Salesperson knowledge sourcing inside the vendor organization: Examining the performance-relationship continuum given selected boundary conditions
通过混合方法研究，考察销售人员从内部同事、经理和业务团队获取知识对绩效的影响，发现倒U型关系并受市场变量调节，帮助管理者决定应鼓励何种知识获取。
Salespeople can gain valuable knowledge from within their own firm to improve performance with customers. Despite this, salespeople's knowledge sourcing from various internal sources and personnel and the relationship of this to performance remains largely unexplored. Following a mixed-methods approach, Study 1 employs qualitative investigation to outline the distinct types of knowledge salespeople source from three distinct internal groups, namely (i) sales colleagues, (ii) sales managers and the (iii) internal business team (IBT), as well as several contingencies potentially impacting the effectiveness of knowledge-sourcing. To test hypotheses developed from Study 1, Study 2 empirically investigates the performance effects of salespeople sourcing knowledge from sales and non-sales IBT members via B2B salesperson survey data ( n = 211). Results indicate an inverted U-shaped relationship between knowledge sourcing from sales colleagues and salesperson performance, with curvilinear performance-relationships identified in terms of knowledge sourcing from sales managers and the IBT, as these are moderated by market-level variables. The research provides overdue insights on the still little-understood internal dimension of selling, while helping managers determine which knowledge-sourcing they should – and should not – encourage.