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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify what is currently valued in maintenance services. The study first conceptualizes the value construct through an examination of its elements, including both financial and non-financial elements, and second provides insight into its actors’ (i.e. customer companies, service providers, equipment providers) attitudes toward value creation. Design/methodology/approach The study uses data collected from maintenance service professionals by an online survey. First an explorative factor analysis is conducted to examine the value construct. After this cluster analysis is conducted to define the actors. Findings The empirical findings suggest seven main elements that capture maintenance service value: relationship synergies, reliability of the service partner, development, availability, service solutions and problem solving ability, environment, health, safety and quality, and adaptability to suit different situations. Further analysis reveals that the actors can be divided into three main strategy types: basic, quality- and collaboration-oriented partners. Originality/value In previous studies the comprehensive nature of maintenance service value has received less attention, and the literature has focused on the technical and financial aspects. This paper provides a new conceptualization of the value creating elements, including also non-financial elements, and offers an integrated measure for the actors to identify the comprehensive value construct around maintenance services. In addition, the findings show that the actors in the field still have varying strategies when considering value creation. Communication and mutual understanding of the value creating elements are important so that right services are carried out and developed with the right partners.

Maintenance services are created increasingly in business networks, but value management is still too often supported by separate tools used by single companies. The aim of this study is to find out how the value of industrial maintenance services can be identified and modelled considering the views of each business network member (e.g. the customer, maintenance service provider and equipment provider) and how the multiple views can be used in collaborative decision making. The paper presents a three-stage process that supports the maintenance service network member companies’ way towards more collaborative and value-driven decisions with the help of the tools created in a project called MaiSeMa. By increasing the collaboration level of the different parties, the value potential of the created tools and also the network increases.