Creating new market for industrial services in nascent fields

Purpose In recent years, industrial firms have been moving from selling pure products to selling smart services. Yet limited empirical evidence exists about how the new markets for these novel services are created. This paper seeks to extend current theory and create new insights by studying the new services market creation process in nascent industrial fields. Design/methodology/approach The authors' research design is a multiple‐case, inductive study that uses in‐depth archival and field data to track closely how five industrial firms created new market for new types of services. Findings The authors find that firms adopt a holistic initiative to address the challenges in new services market creation. In particular, they use three interrelated strategies to create a new market: co‐creating with customers, innovating in different ways and exploiting institutional forces. Research limitations/implications The study focused only on life science research services. Moreover, in‐depth field interviews were used only in a small number of firms. Practical implications To successfully develop a new market for an industrial service innovation, a firm should innovate within and outside the firm, win over customers for adopting, adapting the service innovation and identifying its new uses, and utilize institutional mechanisms to legitimatize, claim and control the emerging market. Originality/value This paper's central contribution is a holistic framework of the longitudinal processes by which successful firms develop new services and construct new markets.