Institut für Marketing & Management

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Lokale Serviceorientierung von Tochtergesellschaften internationaler Unternehmen : theoretische Entwicklung und empirische Analyse
(2012) Bothe, Stephanie; Hadwich, Karsten
Although the relevance to align international companies with services is without debate, there is no research on service orientation in an international business context. Due to that serious research lack this study aims to develop an understanding of what service orientation in subsidiaries is and to generate management implications how to implement service orientation in a subsidiary. Based on the grounded theory approach, twenty-two interviews with managers of subsidiaries were conducted. The resulting understanding of service orientation as well as its relations with antecedents and its consequences have been validated in a quantitative study of 223 subsidiaries. The results show that service orientation in a subsidiary leads to service-oriented employee behavior and relationship commitment of its customers, which both influence the economic success of the subsidiary. These causal relations are independent of external factors, e. g. the cultural and physical distances between the subsidiary and its global head office, which do not have any significant moderating effect. This dissertation filled in a serious research gap in marketing science and gives guidance to managers how to implement service orientation in a subsidiary.