Hybrid Offerings Sales Capability: Conceptualization, Scale Development and Validation

Manufacturing-oriented firms increasingly shift from transaction-focused to value-focused selling, and gain competitive advantages by selling innovative product–service bundles, known as hybrid offerings. The key purpose of this research is to develop a measure of hybrid offering sales capability (HOSC). In particular, following an established scale-development paradigm, this study develops a measure to indicate firms’ capability to sell hybrid offerings in business-to-business markets, and it provides insights into the antecedents and consequences of such a capability. The conceptualization of HOSC emerged from a case study involving two companies and comprises four dimensions: recruiting, training, incentivizing and applying. A rigorous evaluation of the initial item pool produces a 10-item, four-component HOSC measure embedded in a conceptual model of three innovation-related antecedents and firm performance as a key outcome. Tests of experimental, nomological and predictive validity were conducted using samples of 155 professionals, 135 decision-makers in small and medium-sized companies, and 164 industrial sales managers. The findings offer relevant implications for both research and the management of hybrid offerings at the sales level, which we summarize in the form of a future research agenda.