Complexity of internal services: Scale development and validation

Today, internal processes and procedures are often complex to manage and coordinate. Since these internal procedures and the resulting internal services have an essential impact on a firm's success, addressing the problem of growing complexity is important. Although scholars agree that complexity is a core feature in organizations, its impact on the internal service encounter remains largely unexplored. Since internal customers may face difficulties in judging complex internal services, they may experience lower satisfaction, which in turn negatively influences a firm's success. Hence, to ensure internal customer satisfaction, it is important to know how to maintain internal service complexity at a moderate and thus manageable level. Therefore, an instrument for measuring internal service complexity is developed and validated. Additionally, complexity benefits and costs are analyzed. Finally, a non-linear relationship between internal service complexity and internal customer satisfaction is established. Based on these results, a three-step complexity management process is proposed.