Towards Integration of Products and Services: Literature Review and Phraseology

Integration of products and services has attracted increasing attention from both practice and academia. A variety of concepts concerning integration of products and services have been proposed, which have resulted in a jungle of terms. In an attempt to develop research building blocks and a common terminology, this paper provides a thorough literature review on those concepts. We first define integrated product-service (IPS) as "anything into which products and services are integrated, regardless of its type, purpose, and features". It is an umbrella term that covers all of the above concepts. Next, various IPS concepts are reviewed under two broad heads: marketing-oriented IPS and engineering-oriented IPS. Finally, some research implications are presented.