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uring companies directly earn money through offering and charging services to their customers. Manufacturing companies have already invested in setting up a global service infrastructure. Establishing a network of local service organizations of this kind represents an essential investment decision whose success will depend on the creation of service revenue and profit.
Unfortunately, the existing literature provides surprisingly little in the way of suggestions as to the actual differences between local service organizations. The paper focuses on a comparison of the Western European and Chinese service organizations of Swiss manufacturing companies. On one hand, it contributes to the existing knowledge on cultural differences between Western Europe and China by exploring the various influences of Chinese culture on success factors for extending the service business. On the other hand, the paper offers guidance for an appropriate service approach in stagnating and emerging markets. Most Western European markets are currently in stage of maturity. The strategic urgency for differentiation through services as well as the necessity to rely on service-based growth instead of product-based growth is very high. The Chinese market is rapidly growing. Demand for machines and pieces of equipment is currently large. Thus, the strategic necessity to rely on service-based growth is very low. The paper answers the following research questions:
• Which descriptive factors differentiate Western European from Chinese service organizations of Swiss manufacturing companies?
• Can the descriptive factors be validated empirically?
Swiss manufacturing companies were chosen because of access to the data. The Swiss Association of the manufacturing industry supported this research and helped the research team by getting access to different companies.
Research methodology
When investigating the differences between Western European and Chinese service organizations, several core characteristics of service management in manufacturing companies and on characteristics of Western European and Chinese culture (Hofstede, 1991; Davies, 1995; Arias, 1998) were considered (Bowen et al., 1989; Grönroos, 1998; Oliva and Kallenberg, 2003; Lovelock, 2001). Since explaining the difference between Western European and Chinese service organizations was a complex and context-bound organizational issue, it was first concentrated on qualitative research approaches (Miles and Huberman, 1994).
Qualitative research approaches

References
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Banting, P.M. (1984), "Customer service in industrial marketing: a comparative study本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。