Conceptualizing Standardization and Customization in Services

This paper conceptualizes customization and standardization in services, focusing on new contexts by using the energy industry as an empirical example. Based on a literature review and the collected empirical data, and analysis, a conceptual framework is developed for analyzing standardized and customized services across perspectives, participation, and service type. By exploring how these concepts differ across the literature fields of operations management and service marketing the paper offers insights for advancing service modularity and implications for new technology. It is concluded that customization and standardization are applied differently across contexts, which also calls for further research integrating service modularity.