pursue an innovation behavior that is much more in line with recent societal demands for reducing environmental externalities. Recent examples show that adopting the PSS approach could be a way even for profit-driven firms towards a more sustainable economy, actually without too much governmental intervention. However, to our knowledge this argument has yet been hardly discussed in detail. Drawing on concepts from the innovation management literature as well as from environmental management research, we contribute a model that explains why the PSS approach can shift firm innovation behavior towards generating fewer environmental externalities. This model links firm innovation behavior to three antecedents, including two product related characteristics (ownership, product purpose) and the specifics of the PSS related profit function. We argue that these antecedents differ whether firms develop products or PSSs. In the latter case the antecedent specifications impact firms’ R&D objectives in a way that creates incentives to follow innovation trajectories that lead to a reduction of environmental externalities (i.e., eco-innovation behavior).

AB - Increasingly firms develop technology based sharing approaches where users rent, lease and share products, instead of purchasing them. Particularly, the product service system (PSS) concept has recently caught attention by scholars from different disciplines, although surprisingly little from the innovation research community. The writings from our colleagues however lead us to suspect that PSS developing firms might pursue an innovation behavior that is much more in line with recent societal demands for reducing environmental externalities. Recent examples show that adopting the PSS approach could be a way even for profit-driven firms towards a more sustainable economy, actually without too much governmental intervention. However, to our knowledge this argument has yet been hardly discussed in detail. Drawing on concepts from the innovation management literature as well as from environmental management research, we contribute a model that explains why the PSS approach can shift firm innovation behavior towards generating fewer environmental externalities. This model links firm innovation behavior to three antecedents, including two product related characteristics (ownership, product purpose) and the specifics of the PSS related profit function. We argue that these antecedents differ whether firms develop products or PSSs. In the latter case the antecedent specifications impact firms’ R&D objectives in a way that creates incentives to follow innovation trajectories that lead to a reduction of environmental externalities (i.e., eco-innovation behavior).

KW - Sustainability sciences, Management & Economics

KW - Product Service System

KW - servitization

KW - innovation behavior

KW - environmental externalities

KW - ownership

KW - corporate sustainability

KW - Entrepreneurship

U2 - 10.5465/AMBPP.2013.12213abstract

DO - 10.5465/AMBPP.2013.12213abstract

M3 - Conference abstract in journal

VL - 2013

JO - Academy of Management Proceedings

JF - Academy of Management Proceedings

SN - 0065-0668

IS - 1

M1 - Article no. 12213

Y2 - 9 August 2013 through 13 August 2013

ER -