J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci.
(2013) 41:91–110
DOI 10.1007/s11747-012-0311-8
ORIGINAL EMPIRICAL RESEARCH
Gaining and leveraging customer-based competitive
intelligence: the pivotal role of social capital and salesperson
adaptive selling skills
Douglas E. Hughes & Joël Le Bon & Adam Rapp
Received: 31 October 2011 / Accepted: 25 June 2012 / Published online: 14 July 2012
# Academy of Marketing Science 2012
Abstract This study explores the generation and use of
competitive intelligence (CI) within the buyer–seller ex-
change process and its influence on salesperson perfor-
mance. Using the concept of social capital as a theoretical
foundation and multilevel data collected at three time points
from 686 customer–salesperson dyads, the authors empiri-
cally test a conceptual framework that proposes both ante-
cedents and consequences of CI sharing between customer
and salesperson. The results of the study demonstrate that CI
sharing by customers is a function of salesperson customer
orientation, customer-centric extra-role behaviors, and rela-
tionship quality. CI sharing translates into increased per-
ceived value, share-of-wallet, and profit margins when the
salesperson utilizes the information to position and differ-
entiate his or her product; however this occurs only when
the salesperson has strong adaptive selling skills. Surprisingly,
CI negatively influences these outcomes among low-adaptive
salespeople, indicating that CI can actually work to a firm’s
disadvantage if the salesperson is not equipped to respond to
Douglas E. Hughes, Joël Le Bon and Adam Rapp contributed equally
and are listed alphabetically
D. E. Hughes (*)
Michigan State University,
N302 North Business Complex,
East Lansing, MI 48824, USA
e-mail: dhughes@msu.edu
J. Le Bon
University of Houston,
334 Melcher Hall,
Houston, TX 77204, USA
e-mail: jlebon@bauer.uh.edu
A. Rapp
University of Alabama,
133 Alston Hall,
Tuscaloosa, AL 35487, USA
e-mail: arapp@cba.ua.edu
it. These findings suggest that CI must be examined different-
ly than general market knowledge and that firms may leverage
CI to their tactical advantage at the salesperson–customer
interface if managed effectively.
Keywords Salespeople . Competitive intelligence .
Marketing intelligence . Social capital . Adaptive selling .
Multilevel modeling . Perceived value . Information use .
Customer orientation
As competition increases and customers become more dis-
criminating, firms are increasingly turning to competitive
intelligence (CI) to provide insight into competitors’ strate-
gies and planned actions. Realizing the competitive advan-
tage that can be gained from CI, countless multinational
corporations such as Procter and Gamble, General Motors,
and British Petroleum have either created formal CI units or
adopted structured processes for collecting and analyzing
information on the environment (Bose 2008; Groom and
David 2001; Pepper 1999; Vedder et al. 1999). Experts
recommend that firms engage in CI activities not only as a
protective tool to guard against perceived threats and
changes but also as a mechanism for discovering new op-
portunities and trends (Evans and Maio 2011; Global
Intelligence Alliance 2005; Pirttimäki 2007).
Both conceptual and empirical models have offered var-
ious perspectives of CI and its role within an organization.
Although there has been diversity in the approach to CI, one
area of consensus is employees’ critical role in the CI
process. For example, it has been suggested that as much
as 90% of the intelligence needed by an organization is in
the possession of its employees (Caudron 1994). The sales
force may be a company’s single best internal source of
market, customer, and competitor information due to its
frequent contact with customers, vendors, and other
92
individuals present in the supply chain (Hershey 1980;
Porter 1980; Young 1989). In fact, firms’ overall intelli-
gence activities rely to a great deal on the velocity of
information transmitted by the sales force (Thiétart and
Vivas 1981). In today’s knowledge economy, customers
are more informed than ever (Verbeke et al. 2011). Interact-
ing regularly with customers, salespeople have access to
such information that is not readily available to others in
the firm (Rapp et al. 2006). This is particularly true for CI
since salespeople operate in an environment that overlaps
that of their competitors (Le Bon and Merunka 2006).
Although previous studies provide a foundation for our
understanding of CI, several dimensions remain unexplored
and need attention (Attaway 1998; Rapp et al. 2011). For
instance, despite agreement among scholars and practi-
tioners about the important role CI plays in firm perfor-
mance and strategy development as well as the valuable
role of the sales force in gathering this intelligence, little
attention has been devoted to understanding how CI may be
incorporated into a sales call so as to influence customer
perceptions and sales performance. To our knowledge, no
research has considered CI as an instrument that salespeople
can leverage to change their behaviors and influence their
levels of performance. We believe researchers’ neglect of
this area is attributable to the fact that past conceptualiza-
tions of CI have been largely restricted to the organizational
level and thus provide little foundation for investigations
aimed at the salesperson level.
With this in mind, this research examines CI at the
individual level of analysis. We develop a model of CI
influence that is grounded in the concept of social capital,
along with the principles of information theory, environ-
mental scanning, and adaptive selling. Notably, we treat CI
as both an outcome of the salesperson–customer interaction
and as a product or instrument that can be used by sales-
people to influence customer response during sales activi-
ties. More specifically, we explore the extent to which the
competitive intelligence collected by sales personnel ena-
bles salespeople to more convincingly position and differ-
entiate their offerings, thereby positively impacting
customer perceived value, share-of-wallet, and profit mar-
gins. We also investigate factors that may strengthen or
weaken these relationships. In addition we seek to under-
stand factors that influence the customer’s willingness to
share competitive intelligence with the salesperson.
Importantly, we include both salesperson- and customer-
assessed measures to ensure a richer and more accurate
representation of the buyer–seller exchange process. This
demands a multilevel analysis to account for nesting of
customer observations across salespeople. In addition, we
use three collection points of time-lagged data to enable
stronger inferences of causality among constructs. This
methodological approach provides for a rigorous test of
J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. (2013) 41:91–110
our hypotheses. The results show that customer orientation,
salesperson–customer relationship quality, and customer-
focused extra-role behaviors lead to the sharing of compet-
itive intelligence by the customer. Interestingly, salesperson
adaptive selling skills influence the extent to which CI is
advantageous to the firm in terms of the salesperson’s sub-
sequent use of the information in a manner that positively
affects perceived value, share-of-wallet, and profit margins.
Our research contributes to both theory and managerial
practice in several ways. First, by employing a multilevel
analysis of time-lagged data that includes linked customer–
salesperson perceptions, we demonstrate the importance of
CI at the individual level of analysis, in particular as it
relates to the salesperson’s ability to garner and use CI
tactically to strengthen perceived value, share-of-wallet,
and profit margins. As such, CI represents a tool that can
be used by sales personnel to satisfy customers and improve
performance through productive interactions. However, we
show that in the wrong hands CI may actually inhibit suc-
cess. Finally, we provide insight into key factors that facil-
itate the transfer of CI from customer to salesperson.
Conceptual foundation
Competitive intelligence and the salesperson
The theory surrounding CI draws on many disciplines in-
cluding marketing, strategic management, military theory,
and economics. However, the pivotal framework underlying
much of the research on how intelligence can be used for
strategic decision making by firms was first presented in
Porter’s Competitive Strategy (1980). Since Porter’s foun-
dational research, scholars have approached CI in a multi-
tude of ways. The concept of market orientation (Kohli and
Jaworski 1990; Narver and Slater 1990) in particular has
spawned a considerable body of research on the generation,
dissemination, and responsiveness to market intelligence
and its role in organizational learning and the creation of
competitive advantage (e.g., Boyd and Fulk 1996; Dishman
and Calof 2008; Jaworski et al. 2002; Makadok and Barney
2001; Prescott 1995; Rouch and Santi 2001; Slater and
Narver 2000; Song and Thieme 2009). While providing a
firm foundation for more directed exploration, this and
related research have explored marketing intelligence large-
ly as an organizational level construct. Importantly, within
our research we examine competitive intelligence at the
individual level of analysis as a tool that can be leveraged
by a seller in the exchange process. Therefore we focus on
the salesperson as both a collector and immediate user of CI.
Many organizations have instituted dedicated intelligence-
gathering teams or networks; however, a number of studies
suggest that it is possible to collect intelligence by utilizing the
J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. (2013) 41:91–110
members of the current sales force (Band 1982; Evans and
Maio 2011; Hershey 1980; Moss 1979). Considering that
members of the sales force interface with customers on a daily
basis, there may be no better resource currently existing within
a firm to gather CI. As stated by former Lexis-Nexis CEO
Hans Gieskes, “We have over a thousand people in sales; they
meet with customers every day, and they pick up information
about our competitors from our customers who will say, ‘Have
you heard this, have you heard that’” (Gieskes 2000, p. 7). In a
survey of over 200 members of the Strategic and Competitive
Intelligence Professionals association, the sales force was the
most highly rated source of marketing intelligence focused on
competitors’ capabilities, products, and services (Powell and
Allgaier 1998).
Numerous researchers (e.g., Fouss and Solomon 1980;
Grace and Pointon 1980; Lambert et al. 1990; Mellow 1989;
Moss 1979; Robertson 1974; Saegart and Hoover 1980)
have explored the theoretical underpinnings of using the
sales force as a tool to collect market and competitor data.
Others (Chonko et al. 1991) report how and with what
success U.S. multinational corporations are utilizing their
global sales forces in collecting marketing research data.
The salesperson–customer interface provides the firm with
a means of gathering richer, timelier, and more dynamic
primary and human network–based competitive information
than is available from more filtered and static secondary
sources (Miree and Prescott 2000).
Unfortunately, while most managers expect salespeople
to report observations of competitive activities and other
relevant information, there is substantial evidence that sales-
people generally fail to distribute the information that they
collect (Albaum 1964; Lambert et al. 1990; Meunier-
FitzHugh and Piercy 2006). While this is undoubtedly an
important issue, our study does not focus on the internal
dissemination of information (or lack thereof). Instead, we
explore the customer’s willingness to share CI with the
salesperson and the salesperson’s subsequent use of this CI
when interacting with customers. Irrespective of whether a
salesperson communicates what s/he has learned to others
within the organization, CI may have instrumental value to
the salesperson if acted upon individually during sales calls.
In sum, while prior research highlights the importance of
the salesperson’s role in various CI activities and establishes
the link between salespeople and CI, we take a different
approach by investigating the importance of CI as a product
or tool that can be used by the salesperson to positively
influence customer perceptions and behaviors. The key then
becomes the customer’s willingness to share important com-
petitive intelligence with the salesperson and the salesper-
son’s ability to subsequently use that information to the
firm’s advantage. The salesperson’s interaction with cus-
tomers therefore becomes critical and is a focal point of
our study. To better understand the underlying mechanisms
93
that might influence the extent to which customers share CI
with salespeople, we turn to the concept of social capital.
Social capital
Social capital refers broadly to the goodwill that emerges
from social relations and that can be harnessed by an indi-
vidual and/or collective for some benefit (Adler and Kwon
2002), in our case the gathering and use of competitive
intelligence by the salesperson. The concept of social capital
has been studied across many societal and organizational
contexts. Among the many favorable business outcomes
associated with social capital are intellectual capital crea-
tion, inter-firm learning, resource exchange, product inno-
vation, team effectiveness, supplier relations, talent
sourcing, and career success (Adler and Kwon 2002). Social
capital in essence is the stock of accumulated resources that
springs forth from relationships (Tymon and Stumpf 2003).
Since the gathering of competitive intelligence at the sales-
person level is rooted at the intersection between salesper-
son and customer and involves the voluntary sharing of
information, social capital represents a useful lens through
which to view this exchange. At the organization level,
social capital has been found to be related to a firm’s ability
to acquire and exploit externally sourced knowledge (Yli-
Renko et al. 2001).
Social capital is considered by some scholars to have
three dimensions: structural, relational, and cognitive
(Nahapiet and Ghoshal 1998). Structural refers to the sys-
tem or pattern of linkages between people. Social capital is
available as a function of individuals’ location within this
structure of market, hierarchical, and/or social relations
(Adler and Kwon 2002). In our context, we deal narrowly
with a simple configuration that is consistent with our indi-
vidual unit of analysis, i.e., the salesperson–customer dyad.
Structural ties between salesperson and customer can be
characterized by both market and social relations and are
formalized by the firm’s assignment of the customer to the
salesperson, expectations of call frequency, etc., and by the
salesperson’s execution of these call responsibilities. Our
focus on how the salesperson leverages social capital in
the securing and use of competitive intelligence follows
Coleman’s (1990) seminal work that views social capital
as social structure that is appropriable by an actor in fur-
thering her or his interests.
Relational refers to the interpersonal relationships that
are established and maintained through interactions between
individuals and the value that is created and leveraged
through these relationships. Social capital acts as a bonding
mechanism that facilitates the pursuit of collective goals
among actors (Adler and Kwon 2002). It arises not from
the actors themselves but instead from the relations between
actors (Coleman 1988). The nature and quality of the
94
relationship between salesperson and customer, and thus the
level of social capital emerging from this relationship, may
vary substantially from dyad to dyad.
