Willingness to Pay for Industry 4.0 technologies in augmented maintenance

Purpose - The aim of this research is to investigate the willingness to pay (WTP) to acquire the desired technologies according to some specific features included in the app. It deals with Industry 4.0 (I4.0) technologies from a pure maintenance services' perspective. Design/method/approach - Our conceptual model was tested on a sample of 100 Italian installer and maintenances' services companies and data were collected through a structured survey submitted via phone interviews. Findings - The analysis shows a positive impact of some relational and technological features on the WTP. The results show a significant role played by the Augmented Reality (AR) feature. Research Limitations/Implications - We believe that a limitation of this research is given by the small sample size, for which only Italian firms were interviewed. It would be extremely interesting to extend the survey to other countries including more companies. Practical implications - This paper contributes both to the academic and the non-academic literature thanks to its consulting-based criteria. Originality - It represents, to the best of our knowledge, the first paper on WTP for I4.0 technologies and (augmented) maintenance services, contributing in developing the current report-based knowledge with an empirical study based on an experts' survey.