Servitization and the Wider Services Communities: A Bibliometric Study

For several years attention has been directed to the possible value for manufacturers shifting focus downstream in the value chain. As such the topic of servitization is emerging as a distinct and prominent research area. But even with this growing significance, there is only limited prior research analysing the citation patterns in service research, and none has focused on the emergence of servitization, associated terms, and its strong cross disciplinary nature. We use bibliometric analysis to uncover the literature development in service research and identify the changing dominant research themes. Specifically, we present the outputs of the co-citation networks for three periods: 1990s (early period), 2000s (middle), and 2010s (recent) and see a shift in orientation from a narrowly focused Operations Research tradition to a more managerial and strategic emphasis that places services, and specifically the emergence of servitization, at the centre stage of strategy and value creation.