The cognitive dimension involves the shared understand-
ing, representations, and interpretations of meaning among
parties in a relationship. Social capital is “created between
people” (Burt 1997, p. 339) and thus is owned jointly by the
relationship parties (Nahapiet and Ghoshal 1998), in this
case the salesperson and customer. Among other things,
social capital encourages cooperative behavior and facili-
tates the exchange of information (Adler and Kwon 2002). It
has long been argued that an important basis of competitive
advantage is a firm’s ability to create, disperse, and effec-
tively utilize knowledge (Muthuswamy and Palanisamy
2004). In this study, we investigate how the individual (the
salesperson) obtains and tactically uses acquired knowledge
to mutual benefit in coordination with the source of infor-
mation from which that knowledge emerged (the customer).
Our research thus bridges two streams of literature in order
to better understand the power of relevant information acqui-
sition and usage in a buyer–seller relationship setting, with
the concept of social capital serving as a logical starting point
for our examination of several antecedents and consequences
of CI sharing. Specifically, we seek in this paper to (1)
understand factors that contribute to the willingness of the
customer to share CI with the salesperson and (2) investigate
to what extent and under what circumstances the salesperson
is able to use this intelligence to favorably influence customer
perceived value, share-of-wallet, and profit margins.
Hypotheses development
Below we present a framework which integrates the potential
impact of salespeople’s field intelligence collection on cus-
tomers’ preferences and buying decisions. The proposed
model envisions information use as a consequence of the CI
shared by customers with salespeople and as an antecedent to
perceived value, share-of-wallet, and the profit margins gen-
erated from the customer. Perceived value is conceptualized
in our study as the customer’s perceived value of the com-
pany’s product/service offering relative to that of competitors.
We further suggest that the positive impact of CI on informa-
tion use will be moderated by a salesperson’s adaptive selling
skills. Finally, we propose that shared CI is a function of the
customer–salesperson relationship quality, the salesperson’s
customer orientation, and customer-focused extra-role behav-
iors. The conceptual model is presented in Figure 1.
Antecedents to shared CI
The first set of hypotheses investigates factors that contrib-
ute to the propensity of the customer to share competitive
J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. (2013) 41:91–110
intelligence with the salesperson. Drawing from the concept
of social capital discussed previously, we suggest that the
strength of bond between customer and salesperson should
influence the amount of such information that the customer
shares with the salesperson. To ensure managerial relevance,
we focus on behavioral concepts and antecedents that are
actionable. We investigate three different bonding mecha-
nisms (customer orientation, customer-focused extra-role
behaviors, and relationship quality) that are likely to create
social capital within the salesperson–customer dyad that
facilitates the sharing of CI from customer to salesperson.
Customer orientation in our context is defined as “the
practice of the marketing concept at the level of individual
salesperson and customer” (Saxe and Weitz 1982, p. 343).
Salespeople who are customer oriented are concerned about
long-term customer satisfaction and place the needs of the
customer first while actively endeavoring to develop and/or
offer a solution that enables the customer to reach its goals.
Research has shown that customer-oriented selling strength-
ens the customer’s trust (Swan et al. 1985) and opinion of
the salesperson (Goff et al. 1997), among other positive
outcomes. This contributes to a sense of solidarity that tran-
scends any particular transaction (Sandefur and Laumann
1998). Because the customer-oriented salesperson is keenly
interested in the customer’s perspective, customer interac-
tions are more likely to be characterized by shared under-
standing and common interest consistent with the cognitive
dimension of social capital. Customer-oriented salespeople
thereby establish an atmosphere within the salesperson–
customer dyad that builds social capital and that is condu-
cive to CI sharing. As the customer develops confidence in
the salesperson’s honesty and integrity, the customer is more
inclined to reveal information in general. Moreover, because
the salesperson has demonstrated that s/he has the custom-
er’s interests in mind, the customer’s self-interest is sup-
ported by the sharing of competitive intelligence, since the
customer is apt to believe that the salesperson may be
willing and able to use the CI to the customer’s benefit.
Thus, we suggest:
H1: The greater the salesperson’s customer orientation, the
greater the amount of CI shared by the customer with
the salesperson.
Customer-focused extra-role behaviors refer to a sales-
person’s pro-social actions favoring the customer that tran-
scend job requirements. The investigation of such behaviors
stems from research on organizational citizenship behaviors
(OCBs), i.e., discretionary behavior on the part of the em-
ployee that promotes the effective functioning of the orga-
nization (Organ 1988). Podsakoff and MacKenzie (1997)
developed a typology of employee behavior along two
dimensions: in-role or extra-role, and company-directed or
customer-directed. While company-directed extra-role
J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. (2013) 41:91–110
Fig. 1 Hypothesized model
OCBs have been the subject of numerous studies over the
last two decades, researchers have also begun to examine
customer-focused extra-role behaviors, largely in a services
context (e.g., Bettencourt et al. 2005; Maxham and
Netemeyer 2003). Clearly, salespeople also can go above
and beyond the call of duty in dealing with a customer, and
those actions may be recognized by the customer. While
such behavior has been associated with a variety of positive
outcomes (Podsakoff and MacKenzie 1997), we focus here
on its influence on CI sharing.
In concert with the structural dimension of social ex-
change theory, we expect customer-focused extra-role
behaviors to positively affect customer sharing of competi-
tive intelligence with the salesperson. Buyer–seller interac-
tions occur within a defined set of business relationships and
assigned responsibilities. The social exchange that springs
forth from this structure not only involves routine functions
but also creates circumstances that afford the salesperson the
opportunity to engage or not engage in discretionary behav-
ior of interest to the customer. This series of interactions
may in turn generate unspecified and generalized obliga-
tions that promote cooperation along with feelings of
95
gratitude (Coleman 1990). This implies an interdependent
relationship that relies on unspoken rules of exchange, the
most well-known being the rule of reciprocity. Reciprocity,
or repayment in kind, is self-reinforcing and does not in-
volve explicit bargaining (Cropanzano and Mitchell 2005).
Rather it suggests a motivation to return a favor. When the
salesperson goes beyond what is required to assist the cus-
tomer, s/he creates an environment conducive to the recip-
rocal nature of social exchange, encouraging the customer to
respond in kind with something of benefit to the salesper-
son, in this case the sharing of information that might be
unknown to and useful to the salesperson. Accordingly, we
posit:
H2: The greater the salesperson’s performance of customer-
focused extra-role behaviors, the greater the amount of
CI shared by the customer with the salesperson.
We also suggest that the quality of the salesperson–cus-
tomer relationship, as perceived by the customer, will influ-
ence the customer’s CI sharing behavior. The importance of
interpersonal interaction and relationship building in sales
has been long recognized (Crosby et al. 1990). When the
96
customer feels good about the salesperson, has confidence
in her or his motives and representations, and enjoys dealing
with him or her, buyer uncertainty is reduced and the cus-
tomer develops a greater intention to conduct business with
the salesperson (Crosby et al. 1990), a reduced tendency to
switch suppliers (Jones et al. 2003), and an increased will-
ingness to provide referrals (Boles et al. 2000). Strong
relationships are typically accompanied by well-established
lines of communication (Duncan and Moriarty 1998).
Parallel to the relationship dimension of social exchange
theory, relationship quality can be thought of as the inter-
personal bonding that may develop between salesperson and
customer who like and trust each other. While customer-
centered extra-role behaviors capture the salesperson’s abil-
ity to stimulate gratitude and reciprocity through circum-
stantial structural exchanges, relationship quality becomes
the relational expression of trust and shared goals. Although
to our knowledge no research to date explicitly considers the
impact of relationship quality on the propensity to share CI,
researchers have demonstrated that the relationship quality
of supply chain partners positively affects both the preva-
lence of information sharing and the quality of that infor-
mation (Li and Lin 2006). Also, a well-established benefit of
social capital is information (Sandefur and Laumann 1998).
More specifically, social capital facilitates an individual’s
access to information and improves its quality, relevance,
and timeliness (Adler and Kwon 2002). Therefore, we sug-
gest that the customer is more likely to share competitive
intelligence with the salesperson when the relationship be-
tween the two parties is strong. Based on the above, we
propose:
H3: The stronger the quality of the salesperson–customer
relationship, the greater the amount of CI shared by
the customer with the salesperson.
Consequences of shared CI
Being exposed to CI is valuable, but even more important is
the salesperson’s actual use of that information in a way that
advances the mutual objectives of the firm and customer.
Salespeople are increasingly acting as knowledge brokers in
their interactions with customers, and success in the mar-
ketplace demands that the salesperson be able to absorb and
utilize information effectively (Verbeke et al. 2011). As
such, we introduce into our model a construct called Infor-
mation Use Behaviors, which refers to the salesperson’s
ability to link the product/service being sold to customer
needs as differentiated from competitive offerings (Reid et
al. 2002).
Acquiring sufficient information from the marketplace
should make a difference in the salesperson’s ability to
address customers’ needs and expectations (Cleland and
J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. (2013) 41:91–110
King 1975; Montgomery and Weinberg 1979). Business
success and sales performance depend on product differen-
tiation and competitiveness (Holbrook 1994; Porter 1980),
and previous research indicates that high-performing sales-
people command and demonstrate a high level of knowl-
edge concerning their products, customers, and competitors
(Sujan et al. 1994). During a sales encounter, a clear assess-
ment of a customer’s perceptions with respect to other
sources of supply can enable the salesperson to more strong-
ly position the product.
From a theoretical standpoint, information is what forms
or transforms representations (McKay 1969), and knowl-
edge enrichment relies on the selection and aggregation of
a sufficient amount of information (Brookes 1980). From a
sales perspective, Goodman (1971) contends that salespeo-
ple have to gather wide-ranging, unorganized, and unevalu-
ated data before they can be transformed into information
and then intelligence. He also underlines salespeople’s crit-
ical responsibility in recognizing data that may yield impor-
tant information and useful intelligence. The acquisition of
potentially useful data from an informed source—in this
case the customer—is clearly the first step. It is important
to note that there is a difference between declarative knowl-
edge and procedural knowledge. Declarative knowledge
refers to “the nature and organization of information that
an individual acquires, processes, stores in memory, and
uses in judgment” (Smith 1994, p. 101), i.e., the content of
cognition. On the other hand, procedural knowledge refers
to “the sequences of interrelated operations that transform,
store, retrieve, or make inferences based on declarative
knowledge” (Smith 1994, p. 101), i.e., the operations per-
formed on the content of cognition. In our context, the CI
that the customer shares with the salesperson can be con-
sidered declarative knowledge, whereas procedural knowl-
edge relates to the salesperson’s ability to utilize CI in an
advantageous manner. Clearly, using CI is contingent upon
receiving CI. Information use captures this distinction, re-
ferring to the salesperson’s incorporation of acquired intel-
ligence into a sales negotiation that is tailored to the
customers’ needs and that differentiates his or products from
competitive offerings.
From an information theory perspective, information
may be considered a resource that must be collected and
managed (Burk and Horton 1988). Information carries value
if it can reduce uncertainty toward the future and change
one’s decision-making process (Emery 1969). Hence, CI
may be a useful resource in adjusting a product’s value
proposition or the way in which it is communicated to the
customer. From the firm’s environmental scanning perspec-
tive, the acquisition and use of information about events,
trends, and relationships in the external environment assist
management in planning the organization’s future course of
action (Auster and Choo 1993). Salespeople, like
J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. (2013) 41:91–110
organizations, can scan the environment in order to under-
stand external competitive forces so that they may develop
effective responses to be incorporated into their sales calls
that improve their competitive position (Goodman 1971).
Environmental scanning includes both looking for informa-
tion and looking at information. Because the volume and
value of information may form or transform salespeople’s
understanding of their customers’ needs and expectations
(Brookes 1980; McKay 1969), there is increased likelihood
that they will use such knowledge to position and differen-
tiate their product. This may occur solely within the bounds
of the salesperson–customer interaction, at the time of CI
receipt, or in subsequent calls. Thus,
H4: The greater CI shared by the customer with the sales-
person, the greater the information use behaviors.
Proposing a contingency framework of salesperson ef-
fectiveness, Weitz (1981) suggested that the relationship
between salesperson behavior and performance is contin-
gent upon or moderated by characteristics of the salesper-
son, the environment, and/or the work situation. In a similar
vein, several researchers have empirically demonstrated that
the relationship between performance and individual char-
acteristics varies across sales circumstances (Franke and
Park 2006; Weitz 1981). Because competitive advantage
lies not just in the gathering of market intelligence but in
the ability to use it effectively (Maltz and Kohli 1996), CI is
useful only to the extent that it yields actionable insights and
that the recipient of the CI has the ability to appropriately
leverage these insights (Rouch and Santi 2001). In light of
this, we chose to examine salesperson adaptive selling as a
