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

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.