Sales technology, relationship-forging tasks, and sales performance in business markets

The purpose of this dissertation is to propose theory, develop measures, and test models of the relationship between technology usage and sales performance in a business market context. The research addresses the complex and costly managerial challenge of integrating technology into work processes. It contributes to and draws on the scholarly literature on technology and productivity, inter-organizational relationships, smart selling, relationship marketing, and sales performance. The dissertation reports the results and discusses the implications of two field studies. Study 1 develops an overall measure of sales technology usage and incorporates a test of the technology-to-performance relationship in the context of "smart selling" constructs considered in the traditional selling literature. However, just as use of sales technology is new, so too is the relationship-building context in which most modern business market salespeople operate. So, the dissertation also introduces boundary-blurring theory (BBT)---a new theory on inter-organizational relationships. Study 2 tests BBT propositions about how technology empowers relationship-forging tasks that help salespeople build more effective relationships with their business customers. This dissertation shows that three relationship-forging tasks---sharing market expertise, proposing integrative solutions, and coordinating activities---are essential to effective relationship-building and that they, along with sales planning, represent primary means through which technology affects relationship effectiveness. Study 2 moves beyond general sales technology usage to consider the effects of three primary types of technology usage: accessing, analyzing, and communicating information. Study 2 evaluates how those types of sales technology usage affect sales planning as well as both relationship effectiveness (external performance) and administrative efficiency (internal performance). Both studies also evaluate the effect of different antecedents of sales technology usage including buyer encouragement, training effectiveness, company sales technology support, and salesperson experience. Sales technology usage explains a significant portion of the variation in both internal and external performance---whether the salesperson works in a traditional or a relational selling context. In a traditional context, the findings support the view that technology's primary influence on external performance occurs indirectly through its effect on sales planning and it directly affects one's administrative efficiency. In a relational context, technology affects external performance by facilitating or enabling the salesperson's accomplishment of relationship-forging tasks---which along with sales planning---explained 46 percent of the variation in sales relationship effectiveness. In a broad sense, both studies also demonstrate ways that an organization can diagnose and assess returns from investments in technology.