contingency factor affecting the relationship of CI to infor-
mation use behaviors. Adaptive selling refers to “the alter-
ing of sales behaviors during a customer interaction or
across customer interactions based on perceived information
about the nature of the selling situation” (Weitz et al. 1986,
p. 175). We propose that the conversion of customer-shared
CI to information use will be conditional on the extent to
which the salesperson is skilled in adaptive selling.
It is important to note that adaptive selling and informa-
tion use are distinct constructs. Adaptive selling refers to the
general ability and willingness to utilize different sales
approaches as warranted by the situation at hand. Informa-
tion use, in contrast, refers to the salesperson’s ability to
connect her or his product to customer needs as distin-
guished from competitive products.
An adaptive seller is able to respond to new information
(such as CI obtained from the customer), adjust the selling
approach, and tailor messages to best suit the situation at
hand. Adaptive selling has been linked to salesperson suc-
cess across a variety of circumstances (Franke and Park
2006). Here, the level of adaptive selling interacts with the
level of intelligence collected to enhance the salesperson’s
97
selling story. An adaptive seller is better able to interpret the
CI and understand what to do with it, i.e., know how to use
it to favorably influence customer perceptions. By adjusting
and customizing the content or format of her or his message
in concert with the CI, the adaptive seller is able to more
strongly position the product in relation to customer needs
and differentiate it from competition. Although armed with
the same CI, the low-adaptive seller is either unable or
unwilling to fully absorb the information and then use it to
her or his advantage. Because the adaptive seller is able to
take the CI gleaned from the customer and alter her or his
selling behavior accordingly, adaptive selling should posi-
tively moderate the relationship between CI and information
use. In other words, the generation of CI will positively
impact information use only to the extent that the salesper-
son is able to make adjustments during the selling process
that leverages the information obtained. In contrast, the low-
adaptive seller is prone to continue along the same path
regardless of the CI, thereby failing to maximize the value
of the CI. Therefore, we hypothesize:
H5: The greater the salesperson’s adaptive selling behav-
ior, the greater the positive effect of shared CI on
information use behaviors.
Salespeople are well aware that a purchase decision is
contingent upon the buyer’s subjective perception of the
value provided by the product or service being sold. Imply-
ing a calculated trade-off between benefits and costs in
relation to the firm’s offering (Eggert and Ulaga 2002),
customer perceived value involves the customer’s assess-
ment of the utility and value of the firm’s product or service
relative to competitive alternatives (Zeithaml 1988), incor-
porating the firm’s ability to fulfill the customer’s needs and
purchasing constraints (Phillips et al. 1983). Perceived value
is derived in part from equity theory wherein customer out-
comes and inputs are compared to the supplier’s outcomes
and inputs to yield an evaluation of what is justifiable to the
customer in relation to the perceived cost of the offering
(Yang and Peterson 2004). The starting point, however, is a
desired end state and the ability of the product or service
being offered to enable the customer to fulfill that objective
subject to accompanying sacrifices. Because in the context
of a buyer–seller relationship the customer typically has
other alternatives that might be considered, perceived value
is relative to competition (Ulaga and Chacour 2001).
The salesperson plays an important role in this process.
By using information to convince a customer that the firm’s
product or service addresses its needs in a manner superior
to that of competition, the salesperson is well-positioned to
influence the perceptions of value that the customer ascribes
to the product or service. Lacking this exchange, the cus-
tomer may not be in a position to accurately gauge the
relative value of the salesperson’s product or service
98
offering. Thus, information use behavior, as defined in our
study, is a crucial antecedent to customer perceived value.
H6: The greater the information use, the greater the cus-
tomer perceived value.
Customers may like and trust multiple competing suppli-
ers, and as a result share-of-wallet is an outcome of great
interest to the firm. We define share-of-wallet as the extent
to which a customer favors the salesperson’s brand versus
competitive alternatives (Axelrod 1968; Reibstein 1978;
Urban and Hauser 1993) as evidenced by the customer’s
allocation of purchases across its suppliers. Specifically,
share-of-wallet represents the amount spent with a supplier
as a percentage of the customer’s total available spending on
that product or service category. Driven by a product’s
superior utility and relative value (Zeithaml 1988), share-
of-wallet has a material impact on brand performance. Be-
cause share-of-wallet implies a relative judgment against the
aggregated functionality and value provided by other
brands, share-of-wallet is a likely consequence of both in-
formation use behaviors (where the salesperson is able to
link her or his product to customer needs in a manner that
clearly differentiates it from competitive offerings) and cus-
tomer perceived value. Prior studies have shown a positive
relationship between information sharing and dyadic sales
(Mohr and Spekman 1994). Moreover, researchers have
shown in business markets that customer perceived value
may predict such outcome variables as purchase intentions,
word-of-mouth, a reduced search for alternatives, and cus-
tomer share (Eggert and Ulaga 2002; Eggert and Ulaga
2010). Share-of-wallet implies a decision or state of mind
based on the comparative evaluation of alternatives; there-
fore, it follows that share-of-wallet will be stronger when
customers view information use behaviors and perceived
value favorably. We hypothesize:
H7: The greater the information use, the greater the share-
of-wallet.
H8: The greater the customer perceived value, the greater
the share-of-wallet.
In addition to share-of-wallet, another important outcome
for the salesperson and firm is the profit margin realized by a
given sale. While share of wallet is a quantity-of-sales
measure, profit margin can be thought of as quality-of-sales
measure. It is possible to stimulate sales and share by
lowering prices, but all else equal, a firm would prefer to
sell its products at a higher margin. We therefore also
include profit margin on sales as an outcome variable in
our model.
As in most industries, the customer’s purchase decision
in our context is a function of the extent to which the
salesperson is able to build a compelling value proposition
and convince the customer that the firm’s services address
J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. (2013) 41:91–110
customer needs in a manner that is positively differentiated
from competitors’ services. A firm is often able to command
a price premium when its product or service is judged to be
superior to that available from competing firms. By effec-
tively using CI to advantageously position the product
against available alternatives, the salesperson is able to
avoid price concessions and in turn generate sales at a higher
margin than would otherwise be the case. Therefore, we
anticipate the following relationships:
H9: The greater the information use behaviors, the greater
the profit margin on sales.
H10: The greater the perceived value, the greater the profit
margin on sales.
Methodology
The research setting for this study was a logistics firm that
assists companies with supply chain management and their
transportation and shipping needs. The selling firm repre-
sented here engages in business-to-business selling and
works with firms across various industries. The collection
of CI is of primary importance for the firm’s salespeople.
Indeed, salespeople need to have a full understanding of
customers’ expectations with respect to their own business
concerns (e.g., current strategy, productivity gain expect-
ations), needed services (e.g., quality control), products
(e.g., specific route dispatches), or budget (e.g., expected
pricing, payment terms). In the same fashion, salespeople
also need to assess customers’ reaction to competitors’
current actions, account penetration strategies, customized
offers, coming innovations, or pricing/discount strategies. In
other words, the firm’s sales force is focused on providing
well-positioned business solutions while determining how
customers also appraise competitive value propositions.
The data used within this research come from both cus-
tomer and salesperson survey responses. All 67 salespeople
were surveyed for this research, and usable responses were
received from 48 respondents. This represents a 71.6%
response rate. The salespeople had an average of 7.7 years
in sales and had worked for the company for an average of
5.8 years. A market research institute collected data through
telephone interviews with the customers. A customer was
defined as an open account with which business was con-
ducted in the last 12 months. The respondent was the pur-
chasing agent or buyer responsible for making the decision
on which carrier(s) to use and was responsible for both
dealing and negotiating with the salesperson. Thirty custom-
ers were randomly contacted for each individual salesperson
responding to the survey for a total of 1,440 customers.
There were 686 customer responses that were collected for
the 48 different salespeople, representing a 47.6% response
J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. (2013) 41:91–110
rate. Based on the number of responses, there were approx-
imately 14 customers reporting per salesperson. Salespeople
reported on their levels of customer orientation, adaptive
selling tendencies, and their experience. Customers were
surveyed on the salesperson’s customer orientation, relation-
ship quality, salesperson extra-role behaviors, CI sharing,
salesperson information use, the perceived value of the
product, and share-of-wallet.
The average working time with the supplier was 7.1 years.
Customer industries represented within this sample include:
financial services (25%), manufactured goods (18%), elec-
tronics (16%), automotive (11%), IT/telecommunication
(10%), health/pharmaceutical (8%), chemical (6%), and
other (6%). The customer firm sizes varied as well: <200
people (11%), 200–499 (25%), 500–999 (41%), 1,000–
1,999 (13%), and >2,000 employees (10%).
In order to gain greater insight into issues of causality,
this study adopted a lagged design wherein measures were
collected in subsequent time periods. Measures reflecting
the antecedents of competitive intelligence sharing were all
collected in time period 1, as was the customer’s sharing of
CI and the salesperson’s level of experience and adaptive
selling tendencies. Approximately three months later the
customer’s perception of information use and perceived
value was collected and then a third data collection effort
was undertaken three months after the time period 2 survey.
In the third effort, the share-of-wallet and margin on sales
were collected. Once all responses were collected, we then
matched the data to create a two-level dataset.
Measures
All scales (excluding share-of-wallet, profit margin on sales,
salesperson experience, and customer size) were Likert-type
scales anchored at 1 0 strongly disagree to 7 0 strongly
agree (see Table 1). The salesperson’s adaptive selling was
assessed using the adaptive selling scale originally devel-
oped by Spiro and Weitz (1990) to capture the salesperson’s
ability to change her or his behavior across selling interac-
tions. Due to the length of the survey and from scale puri-
fication, five items were used to assess the quality of the
salesperson’s adaptive selling tendencies, and the scale was
found to be reliable (α00.87). Salesperson experience was
measured using the time that the salesperson has spent
working and is used as a covariate throughout the model
as is customer size.
Several items were gathered from the customer to assess
their preferences as well as their perceptions of their sales-
person. Relationship quality was measured using five items
that reflected the extent to which the customer perceived a
valuable relationship with their salesperson and had trust in
that relationship. Scale items were adopted from the work of
Roberts and colleagues (2003) and were reliable (α00.81).
99
Extra-role behavior directed toward the customer was
assessed using three scale items adopted from the work of
Netemeyer et al. (2005) (α00.82). Customers were also
questioned on the competitive intelligence that they shared
with their salesperson. The customer-provided CI was mea-
sured using three items assessing the importance and rele-
vance of the CI and depth of associated dialogue
surrounding the transmission of this information. Scale
items were modeled after the word-of-mouth literature
(i.e., Goyette et al. 2010; Harrison-Walker 2001) and spe-
cifically tapped both content and intensity of CI shared. The
scale had reliable psychometric properties (α00.74). Infor-
mation use was assessed using three items from the scale
developed by Reid et al. (2002) and captured the behaviors
involved in solving customers’ problems after processing
information. As stated by Reid et al. (2002, p. 205), the
information use construct is different yet complementary to
adaptive selling as the ability to adapt is related to the
salesperson’s ability to apply procedural knowledge skills
associated with the particular selling situation. Finally, the
perceived value scale was adapted from Levesque and
McDougall (1996). This scale consisted of three items to
capture the product’s perceived value and competitiveness
regarding the competition (α00.84). Customer size repre-
sents the total amount spent on logistics and shipping needs
across all suppliers.
Customer orientation was assessed at both the salesper-
son and customer levels. Both groups were asked five items
stemming from the scale developed by Saxe and Weitz
(1982) and adapted to reflect the individual responding. In
order to capture both the customer’s perception of the sales-
person’s customer orientation and the salesperson’s custom-
er orientation across her/his customer portfolio, we
employed a “dyadic score” measure. As suggested by
Kumar et al. (1994) we adopted an aggregation approach
in which scores are collected from each respondent and are
used to create a dyadic score by averaging their responses.
This approach is similar to that used by researchers assess-
ing responses from multiple informants within the same
organization. Before aggregation, we assessed the intraclass
correlation coefficients (ICC(1) 00.15; ICC(2) 00.72) and
deemed it acceptable to continue with our analyses.
The final items used in this research evaluated the cus-
tomer’s share-of-wallet and profit margins on sales. Cus-
tomer share-of-wallet was measured as the amount spent
with the specific company as a percentage over the custom-
er’s total spending on shipping and logistic needs. We
employed the use of a constant-sum scale where customers
were asked to allocate 100 points among the five available
suppliers with respect to their share-of-wallet (Axelrod
1968; Desarbo et al. 1995). Profit margin on sales was
measured as the amount the salesperson collected above
cost and was collected from company archival measures.
100 J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. (2013) 41:91–110

