The IT Products-Services Stack and Vendor Quality

This research examines how the portfolio of IT vendor offerings relates to consumer perceptions of vendor quality. Specifically, we examine how the degree of hardware, software, and services technologies—which we refer to collectively as the IT products-services stack—are related to vendor quality ratings. We test our model using over 28,000 IT vendor ratings given by top IT executives between 2004 and 2006. The findings suggest that mean satisfaction and value ratings are such that hardware > software > services and the variance (quality consistency) of satisfaction and value ratings are such that hardware/software < services. Further, vendors with more focused offerings (in terms of percentage of hardware, software, and services) are found to be of higher quality than vendors with more diverse offerings.

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