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ABSTRACT It has been recognized that in today's highly competitive industrial markets, one of the few ways left to gain differentiation from competitors is by offering value-added services. To do so, however, requires a service-oriented strategy and the active implementation of this strategy which includes significant internal changes in management philosophy and approach. Unfortunately, no study has examined the implementation aspects of a service-oriented strategy. In this context, our research focuses on two important “soft factors,” corporate culture and human resource management, that are necessary for a successful implementation of a service-oriented strategy in industrial marketing companies. We analyze the mediating role of these two soft factors in the causal chain leading from a service-oriented strategy to organizational performance. We find that the soft factors play an important mediating role in the link between a service-oriented strategy and organizational performance. KEYWORDS: Service orientationstrategyindustrial marketingstrategy implementation
Homburg et al. (2003) studied this question.