Table 1 Latent construct scale items and standardized factor loadings

Standardized loadings

Customer Salesperson
level level

Customer orientation (Saxe and Weitz 1982)

1. I try to help customers achieve their goals 0.97 0.97
2. I try to bring a customer with a problem together with a product that provides the best solution 0.91 0.89
3. I try to give customers an accurate expectation of what my product/service will do for them 0.73 0.68
4. A good salesperson has to have the customer’s best interest in mind 0.82 0.75
5. I try to find out what kind of product would be most helpful to a customer 0.99 0.98
6. I try to sell as much as I can rather than satisfy a customer (r.)* – –
7. I am willing to disagree with a customer to help her/him make a better decision (r.)* – –
Customer-Focused Extra Role Behaviors (Netemeyer et al. 2005)
1. My salesperson goes above and beyond the “call of duty” when serving my needs 0.69
2. My salesperson voluntarily assists me even if it means going beyond job requirements 0.78
3. My salesperson often helps me with problems beyond what is expected or required 0.87
Relationship Quality (Roberts et al. 2003)
1. My salesperson is concerned about my welfare 0.87
2. I have a very good relationship with my salesperson 0.87
3. I can count on my salesperson to consider how their actions will affect me 0.79
4. I continue to deal with my salesperson because I genuinely enjoy my relationship with them 0.68
5. My salesperson is honest about problems 0.43
Adaptive Selling (Spiro and Weitz 1990)
1. When I feel that my sales approach is not working, I can easily change to another approach 0.98 0.96
2. I like to experiment with different sales approaches 0.57 0.68
3. I am very flexible in the selling approach I use 0.70 0.71
4. I can easily use a wide variety of selling approaches 0.81 0.81
5. I try to understand how one customer differs from another 0.62 0.68
6. Each customer requires a unique approach* – –
7. I feel that most buyers can be dealt with in pretty much the same manner (r.)* – –
Shared Competitive Intelligence (Adapted from Word-of-Mouth Scales; i.e., Harrison-Walker 2001; Goyette et al. 2010)
1. I often give to the X salesperson a substantial amount of information about their competitors and the marketplace 0.75
2. When the X salesperson asks me questions about their competitors’ actions and projects, I share and discuss such 0.83
valuable information with her/him
3. I share and discuss with the X salesperson important and confidential information about their competitors when he/ 0.64
she asks me
4. I seldom miss an opportunity to tell X salesperson about their competitor’s organization –
5. Although I have a lot of information regarding X’s salesperson’s competitors, I rarely share that information (r.)* –
Information Use Behaviors (Reid et al. 2002)
1. The X salesperson is able to link her/his products/services to my needs 0.93
2. The X salesperson can handle the objections that I raise 0.56
3. The X salesperson can differentiate her/his products/services from the competition 0.94
4. The X salesperson did their homework prior to visiting me* –
Customer Perceived Value (Levesque and McDougall 1996)
1. Comparing what I pay to what I might get from other competitive companies, I think X provides me with good value 0.62
2. I will pay a higher price than competitors charge for the value I currently receive from X 0.80
3. I will continue to do business with X and buy their product/service even if their prices increase somewhat 0.81
Share-of-Wallet
On average, when you spend 100 for your transportation and logistics needs with companies such as X, what is the allocation –
(in percentage) of your business granted to the five following companies X, Y, Z, T, W? (i.e., the more you do business with
a company, the more you allocate points to it) (the sum of the allocated points to all the companies being equal to 100)
J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. (2013) 41:91–110 101

