To date little is known about firm-level factors accounting for the use of external knowledge-intensive service providers in service-oriented business model innovation. This paper adopts a configurational approach for investigating knowledge-intensive relational novelty in digital servitization....

Manufacturing companies have recently been seeking differentiation and profit enhancement through the servitization of products. The service economy, with the increase in its proportion of service sector in the total employment and values added, is also accelerating in the developed countries....