Key elements of digital competence in professional sales & service work: Development and evaluation of a self-assessment scale for frontline employees

Süße Thomas (), Kobert Maria and Siderska Julia ()
Additional contact information
Süße Thomas: Hochschule Bielefeld,-University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Interaktion 1, 33619 Bielefeld, Germany
Kobert Maria: Hochschule Bielefeld, -University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Interaktion 1, 33619 Bielefeld, Germany
Siderska Julia: Bialystok University of Technology, Wiejska 45A, 15-351 Białystok, Poland

Engineering Management in Production and Services, 2025, vol. 17, issue 3, 51-67

Abstract: Modern work in sales & service is increasingly enhanced and supported by digital technologies. As a result, frontline employees’ digital competencies are becoming a key success factor for sales & service work. Nevertheless, especially with regards to professional work, there is still a lack of knowledge about how to measure digital competencies. So far, specific empirical contribution focussing on professional digital work environments being increasingly knowledge-intense, collaborative, and virtualized are still very rare. In this article we seek to make a substantial contribution in that area of research. Based on the state-of-the art literature about digital competence among employees in professional work this article is one of the very few that introduces an empirically evaluated scale of digital competence based on a sample size of N=1,283. We suggest a context-related set of five dimensions of digital competence named (1) effective usage of technologies and tools, (2) farsighted & critical information handling, (3) sustained cooperation & communication, (4) integrative knowledge generation, and (5) co-creative problem solving. Evaluation of these five dimensions is conducted with the help of technostress, virtualization of work, space-time flexibility at work and availability for work-related issues. Finally, we present a critical reflection about the scale’s five dimensions.

Keywords: digital competence; digitalization of work; digital cooperation; sales & service; frontline employees; human-computer interaction (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.2478/emj-2025-0019 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:vrs:ecoman:v:17:y:2025:i:3:p:51-67:n:1003

DOI: 10.2478/emj-2025-0019

Access Statistics for this article

Engineering Management in Production and Services is currently edited by Joanna Ejdys

More articles in Engineering Management in Production and Services from Sciendo
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().