Table 2 presents the means, standard deviations, and inter-
correlations of the study variables.
Analysis strategy
Because several of the variables in our model were self-
reported at the customer level, common method variance
(CMV) could have the effect of inflating correlations be-
tween the dependent and independent variables. Two meth-
ods were used to assess the extent to which CMV might be
present. As suggested by Griffith and Lusch (2007), a CFA
approach was used to assess Harman’s one-factor test. To do
this a single latent factor for all level 1 latent constructs was
created as an alternative factor structure to that expected.
Based on the analysis, the measurement model fit (χ2 0
584.5(107), p<0.01; CFI00.92; TLI00.90; RMSEA00.08;
SRMR00.06) yielded a significantly better fit than the one-
factor model (χ2 03154.2(117), p<0.01; CFI00.48; TLI0
0.39; RMSEA 00.20; SRMR 00.15). Second, the partial
correlation procedure of including a marker variable (i.e., a
variable not theoretically related to at least one other vari-
able in the study) was employed. By using age as the marker
variable, no significant relationships to other variables in the
model were found, thus providing additional evidence that
CMV is not an issue.
Our research model focuses on the interplay of salesper-
son (i.e., adaptive selling) and customer-level factors (i.e.,
CI sharing) as they influence information use across cus-
tomers, and ultimately, share-of-wallet and margin on sales.
As mentioned, the data associated with the model were
multilevel in nature. Thus, the most appropriate analytical
technique to empirically examine this model is a multilevel
structural equation model. This approach allows us to ac-
count for the hierarchical structure of the data and is partic-
ularly well-suited for estimating the type of cross-level
interaction hypothesized here (i.e., Hypothesis 5) (Bryk
and Raudenbush 1992; Hofmann 1997). Therefore, we
employed Mplus version 5.0 which has advantages over
HLM in that we were able to assess both a measurement
model and structural model where paths are estimated
simultaneously.
Tests of validity
In accordance with procedures suggested by Mathieu and
Taylor (2006) and others, we engaged in a series of model
tests to investigate our hypothetical framework and deter-
mine the overall best-fitting model. To assist with the inter-
pretation of the cross-level interaction and magnitude of
effects among variables with different scales, we first stan-
dardized the variables throughout the model. One advantage
of Mplus over the more traditional HLM approach is the
ability to assess fit indices of a multilevel structural equation
model. By conducting a multilevel confirmatory factor

Table 2 Construct reliabilities and correlations

A B C D E F G H I J H

A—Extra-Role Behavior 1.00

B—Relationship Quality 0.49** 1.00
C—Customer Orientation 0.26** 0.33** 1.00
D—CI Sharing 0.36** 0.39** 0.31** 1.00
E—Information Use 0.49** 0.29** 0.26** 0.20** 1.00
F—Perceived Value 0.37** 0.41** 0.23** 0.16** 0.42** 1.00
G—Profit Margin on 0.12** 0.04 0.01 0.04 0.15** 0.12** 1.00
Sales
H—Share-of-Wallet 0.24** 0.13** 0.01 0.12** 0.09* 0.32** −0.02 1.00
I—Adaptive Selling 0.04 −0.05 0.07 −0.01 −0.06 −0.03 −0.03 −0.01 1.00
J—Experience 0.16** 0.04 0.21** 0.09* 0.05 0.18** −0.04 0.15** 0.40** 1.00
K—Customer Sizea 0.01 0.04 −0.03 0.07 0.01 0.04 −0.03 −0.11** −0.04 −0.07 1.00
M 4.50 5.17 5.34 5.17 4.61 3.34 0.04 49.73 5.54 5.79 9.41
SD 1.13 0.94 0.91 0.97 1.97 1.03 0.02 11.19 1.02 3.63 1.62
α 0.82 0.81 – 0.74 0.77 0.84 – – 0.87 – –
CR 0.84 0.89 – 0.78 0.88 0.89 – – 0.89 – –
AVE 0.73 0.67 – 0.68 0.78 0.68 – – 0.69 – –
a
Log-transformed
α 0 Cronbach’s index of internal consistency reliability; CR 0 Composite reliability index, and AVE 0 Index of the Average Variance Extracted
*p<0.05
**p<0.01
102
analysis, we determined that we had achieved a good fitting
model (CFI 0 0.91; TLI 0 0.90; RMSEA 0 0.06; SRMRwithin 0
0.05, SRMRbetween 0 0.04) and could continue with our
analyses. Importantly, we also uncovered that after scale
purification, all items loaded significantly (p<0.001) on their
respective latent variables. We also determined that all latent
constructs demonstrated strong psychometric properties with
average variance extracted greater than 0.50 and both com-
posite reliability and Cronbach’s alpha were greater than 0.70,
respectively.
Results
Before estimating any of the hypothesized paths, we con-
ducted tests to clarify how much variance resides within and
between units to serve as a foundation for later analyses. We
first estimated a series of baseline models (intercepts only)
that included only the dependent variable (i.e., information
use as an outcome). Specifically, the model indicated that
86.5% of the variance in information use resided within
customers and 13.5% of the variance resided between cus-
tomers, suggesting that it is appropriate to move forward
with our multilevel analyses. Table 3 presents the results of
all models analyzed for this study.
Next, we estimated a series of linear effects models in
which we tested the a priori hypotheses. We first estimated a
baseline model with only level 1 effects and then estimated a
second model where the direct effect of adaptive selling
(level 2) was added. Because standard fit indexes are not
available with the numerical integration procedure used by
Mplus to estimate a multilevel model with cross-level inter-
actions, we employed a log-likelihood difference test to
compare the fit of the selected models. The results across
the separate models indicated that the customer orientation
does have a significant influence on the CI shared by the
customer (H1: γ00.156; p<0.01). Next, we uncovered that
both customer-focused extra-role behaviors (H2: γ00.254;
p<0.01) and the quality of the relationship (H3: γ00.214;
p<0.01) influence the CI shared by the customer.
We also found that the CI shared by the customer does
have a significant influence on information use (H4: γ0
0.197; p<0.01). The final portions of our model investigate
the outcomes of information use and the interrelationships
of the outcome variables. We find that information use does
significantly influence perceived value (H5: γ 00.463;
p < 0.01) and profit margin on sales (H9: γ 00.286;
p<0.01) but not (H7: γ0−0.059; p0ns) share-of-wallet.
Also, as expected, we find that perceived value influences
share-of-wallet (H8: γ00.527; p<0.01) and profit margin
on sales (H10: γ00.178; p<0.05).
We then progressed to the interactive effects model which
is often referred to as the slopes as outcomes model. Using
J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. (2013) 41:91–110
the baseline and main effects model for H4, we then exam-
ined the cross-level interaction of adaptive selling on CI
shared by the customer. Results suggest that adaptive selling
does positively influence the relationship between CI shared
and the perception of information use (H5: γ 00.135;
p<0.05). This relationship suggests that salespeople who
engage in adaptive selling techniques will get a greater
return from the CI shared than those salespeople who are
low in adaptive selling. As previously discussed, we assert
that this behavior will allow salespeople to better leverage
the intelligence amassed and incorporate this information
into their sales call.
To interpret the nature of the interaction we used the
method suggested by Preacher et al. (2006) for modeling
cross-level interactions in multilevel modeling. Specifically,
using the information from the hypothesized model anal-
yses, we plotted the relationship between CI shared
corresponding to the average, low (one SD below the
mean), and high (one SD above the mean) values of the
adaptive selling moderator. The results, using information
use as a dependent variable, appear in Fig. 2. Results
suggest salespeople who engage in adaptive selling are
better able to leverage the CI shared by the customer with
the assumption that they are incorporating that information
into their sales calls and altering their behavior. Surprising-
ly, this analysis also revealed that for low adaptive sellers,
shared CI actually results in weakened perceived informa-
tion use. This intriguing finding will be examined further in
the discussion section. In sum, as shown in Table 3, eight
of the nine linear hypotheses were supported as was the
interaction effect.
Post hoc analyses
While not formally hypothesized, there are multiple con-
structs within our conceptual framework which may dem-
onstrate additional relationships with other constructs.
Accordingly, we found it of value to test to examine and
determine the “best-fitting” model for future researchers. To
do so, we began with a fully saturated model and then
removed non-significant paths individually to arrive at the
best-fitting model and most parsimonious model. The
results of these analyses, which can be seen under column
four in Table 3 and in Fig. 3, show multiple paths which
were not previously hypothesized. We discuss these findings
later. Importantly, as there are other relationships present in
our framework, all of our previously tested relationships retain
their significance. Together, these variables and their interac-
tions accounted for 9% of the variance in extra-role behaviors,
29% of the variance in relationship quality, 23% of the vari-
ance of the CI shared, 36% of information use, 30% of the
variance in perceived value, 14% of the variance in share- of-
wallet, and 6% in profit margin on sales.
J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. (2013) 41:91–110 103

Table 3 Model comparison and effects

Relationships Model 1 Customer Model 2 With Model 3 Hypothesized Model 4 Best

level effectsa adaptive selling (interactive effects) fitting model

Cust orientation to CI 0.156** 0.166** 0.167** 0.143**

ER behavior to CI 0.254** 0.255** 0.252** 0.224**
Rel quality to CI 0.214** 0.208** 0.208** 0.223**
Experience to CI 0.005 0.007 0.007 –
Customer size to CI 0.050 0.051 0.051 –
CI to info use 0.197** 0.206** −.471b −.567b
Adaptive selling to info use – −0.107 −.082b −.138b
CI X adaptive selling to info use – – 0.135** 0.133**
Experience to info use −0.011 −0.002 −0.027 −0.048**
Customer size to info use −0.003 −0.012 0.003 –
Info use to perc value 0.463** 0.472** 0.477** 0.376**
Experience to perc value 0.112** 0.107** 0.113** 0.106**
Customer size to perc value 0.028 0.026 0.024 −0.048**
Info use to S-O-W −0.059 −0.061 −0.083 –
Perc value to S-O-W 0.527** 0.522** 0.534** 0.420**
Experience to S-O-W 0.090** 0.091** 0.089* 0.080*
Customer size to S-O-W −0.119** −0.120** −0.119** −0.118**
Info use to margin 0.286** 0.304** 0.282** 0.283**
Perc value to margin 0.178* 0.182* 0.169** 0.220**
Experience to margin 0.030 0.027 0.032 –
Customer size to margin −0.033 −0.031 −0.035 –
Cust orientation to ER behavior – – – 0.180**
Experience to ER behavior – – – 0.069*
Cust orientation to Rel quality – – – 0.173**
Cust orientation to info use – – – 0.068*
ER behavior to Rel quality – – – 0.550**
ER behavior to S-O-W – – – 0.156**
ER behavior to info use – – – 0.453**
Rel quality to perc value – – – 0.221**
S-O-W to margin – – – −0.075*
Log-likelihood −15,313.79 −15,258.72 −15,250.31 −15,091.22
-2LL change – 55.07** 8.41** 159.09**
N 686 686 686 686
Clusters 48 48 48 48
a
Linear effects model estimated using bootstrapping procedure with 1,000 iterations
b
Linear effects should not be interpreted with higher order interaction present
*p<0.05; **p<0.01

