Service growth in product firms: Past, present, and future
本文批判性回顾了产品企业服务增长研究领域的过去与现状，指出该领域虽产出丰富但理论仍处初期，并基于特刊论文提出未来研究方向，如服务增长对企业绩效的影响、并购在服务增长中的作用等。
Service growth in product firms is one of the most active service research domains and is open to a variety of conceptualizations. This article provides a critical inquiry into the past, present, and future of the research domain. The evolution of the research on service growth is discussed in two phases: (1) setting the boundaries of the research domain, and (2) emergence of the conceptual foundation. We find that while research in this area has a well-established tradition in terms of output, theoretically it is still largely in a nascent phase. Next, we highlight the contributions of the papers in this special section, emphasizing their challenges to prevailing assumptions in the research domain. We conclude by identifying, from the contributions to this special section, suggested themes for further research on service growth: the assessment of empirical evidence of the impact of service growth on firm performance, the role of merger & acquisitions in the service growth strategy, the exploration of single/multiple positions along the transition line, the process of adding or removing services, and expanding the context of service growth beyond product manufacturing firms.