B2B growth and sales · Abstract-supported quantitative empirical study
Leveraging social media in B2B sales: impact on in-role and customer relationship performance
V. Srivastava, R. Kumar (2026). Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing.
Plain-English take
Job-related social-media use improved in-role performance, with online social capital strengthening the effect; its sales-performance effect was indirect through in-role performance. Personal-branding use improved customer-relationship performance. For a founder, use this as a question to test in your own context, not a universal playbook.
How much weight to give this
3/5 Exploratory evidence; interpret cautiously
The 1–5 evidence-check score is a practical reading aid, not a formal peer review or a probability that a conclusion is true. It combines design strength (2 points), sample reporting (1), comparison/control clarity (1), and how much of the paper could be checked (1). Access affects how confidently this directory can assess a study, not the study's underlying quality. Blinding is reported separately because it is not relevant to every design.
The described design supports the question, but it does not establish causal effects beyond the reported setting.
The reviewed source reports a sample or corpus size (276); size alone does not establish representativeness.
The comparison structure is limited or depends on the paper's model/context.
Only publisher abstract/metadata was retrieved; full methods and robustness could not be checked.
Double-blind? Blinding was not established from the captured source; it may not apply to this study design.
Research question
What the authors investigated
How do job-related and personal-branding social-media use affect salesperson in-role performance, customer-relationship performance and sales outcomes?
Design
Survey of salespeople; mediation/moderation analysis of social-media use, online social capital, in-role performance and relationship performance.
Sample and setting
276 valid salesperson responses across sectors, collected using snowball and purposive sampling.
Reported result
What the study found
Job-related social-media use improved in-role performance, with online social capital strengthening the effect; its sales-performance effect was indirect through in-role performance. Personal-branding use improved customer-relationship performance.
This is a paraphrase of the source. Check the original paper for definitions, estimates, statistical uncertainty and analysis details.
Scope and transfer
Limitations to keep in view
Non-probability, cross-sectional, self-reported survey; publisher abstract does not expose the full limitations section.
Possible founder application
Treat this as evidence for the specific b2b growth and sales question studied. Compare the setting and sample to your company before changing a growth decision; use a local experiment where the paper does not match your context.
Evidence access
Publisher abstract/metadata retrieved; full text not reviewed
Publisher DOI record and accessible article/abstract directly support the bibliographic record and the summary fields; editorial review remains appropriate for duplicate checking against the unseen 300-study library. Correction notices were not separately verified in this collection; consult the current publisher record before applying the findings.
If only an abstract or metadata was available, the profile is limited to claims supported there. A paper's paywall does not change its evidentiary status, but it limits what we can substantiate from accessible text.