Discussion CI from customers and (2) CI’s contingent effects on sales-

The CI literature has focused to date on organizations as
opposed to individual employees. However, employees,
especially boundary spanners, are often more able to collect
and utilize CI effectively because they are closer to the
source. Thus, the purpose of this research was to examine
the effects of CI in a sales environment to determine: (1)
factors that contribute to the salesperson’s ability to generate
person behaviors which ultimately influence performance.
To the best of our knowledge, this research is the first to
empirically analyze the potential impact of salespeople’s
field-based competitive intelligence on information use
behaviors and the conditions under which this relationship
exists. In doing so, it brings to the literature a new perspec-
tive on why salespeople should be encouraged to pursue CI
activities for the sake of their own selling performance (e.g.,
104 J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. (2013) 41:91–110

perceived information use) as well as for the benefit of their

Fig. 2 Interactive effects of adaptive selling on CI sharing to
information use
customer (customer perceived value) and company (e.g.,
share-of-wallet and profit margin on sales). Although the
salesperson level of analysis of this research does not allow
direct comparisons with previous organizational level re-
search, it enlarges the body of knowledge on sales based
CI utility.
In addition, our salesperson-customer matched data en-
able us to develop an understanding of the value of social
capital in the CI process, and in particular related factors
influencing the customer’s willingness to share CI with
salespeople. Given their frequent interaction with other
firms, customers can be an excellent source of CI—if they
reveal the information. Knowing what motivates a customer
to share CI enables the sales organization to increase its
chances of obtaining useful information.
The approach that the salesperson takes in fulfilling her or
his responsibilities has clear ramifications on the development
and exploitation of social capital residing in the salesperson–
customer dyad. The salesperson’s being customer-oriented in
the in-role execution of job functions, going above and be-
yond the call of duty by performing customer-focused extra-

