Shared Service Center


Shared Service Center (SSC) is an organizational unit (= business unit) that delivers services to other business units. International companies mostly establish SSCs, usually with yearly revenues above €500 million. Because international companies spread their business units around the globe, SSCs are highly decentralized services, often accompanied by the duplication of processes. Therefore, companies strive to bundle their shared services to gain higher effectiveness. Because SSCs specialize in processes of, for instance, accounting, finance, and personnel management, they should also achieve a higher quality of these processes.

 

More than 75% of Fortune 500 companies have established models of shared services to gain superior performance through cost savings and service enhancements. Despite scholars' complaints about scant shared service center research, our study, Richter and Brühl 2017, shows that the actual shortcoming in this stream concerns a high fragmentation of the academic literature. In this first comprehensive literature review, we synthesize peer-reviewed articles and classify them into four perspectives according to their research questions (i.e., determinant, process, control, and outcome). We identify 17 major research areas across these perspectives. One conclusion from this study is that our knowledge regarding antecedents for implementation success is scarce.

 

Our next paper, Richter and Brühl 2020, addresses this gap, identifies antecedents, and theorizes how they affect the implementation success of SSCs by drawing on dynamic capability view and organizational design literature. We test hypotheses with survey data from 164 SSC managers in index-listed European firms. Our results show that dynamic capabilities—reshaping capability and IT capability—and the organizational structure of support activities are important antecedents of successful SSC implementation. Overall, we contribute to the shared service literature by shedding theoretical and empirical light on a hitherto largely neglected theme: the antecedents for the successful implementation of SSCs.

 

A precursor of Richter and Brühl (2020) is our 2021 article, which aims to explore SSC implementation. Shared service is a key concept by which corporations organize their resources. Research indicates that some organizations struggle with implementing SSC and sometimes fail to implement it. Although prior research exploring the determinants of implementation success is relatively scarce, researchers have conducted several SSC implementation case studies. However, these valuable findings remain isolated in stand-alone case studies. We aggregated the results of these studies using a qualitative meta-synthesis to identify, extract, and synthesize variables, their interrelations, and their relationships to SSC success. The outcome is a theoretical model that describes which factors are important and how and why they are related to SSC success.


Research partner: Dr. Philipp Richter, Technische Universität Dresden.


Publications

Philipp Richter und Rolf Brühl: Shared service implementation in multidivisional or-ganizations: a meta-synthesis study, in: Journal of General Management, Volume 46, Issue 2, 2021, 73-90 (to the article). 

 

Rolf Brühl, Daniel Dornbusch, Karsten Hoyer, Konstanze Hölker, Thomas Laux, Robert Lieglein, Claus Peter Schründer, Stefan Troßbach: Human Resource Management in digitalisierten SSOs, in: Erfolgreiche digitale Transformation von Shared Services, hrsg. v. Thomas M. Fischer und Kai-Eberhard Lueg, Zeitschrift für betriebswirtschaftliche Forschung, 71. Jahrgang, Sonderheft 74, 2020, 75-125 (zum Artikel). 

Thomas M. Fischer, Kai-Eberhard Lueg, Lorenz Schneck und Rolf Brühl: Herausforderungen der digitalen Transformation von Shared Services und SSOs, in: Erfolgreiche digitale Transformation von Shared Services, hrsg. v. Thomas M. Fischer und Kai-Eberhard Lueg, Zeitschrift für betriebswirtschaftliche Forschung, 71. Jahrgang, Sonderheft 74, 2020, 1-18. (zum Artikel). 

Richter, Philipp, Brühl, Rolf: Ahead of the game: Antecedents for the success of shared service centers, in: European Management Journal, Volume 38, Issue 3, 2020, 477-488  (link to the article).

 

 

Arbeiskreis Shared Services (2017) Digitale Transformation und Leadership in Shared Service Organisationen, in: Betriebswirtschaftliche Implikationen der digitalen Transformation, hrsg. v. Stefan Krause und Bernhard Pellens, Zeitschrift für betriebswirtschaftliche Forschung, 69. Jahrgang, Sonderheft 72, 2017, 29 - 48 (to the article). 

 

Brühl, Rolf, Kajüter, Peter, Fischer, Thomas M., Hirsch, Stefan, Dornbusch, Daniel, Hoffmann, Jörg, Vollmer, Marcell: Shared Services – Relevanz, Ziele und Entwicklungsstand, in: Erfolgreiche Führung von Shared Services, hrsg. v. Thomas Fischer und Marcell Vollmer, Zeitschrift für betriebswirtschaftliche Forschung, 69. Jahrgang, Sonderheft 70, 2017, 3-23 (to the article).

 

Kajüter, Peter, Brühl, Rolf, Finken, Thorben, Steuernagel, Martin, Troßbach, Stefan, Vollmer, Marcell: Konstitutive Entscheidungen zur Vorbereitung der SSC-Implementierung, in: Erfolgreiche Führung von Shared Services, hrsg. v. Thomas Fischer und Marcell Vollmer, Zeitschrift für betriebswirtschaftliche Forschung, 69. Jahrgang, Sonderheft 70, 2017, 25-59 (to the article).

 

Richter, Philipp, Brühl, Rolf: Shared service center research: A review of the past, present, and future, in: European Management Journal, Volume 35, Issue 1, 2017, 26-38 (to the article).

 


Further Activities

I am member of Arbeitskreis Shared Service Center of Schmalenbach-Association which is composed of practioners of corporations and scholars interested in this field.