Internal Service Failure Attribution Scale

What it measures

Four items capture the extent to which a customer holds the service provider fully and solely responsible for a service failure that occurred. All four items converge on a single attribution judgment: that the provider caused the problem, is responsible for it, and cannot deflect blame onto external factors. The scale is designed for use in service failure and recovery research where the locus of attribution -- internal (provider) versus external (customer, environment, or circumstance) -- is a key theoretical variable.

Scale items

• In my view, the service provider is fully responsible for the service failure. (r)
• The problem that led to the service failure was clearly caused by the service provider. (r)
• The service failure that I encountered was entirely service provider's fault. (r)
• The service provider is solely responsible for the service failure. (r)

Full scale items shown. Always cite the original source when using this scale in research.

Usage notes & scoring

Items were adapted from a three-item measure by Dong, Evans, and Zou (2008); two items appear closely related to that source, while the origin of the remaining two is unattributed. The scale was administered in German to participants drawn from a German consumer panel; it is not confirmed whether the items below are the German originals or English translations. Construct reliability of .971 (Study 2) is notably high. AVE of .892 substantially exceeds the .50 threshold, indicating strong convergent validity. A scoring anomaly is present in the source paper: all four items were recorded as reverse-scored, though no explanation is provided for this decision. Items are marked (r) below to reflect this, but researchers should carefully evaluate the scoring direction in relation to their analytical model before administration. Reliability reported as composite reliability (CR/ω) rather than Cronbach's α; the value entered in the alpha field reflects CR. CR and omega are computed from the same formula using CFA factor loadings and are treated as equivalent here. Source: Heidenreich, Wittkowski, Handrich & Falk (2015), Appendix Table 5.

Citation

Heidenreich, S., Wittkowski, K., Handrich, M., & Falk, T. (2015). The dark side of customer co-creation: Exploring the consequences of failed co-created services. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 43(3), 279-296.

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