Fig. 3 Best-fitting model results

J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. (2013) 41:91–110
role behaviors, and taking the time to nurture a strong rela-
tionship with the customer all contribute to the customer’s
propensity to provide CI to the salesperson. Moreover, we
have shown that CI is useful not only to firms in a macro sense
but also to the individual salesperson as he or she seeks to
influence the customer’s product perceptions.
Interestingly, the value of CI can be enhanced by the level
of a salesperson’s adaptive selling skills. An adaptive seller is
able to absorb the CI and employ it in such a way that is
advantageous to both salesperson and customer. CI provides
the adaptive seller with important information that enables
him or her to better position the firm’s offerings versus that
of its competitors and/or to adjust the selling approach to
leverage this information. We see the opposite holding true
for the low-adaptive seller. Surprisingly, CI’s positive impact
not only diminishes but actually worsens information use
when customer-supplied CI makes its way into the hands of
low-adaptive sellers. Apparently such salespeople fail to re-
spond to the CI gleaned from the customer, ignore the infor-
mation, or lack the ability to utilize this information to the
extent that it not only does not help them in their selling efforts
but it in fact adversely affects customer perceptions. This also
could be a function of heightened customer expectations after
CI is revealed to the salesperson. Specifically, when the low-
adaptive seller fails to use the customer-supplied CI to more
strongly position the product against the customer needs and
in relation to competitive offerings, this may signal to the
customer that the salesperson’s product does not measure up
in some way. So while the development of social capital may
facilitate the discovery of desirable information for situational
interpretation, if decision making and related interactive
behaviors are not altered appropriately, the acquired CI may
hinder rather than help.
As presented by Choo (2002), a poorly managed environ-
mental scanning effort can lead to negative outcomes such as
information overload, confusion and disorientation, and high
costs in lost opportunities, all of which can be combatted by
adaptive selling skills. Again, it also could be that after
sharing CI, customers expect salespeople to respond in a
way that reassures the customer of the salesperson’s value
proposition. The adaptive seller is able to do this, strengthen-
ing customer perceptions, while the low-adaptive seller fails
in this regard, making the competitive product look better in
the eyes of the customer relative to the salesperson’s product.
This is consistent with the concept of disclosure reciprocity
(Jacobs et al. 2001). CI can be considered a type of task-
specific disclosure that might prompt in the provider an
expectation of reciprocation on the part of the salesperson
that if unfulfilled could adversely influence customer percep-
tions. This has serious ramifications to both the salesperson
and firm, which we discuss under managerial implications.
Salespeople are no longer selling just a product; instead,
they aim to offer a solution to customers’ problems and
105
thereby provide value to customers. Anderson and Dubinsky
(2004) comment on this issue in their discussion of consulta-
tive selling, in which a salesperson acts as an expert and
provides customized solutions. In such scenarios, salespeople
need to convey that their solution is unique and that no
competitive offering can serve this purpose. Sales research
recognizes that customers want their sales representatives to
draw clear objective comparisons between the product and
competitive offerings (Ahearne et al. 2007); therefore CI can
be used as a critical tool for satisfying customers through
productive interactions. However, as seen in our research,
these interactions demand adaptive selling behaviors in order
for the CI to have a positive effect. In addition, salespeople
must build sufficient social capital through their interactions
with customers in order to generate CI in the first place.
Consequently, our investigation of CI at an individual level
brings attention to these widely neglected determinants of
information acquisition and use. Despite the abundance of
frameworks linking different salesperson-related variables
and performance, superior product perceptions arise only
when salespeople identify new market opportunities and react
to them faster and more proficiently than their competitors.
We hope that our theoretical framework and findings encour-
age academicians to extend this line of thought and to further
develop the notion of individual level CI use. This study
suggests that researchers should not only consider the link
between the salesperson and customer but also address the
question of how competitive information can weaken or
strengthen this link. Moreover, a salesperson’s utilization of
CI may provide the opportunity to bring in the much needed
angle of “competitor” to the salesperson-customer-competitor
triangle.
Our post hoc analyses and the inclusion of experience
and customer size as covariates provide further insight by
shedding light on other relationships present in our model
and other interesting effects which warrant future investiga-
tion. First, our best-fitting model provides an indication of
how building social capital by demonstrating a strong cus-
tomer orientation, engaging in extra-role behaviors, and
developing a quality relationship can be beneficial beyond
the sharing of competitive intelligence. These three social
capital antecedents are proliferated throughout the model
providing evidence of the benefits garnered by developing
a strong relationship with the customer. Second, salesperson
experience is a valuable trait that influences multiple out-
comes. Although it is not possible to increase experience
without the effect of time, per se, training which imparts
knowledge and skills onto the sales force to help them move
along the learning curve at a faster rate could be valuable.
Another area which we would like to highlight stems from
the best-fitting model. The value of extra-role behaviors on
behalf of the customer has impact beyond that of just the
sharing of competitive intelligence. These behaviors can
106
influence the overall quality of the salesperson–customer re-
lationship and the perceived use of information, but also have
a direct effect on the customer’s share-of-wallet. It would be
valuable to explore whether there is a positive return-on-
investment from these extra-role behaviors in future research.
Currently, researchers employ several different methods
in an attempt to determine causal relationships and examine
constructs deemed important. However, only recently have
we seen an increase in the use of tools that are most appro-
priate to explicitly account for the underlying relationships
that are present in the multiple-level nature of organizations
and the marketplace. Accordingly, this study represents an
important advancement in that it explicitly considers the
multiple-levels inherent to a sales setting. By examining
not only the individual sales representative but also the
customer involved in the sales interaction, our findings
indicate that there is a substantial amount of variance that
can be explained both between and within groups.
Managerial implications
Our research findings are managerially stimulating with
regard to business-to-business marketing and in particular
the sales function. That is to say, if the activity of collecting
and diffusing market information has been ranked fourth out
of the ten most important salespeople’s missions (Moncrief
1986), it should perhaps be even more highly regarded
because of its instrumental impact on product performance.
Clearly our research demonstrates that there is value in the
gathering and use of CI in not only an aggregated sense at
the company level for strategic decisions but also tactically
at the salesperson–customer interface. Hence, companies
should consider how they are leveraging social capital and
CI at the salesperson level in order to better differentiate
themselves in the marketplace.
Customers today are increasingly demanding, want to know
how certain products or services differ from others, and ques-
tion why a particular product or service should be chosen over
the competition. Without having up-to-date competitor infor-
mation, salespeople will find it difficult to provide satisfying
answers to such demanding customer inquiries. Being
equipped with CI provides salespeople with advantages in
terms of effectively convincing customers to buy their products
and enables them to perform better in comparison with those
salespeople who lack such information. Salespeople who col-
lect and effectively use sound market and competitive infor-
mation will be better able to fulfill customer needs, build
positive product perceptions, and generate sales revenue.
Due to their field presence and favored relationships with
customers, salespeople can be provided with insights on cus-
tomers’ or competitors’ projects, learn about new product/
services launches before they take place, collect information
on competitors’ promotional activities and effectiveness,
J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. (2013) 41:91–110
understand competitors’ pricing and discounting policies,
learn about customers’ budget and financial concerns, etc.
Such intelligence is undoubtedly useful for sales calls as it
may help salespeople prepare their presentations and negoti-
ation processes, while also anticipating customers’ expect-
ations, concerns, or objections.
Moreover, salespeople supply vital information to custom-
ers, and the salesperson’s ability to communicate information
is one of the most important facets of the buyer–seller ex-
change process. Salespeople obtain valuable information from
the customer, but in order to serve as experts, salespeople must
be able to assimilate and leverage this information in the
context of their own product/service offering.
Managers must play a vital role in this process. It is
evident that social capital and adaptive selling skills are vital
to the effective gathering and use of CI at the salesperson
level. As managers seek to utilize the sales force as an
information gathering mechanism, they must provide the
leadership that encourages customer orientation, that
spawns customer-focused extra–role behaviors among sales-
people, and that motivates salespeople to devote sufficient
time to developing trust-filled relationships with customers.
In order to effectively leverage this CI at the salesperson
level, managers must put into place systems and plans that
enable salespeople to build the adaptive selling skills that
are necessary to turn CI into positively actionable informa-
tion. To this end, well-designed training programs that unit-
ize concepts into selling situations and link them with
effective procedures may be useful in overcoming shortfalls
in experience (Wagner et al. 1999). More specifically, such
training programs could teach salespeople how to look for
and identify relevant intelligence about competitors during
their probing sequence and strategy. Additionally, salespeo-
ple should be trained on how to continuously collect CI and
utilize it effectively through adaptive selling behaviors.
Finally, recruitment and selection processes that enable the
firm to assemble a sales force with these capabilities should
prove to be advantageous. A single interaction between a
salesperson and customer is the building block of customer
value creation. Our findings suggest that, if properly managed,
CI can play a pivotal role during that exchange.
Limitations and future research
As with all research, this study includes some limitations.
First, for the sake of parsimony, the proposed model is not
exhaustive in considering all the possible outcomes or pre-
dictors of CI sharing. Similarly, only a few predictors of
perceived value and share-of-wallet are included. Future re-
search may further expand the scope of this study by examin-
ing other variables that fit into the context, including potential
mediating mechanisms. Also, researchers should explore the
specific link between CI use and its impact on explicit
J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. (2013) 41:91–110
salesperson behaviors. In addition, future research that exam-
ines a typology of competitive intelligence and how different
types and amounts of CI may be leveraged at the individual
level would be valuable. Furthermore, it could be beneficial to
separately assess and examine the quality and quantity of CI
shared by customers with salespeople and their differential
effects. We also acknowledge that our CI construct captures
only information pertaining to competitors and not informa-
tion pertaining to the customer itself. Since customer-oriented
salespeople also obtain and use customer information, future
investigations might introduce and research the impact of
customer intelligence to more holistically capture salespeo-
ple’s ability to leverage field intelligence.
We purposely focused our research on salesperson–custom-
er dyads given the nature of what we were studying. However,
while outside the bounds of our paper, it would be interesting to
expand the investigation and social capital discussion to in-
clude the salesperson’s overall network of customers, as well as
considering other field-based sources of CI. In addition, while
there are multiple studies in the literature that explore antece-
dents to customer orientation among salespeople and antece-
dents to positive salesperson–customer relationships, there is
comparatively little that examines customer-focused extra-role
behaviors, particularly what motivates salespeople to engage in
such behavior. It could be useful to explicate the role of con-
structs like trust, commitment, and friendship in the develop-
ment of social capital and resulting behaviors. Also, examining
fit between customer assessments and salesperson assessments
on similar constructs could provide interesting insights on
perception differences and the influence on CI sharing.
Another limitation, and a need for further research, pertains
to the causality suggested in the results. Although we com-
bined multiple data sources (i.e., salesperson/customer survey)
across separate time periods to test the model, relationships
between particular variables could be bi-directional. It could
be argued that the more money a customer spends with a
salesperson the stronger the drive to share valuable CI, there-
fore the more extra service a salesperson provides. As these are
mere assumptions, future research along these lines would be
valuable; however, we attempted to avoid these potential con-
cerns by adopting a lagged research design.
In addition, the sales context is unique, and it is quite
possible that these results might be idiosyncratic to the
specific type of selling in this particular industry. While
the customer base included a large number of firms repre-
senting several industries, this study could be replicated
within other industries and organizations to further general-
ize the findings. Further research would benefit from exam-
ining the impact of CI sharing on customers’ perceived
value and firms’ return on investment and on salespeople’s
call costs through a longitudinal assessment of measures.
Regarding the consequence of a salesperson’s appropri-
ate use of information, this research acknowledges the
107
existence of various performance outputs such as share-
of-wallet and profit margin on sales. Future research should
explore under what conditions higher observed share-of
wallet leads to higher margins when field-based CI is
leveraged.
Although our dataset did not allow us to investigate this,
one might speculate as to possible managerial influences on
customer perceived value. Therefore, further research
should also examine the extent to which management prac-
tices also impact customers’ perceived value. Similarly,
factors such as products’ features and benefits, their posi-
tioning strategy, as well as their carried brand equity could
also be integrated. In addition, the role of variables like
salespeople’s negotiation abilities or communication skills
may also be worthy of investigation.
Another interesting research opportunity would be to
analyze how CI is shared when the salesperson faces differ-
ent phases in her or his sales process or while new selling
situations occur as customers’ business changes or evolves.
Indeed, we expect customers’ willingness to share CI to
differ both on the quantity and quality of intelligence pro-
vided. Furthermore, it would be worthwhile to study how
customers’ profiles and types influence the process of intel-
ligence sharing with sales representatives as the relationship
evolves. A typology of customers’ CI sharing behaviors
could be established to help salespeople position their ap-
proach for CI investigation.
Finally, this research suggests a promising research ave-
nue that considers a salesperson’s accumulation of CI as a
key firm capability en route to performance. Since capabil-
ities represent a firm capacity to accumulate and use relevant
resources (such as CI) so that lasting results can be produced
through the synergy at stake among those resources (Amit
and Shoemaker 1993), salespeople’s embedded personal
social capital and usage of field intelligence may serve as
a means to firms’ revenues generation. Salespeople may
carry an individual and social competitive advantage which
benefits the firm from customers’ enhancement of their
