Developing and validating a multi-dimensional scale for operationalizing industrial service offering

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to develop a new scale for measuring the scope (i.e. breadth and depth) of industrial service offering. Design/methodology/approach The scale and its constructs are developed by combining the key insights from prior literature and practitioners gained through expert interviews; validating the constructs by 3 item-construct validation rounds with 9 academic experts; and by testing and further revising the scale, with a sample of 91 manufacturing firms. Findings The distinct contribution of the study is the construction and validation of a new multi-dimensional scale for operationalizing the scope of industrial service offering. In addition, the identified service categories (i.e. pre-sales services, product support services, product life-cycle services, R&D services and operational services) extend the current literature on service typologies. Research limitations/implications The data are somewhat biased toward small- and medium-sized industrial firms. Hence, the development of the measurement in the context of large industrial firms provides one fruitful avenue for further research. Practical implications For managers of industrial firms, the identified service categories provide novel insight on how to develop, bundle and commercialize industrial services to their varying customer segments. Originality/value This study develops a multi-dimensional, fine-grained, statistical and relationship-level scale for measuring the scope of industrial service business. Moreover, this study tests and further develops the scale with quantitative empirical data.