Advertising and promotion · Two empirical studies, using cross-company and within-company data, test whether shared social-media technology affects relationship and objective sales performance through product-information communication, diligence, product knowledge, and adaptability, with training as moderator.
Social media technology use and salesperson performance: A two study examination of the role of salesperson behaviors, characteristics, and training
Jessica Ogilvie, Raj Agnihotri, Adam Rapp, Kevin Trainor (2018). Social media technology use and salesperson performance: A two study examination of the role of salesperson behaviors, characteristics, and training. Industrial Marketing Management. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2018.03.007
Plain-English take
Social-media technology affected relationship and objective sales performance through salesperson behaviors/characteristics; technology without training did not produce the best results, making training critical.
How much weight to give this
2/5 Evidence needs cautious interpretation
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.
Two empirical studies, using cross-company and within-company data, test whether shared social-media technology affects relationship and objective sales performance through product-information communication, diligence, product knowledge, and adaptability, with training as moderator.
Salespeople from a random sample of 1,200 US B2B firms, spanning industries and firm sizes, plus a within-company study.
Review the paper for comparison conditions and analysis.
Publisher record checked; detailed methods were not verified.
Double-blind? Blinding was not established from the publisher page.
Research question
What the authors investigated
What does social media technology use and salesperson performance: a two study examination of the role of salesperson behaviors, characteristics, and training show about customer behavior or marketing outcomes?
Design
Two empirical studies, using cross-company and within-company data, test whether shared social-media technology affects relationship and objective sales performance through product-information communication, diligence, product knowledge, and adaptability, with training as moderator.
Sample and setting
Salespeople from a random sample of 1,200 US B2B firms, spanning industries and firm sizes, plus a within-company study.
Reported result
What the study found
Social-media technology affected relationship and objective sales performance through salesperson behaviors/characteristics; technology without training did not produce the best results, making training critical.
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
The publisher page exposes the empirical two-study design and findings but not a complete author limitations passage in the accessible view; no further limitation is asserted here. Full-text methods and correction history were not independently checked.
Possible founder application
Use this study as a bounded example related to social media technology use and salesperson performance: a two study examination of the role of salesperson behaviors, characteristics, and training; evaluate whether its customers, intervention and outcome match your own context.
Evidence access
Publisher page; full-text availability varies and was not established.
Study metadata and reported results were cross-checked against a direct publisher-page retrieval; detailed full-text methods were not reviewed.
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.