The alignment of service architecture and organizational structure

ABSTRACT How does service modularity contribute to performance of service firms and how does organizational architecture facilitate these effects? We propose a new perspective that service modularity contributes to the service performance by increasing efficiency, broadening the service scope, and increasing the visibility of service to customers. Moreover, we bring forward the ambiguous relationship between organization integration and service modularity by holding that organization integration can influence the service modularization process so as to moderate the relationship between service modularity and performance. Our analysis of classic professional service firms (i.e. accounting firms, architecture firms, and law firms) in China, which is a typical emerging market, supports our theoretical framework.

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