INTERNATIONALISATION THEORY PERSPECTIVE OF PRODUCT-SERVICE INNOVATION: THE GOTHEBORG IV MODEL

In firm internationalization theory, enterprise growth is evolutionary and an emergent bolstered by its innovative processes. In recognition of an existing Cartesian perspective of product and service as two distinct entities in product-centric MNEs as expressed by product managers during interviews as well as in the literary canon, the focus of this paper is to introduce an integral perspective of the product-service innovation processes in the form of the Gotheborg IV (G4) model. Based on the assumption that the core activity of any enterprise is exchange, where the value of production is realized in the process of exchange, the G4 model is an applied linguistics perspective of the Uppsala model (UM) of internationalization / globalization that requires different types of knowledge, mapped on to a four-quadrant diagram. Key in the G4 model of product-service innovation is the illustration of the emergent, cyclic dialogic of the feedback loop as having an important role in product-service innovation. Within the four schools of thought in service innovation literature, this firm internationalising perspective of product-service innovation is most closely aligned with the synthesis school of thought. It follows the use of more recent expressions such as 'product-service systems' in the literature, and focuses effort in moving away from the Cartesian duo-coordinate single planed models in acknowledgement of the need to conceptualise and visualise the complexity and uncertainty in which innovative processes, likewise internationalization / globalization occur.