customer and market knowledge through CI sharing. This
is consistent with the view of information flow as a resource
for market oriented and market driven firm (Day 1994;
Kohli and Jaworski 1990; Narver and Slater 1990). In addi-
tion, this perspective underlines the link between internal
resources, such as salespeople’s possession of CI, as a lever
of competitive advantage, while also extending it to external
and socially complex environment such as the customers
(Barney 1991, 1995; Makadok 2001). Lastly, this echoes
Hughes et al.’s. (2012) recent research on salespeople’s
important role at the interface of other internal functions
while bridging them with the external marketplace. Hence,
we suggest exploring further the sequence through which
firms build and protect specific capabilities through sales-
people’s field based intelligence accumulation and usage.
108
Acknowledgments The authors thank Jonathon Halbesleben, John
Mathieu, Bulent Menguc and five anonymous reviewers for their
feedback and suggestions.
References
Adler, P. S., & Kwon, S. (2002). Social capital: prospects for a new
concept. Academy of Management Review, 27(1), 17–40.
Ahearne, M., Jelinek, R., & Jones, E. (2007). Examining the effect of
salesperson service behavior in a competitive context. Journal of
the Academy of Marketing Science, 35(4), 603–16.
Albaum, G. (1964). Horizontal information flow: an exploratory study.
Academy of Management Journal, 7, 1–33.
Amit, R., & Schoemaker, P. J. H. (1993). Strategic assets and organi-
zational rent. Strategic Management Journal, 14(1), 33–46.
Anderson, R. E., & Dubinsky, A. J. (2004). Personal selling: Achieving
customer satisfaction and loyalty. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Attaway, M. C., Sr. (1998). A review of issues related to gathering and
assessing competitive intelligence. American Business Review, 16
(1), 25–35.
Auster, E., & Choo, C. W. (1993). Environmental scanning by CEOs in
two Canadian industries. Journal of the American Society for
Information Science, 44(4), 194–203.
Axelrod, J. N. (1968). Attitude measures that predict purchase. Journal
of Advertising Research, 8(1), 3–17.
Band, W. A. (1982). Here’s how you can find out about the competition.
Sales and Marketing Management in Canada, 23(8), 18–21.
Barney, J. (1991). Firm resources and sustained competitive advantage.
Journal of Management, 17(1), 99–120.
Barney, J. (1995). Looking inside for competitive advantage. Academy
of Management Executive, 9(4), 49–61.
Bettencourt, L. A., Brown, S. W., & MacKenzie, S. B. (2005). Customer-
oriented boundary spanning behaviors: test of a social exchange
model of antecedents. Journal of Retailing, 81(2), 141–157.
Boles, J., Brashear, T., Bellenger, D., & Barksdale, H., Jr. (2000).
Relationship selling behaviors: antecedents and relationship with
performance. Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing, 15(2/3),
141–153.
Bose, R. (2008). Competitive intelligence process and tools for intel-
ligence analysis. Industrial Management & Data Systems, 108(4),
510–528.
Boyd, B. K., & Fulk, J. (1996). Executive scanning and perceived
uncertainty: a multidimensional model. Journal of Management,
22(1), 1–21.
Brookes, B. C. (1980). The foundation of information science, part I:
philosophical aspects. Journal of Information Science, 2(3–4),
125–133.
Bryk, A. S., & Raudenbush, S. W. (1992). Hierarchical linear models.
Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Burk, C. F., & Horton, F. W. (1988). Infomap: A complete guide to
discovering information resources. NJ: Prentice Hall.
Burt, R. S. (1997). The contingent value of social capital. Administrative
Science Quarterly, 42, 339–365.
Caudron, S. (1994). Contingent workforce spurs HR planning. Personnel
Journal, 73(7), 52–60.
Chonko, L. B., Tanner, J. F., Jr., & Smith, E. R. (1991). Selling and
sales management in action: the sales force’s role in international
marketing research and marketing information systems. Journal
of Personal Selling and Sales Management, 11(Winter), 69–79.
Choo, C. W. (2002). Information management for the intelligent organi-
zation: The art of scanning the environment. Medford: Information
Today/Learned Information.
Cleland, D. I., & King, W. R. (1975). Competitive business intelligence
systems (pp. 19–28). December: Business Horizons.
J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. (2013) 41:91–110
Coleman, J. S. (1988). Social capital in the creation of human capital.
American Journal of Sociology, 94(Supplement), S95–S120.
Coleman, J. S. (1990). Foundations of social theory. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press.
Cropanzano, R., & Mitchell, M. S. (2005). Social exchange theory: an
interdisciplinary review. Journal of Management, 31(6), 874–900.
Crosby, L. A., Evans, K. R., & Cowles, D. (1990). Rel Quality in
services selling: an interpersonal influence perspective. Journal of
Marketing, 54(July), 68–81.
Day, G. S. (1994). The capabilities of market-driven organizations.
Journal of Marketing, 58(4), 37–53.
Desarbo, W. S., Ramaswamy, V., & Chatterjee, R. (1995). Analyzing
constant-sum multiple criterion data: a segment-level approach.
Journal of Marketing Research, 32(2), 222–232.
Dishman, P. L., & Calof, J. L. (2008). Competitive intelligence: a
multiphasic precedent to marketing strategy. European Journal
of Marketing, 42(7/8), 766–785.
Duncan, T., & Moriarty, S. E. (1998). A communication-based marketing
model for managing relationships. Journal of Marketing, 62(2), 1–
13.
Eggert, A., & Ulaga, W. (2002). Customer perc value: a substitute for
satisfaction in business markets. Journal of Business and Industrial
Marketing, 17(2/3), 107–118.
Eggert, A., & Ulaga, W. (2010). Managing customer share in key
supplier relationships. Industrial Marketing Management, 39(8),
1346–1355.
Emery, J. (1969). Organizational planning and control system: Theory
and technology. New York: The Mac Millan Company.
Evans, K., & Maio, C. F. (2011). Sales force-generated marketing
intelligence. In D. Cravens, K. Le Meunier-FitzHugh, & N. F.
Piercy (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of strategic sales and sales
management. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Fouss, J. H., & Solomon, E. (1980). Salespeople as researchers: help or
hazard. Journal of Marketing, 44(3), 36–39.
Franke, G. R., & Park, J. (2006). Salesperson adaptive selling behavior
and Cust Orientation: a meta-analysis. Journal of Marketing
Research, 43(4), 693–702.
Gieskes, H. (2000). Competitive intelligence at Lexis-Nexis. Competitive
Intelligence Review, 11(2), 4–11.
Global Intelligence Alliance (2005). Competitive intelligence in large
companies—Global study. GIA White Papers, No. 4.
Goff, B. G., Boles, J. S., Bellenger, D. N., & Stojack, C. (1997). The
influence of salesperson selling behaviors on customer satisfac-
tion with products. Journal of Retailing, 73(2), 171–83.
Goodman, C. (1971). Management of the personal selling function.
New York: Holt, Rinehart, Winston Inc.
Goyette, I., Ricard, L., Bergeron, J., & Marticotte, F. (2010). e-WOM
scale: word-of-mouth measurement scale for e-services context.
Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences, 27, 5–23.
Grace, D., & Pointon, T. (1980). Marketing research through the sales
force. Industrial Marketing Management, 9(1), 53–62.
Griffith, D. A., & Lusch, R. (2007). Getting marketers to invest in firm-
specific capital. Journal of Marketing, 71(1), 129–145.
Groom, J. R., & David, F. R. (2001). Competitive intelligence activity
among small firms. Advanced Management Journal, 66(1), 12–
21.
Harrison-Walker, L. J. (2001). The measurement of word-of-mouth
communication and an investigation of service quality and cus-
tomer commitment as potential antecedents. Journal of Service
Research August, 4(1), 60–75.
Hershey, R. (1980). Commercial intelligence on a shoestring. Harvard
Business Review, 58(5), 22–24.
Hofmann, D. A. (1997). An overview of the logic and rationale of
hierarchical linear models. Journal of Management, 23, 723–744.
Holbrook, M. B. (1994). The nature of customer value: An axiology of
services in consumption experience. In R. Rust & R. Oliver
J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. (2013) 41:91–110
(Eds.), Service quality: New directions in theory and practice (pp.
21–71). Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Hughes, D. E., Le Bon, J., & Malshe, A. (2012). The marketing-sales
interface at the interface: Creating market-based capabilities
through organizational synergy. Journal of Personal Selling and
Sales Management, 32(1), 57–72.
Jacobs, R. S., Evans, K. R., Kleine, R. E., III, & Landry, T. D. (2001).
Disclosure and its reciprocity as predictors of key outcomes of an
initial sales encounter. Journal of Personal Selling and Sales
Management, 21(1), 51–61.
Jaworski, B. J., MacInnis, D. J., & Kohli, A. (2002). Generating
competitive intelligence in organizations. Journal of Market-
Focused Management, 5, 279–307.
Jones, E., Busch, P., & Dacin, P. (2003). Firm market orientation and
salesperson Cust Orientation: interpersonal and intrapersonal influen-
ces on customer service and retention in business-to-business buyer-
seller relationships. Journal of Business Research, 56, 323–340.
Kohli, A. K., & Jaworski, B. J. (1990). Market orientation: the con-
struct, research propositions, and managerial implications. Jour-
nal of Marketing, 54(2), 1–18.
Kumar, N., Hibbard, J. D., & Stern, L. W. (1994). The nature and
consequences of marketing channel intermediary commitment.
MSI Working Paper No. 94–115.
Lambert, D. M., Marmorstein, H., & Sharma, A. (1990). Industrial
salespeople as a source of market information. Industrial Market-
ing Management, 19(2), 141–49.
Le Bon, J., & Merunka, D. (2006). The impact of individual and managerial
factors on salespeople’s contribution to marketing intelligence activi-
ties. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 23, 395–408.
Levesque, T., & McDougall, G. H. G. (1996). Determinants of cus-
tomer satisfaction in retail banking. International Journal of Bank
Marketing, 14, 12–20.
Li, S., & Lin, B. (2006). Accessing information sharing and information
quality in supply chain management. Decision Support Systems, 42,
1641–1656.
Makadok, R. (2001). Toward a synthesis of the resource-based and
dynamic-capability views of rent creation. Strategic Management
Journal, 22(5), 387–401.
Makadok, R., & Barney, J. B. (2001). Strategic factor market intelli-
gence: an application of information economics to strategy for-
mulation and competitor intelligence. Management Science, 47
(12), 1621–1638.
Maltz, E., & Kohli, A. K. (1996). Market intelligence dissemination
across functional boundaries. Journal of Marketing Research, 33
(1), 47–61.
Mathieu, J. E., & Taylor, S. R. (2006). Clarifying conditions and
decision points for mediational type inferences in organizational
behavior. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 27, 1031–1056.
Maxham, J. G., III, & Netemeyer, R. G. (2003). Firms reap what they
sow: the effects of shared values and perceived organizational
justice on customers’ evaluations of complaint handling. Journal
of Marketing, 67, 46–62.
McKay, D. (1969). Information, mechanism and meaning. Cambridge:
MIT Press.
Mellow, C. (1989). The best source of competitive intelligence. Sales
and Marketing Management, 141, 24–29.
Meunier-FitzHugh, K. L., & Piercy, N. (2006). Integrating marketing
intelligence sources-reconsidering the role of the sales force.
International Journal of Market Research, 48, 699–716.
Miree, C. E., & Prescott, J. E. (2000). TAP-IN’ to strategic and tactical
intelligence in the sales and marketing functions. Competitive
Intelligence Review, 11, 4–16.
Mohr, J., & Spekman, R. (1994). Characteristics of partnership suc-
cess: partnership attributes, communication behavior, and conflict
resolution techniques. Strategic Management Journal, 15, 135–
152.
109
Moncrief, W., III. (1986). Selling activity and sales position taxono-
mies for industrial sales forces. Journal of Marketing Research,
23, 261–270.
Montgomery, D., & Weinberg, C. (1979). Toward strategic intelligence
system. Journal of Marketing, 43, 41–52.
Moss, C. (1979). Industrial salesman as a source of marketing intelli-
gence. European Journal of Marketing, 13, 94–102.
Muthuswamy, S. K., & Palanisamy, R. (2004). Leveraging cognition
for competitive advantage: a knowledge-based strategy process.
Journal of Information and Knowledge Management, 3, 259–272.
Nahapiet, J., & Ghoshal, S. (1998). Social capital, intellectual capital,
and the organizational advantage. Academy of Management Re-
view, 23, 242–266.
Narver, J. C., & Slater, S. F. (1990). The effect of a market orientation
on business profitability. Journal of Marketing, 54, 20–35.
Netemeyer, R. G., Maxham, J. G., & Pullig, C. (2005). Conflicts in the
work-family interface: links to job stress, service employee per-
formance and customers purchase intent. Journal of Marketing,
69, 130–143.
Organ, D. W. (1988). Organizational citizenship behavior: The good
soldier syndrome. Massachusetts: Lexington Books.
Pepper, J. (1999). Proven strategies in competitive intelligence. In J.
Prescott & S. Miller (Eds.), Competitive intelligence at Proctor
and Gamble (pp. 23–27). Canada: Wiley.
Phillips, L., Chang, D., & Buzzell, R. (1983). Product quality, cost
position and business performance: a test of some key hypotheses.
Journal of Marketing, 47, 26–43.
Pirttimäki, V. (2007). Comparative study and analysis of the intelli-
gence activities of large Finnish companies. Journal of Compet-
itive Intelligence and Management, 4, 147–170.
Podsakoff, P. M., & MacKenzie, S. B. (1997). Impact of organizational
citizenship behavior on organizational performance: a review and
suggestions for future research. Human Performance, 10, 133–
151.
Porter, M. E. (1980). Competitive strategy: Techniques for analyzing
industries and competitors. New York: Free Press.
Powell, T., & Allgaier, C. (1998). Enhancing sales and marketing
effectiveness through competitive intelligence. Competitive Intel-
ligence Review, 9, 29–41.
Preacher, K., Curran, P., & Bauer, D. (2006). Computational tools for
probing interaction effects in multiple linear regression, multilevel
modeling, and latent curve analysis. Journal of Educational and
Behavioral Statistics, 31, 437–448.
Prescott, J. E. (1995). The evolution of competitive intelligence. Inter-
national Review of Strategic Management, 6(1), 71–90.
Rapp, A., Agnihotri, R., & Baker, T. (2011). Conceptualizing salesper-
son competitive intelligence: an individual level perspective.
Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, 31, 123–140.
Rapp, A., Ahearne, M., Mathieu, J., & Schillewaert, N. (2006). The
impact of knowledge and empowerment on working smart and
working hard: the moderating role of experience. International
Journal of Research in Marketing, 23, 279–293.
Reibstein, D. J. (1978). The prediction of individual probabilities of
brand choice. Journal of Consumer Research, 5, 163–168.
Reid, D., Pullins, E., & Plank, R. (2002). The impact of purchase
situation on the sales communication-outcome relationship in
business markets. Industrial Marketing Management, 31, 205–
213.
Roberts, K., Varki, S., & Brodie, R. (2003). Measuring the quality of
relationships in consumer services: an empirical study. European
Journal of Marketing, 37, 169–196.
Robertson, D. H. (1974). Sales force feedback on competitors’ activ-
ities. Journal of Marketing, 38, 69–71.
Rouch, D., & Santi, P. (2001). Competitive intelligence adds value:
five intelligence attitudes. European Management Journal, 19,
552–559.
110
Saegart, J., & Hoover, R. J. (1980). Sales managers and sales force
feedback: information left in the pipeline. Journal of Academy of
Marketing Science, 8, 33–39.
Sandefur, R. L., & Laumann, E. O. (1998). A paradigm for social
capital. Rationality and Society, 10, 481–501.
Saxe, R., & Weitz, B. A. (1982). The SOCO scale: a measure of cust
orientation of salespeople. Journal of Marketing Research, 19,
343–351.
Slater, S. F., & Narver, J. C. (2000). Intelligence generation and
superior customer value. Journal of the Academy of Marketing
Science, 28(1), 120–127.
Smith, E. R. (1994). Procedural knowledge and processing strategies in
social cognition. In R. S. Wyer & T. K. Srull (Eds.), Handbook of
social cognition (pp. 99–151). Hillsdale: Erlbaum.
Song, M., & Thieme, J. (2009). The role of suppliers in market
intelligence gathering for radical and incremental innovation.
Journal of Product Innovation Management, 26, 43–57.
Spiro, R. L., & Weitz, B. A. (1990). Adaptive selling: conceptualiza-
tion, measurement, and nomological validity. Journal of Market-
ing Research, 27, 61–69.
Sujan, H., Weitz, B. A., & Kumar, N. (1994). Learning orientation,
working smart, and effective selling. Journal of Marketing, 58,
39–52.
Swan, J., Trawick, I. F., & Silva, D. W. (1985). How industrial
salespeople gain customer trust. Industrial Marketing Management,
14, 203–211.
Thiétart, R. A., & Vivas, R. (1981). Strategic intelligence activity: the
management of the sales force as a source of strategic informa-
tion. Strategic Management Journal, 2(1), 15–25.
Tymon, W. G., & Stumpf, S. A. (2003). Social capital in the success
of knowledge workers. Career Development International, 8, 12–
20.
J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. (2013) 41:91–110
Ulaga, W., & Chacour, S. (2001). Measuring customer-perc value in
business markets: a prerequisite for marketing strategy develop-
ment and implementation. Industrial Marketing Management, 30
(6), 525–540.
Urban, G. L., & Hauser, J. R. (1993). Design and marketing of new
products (2nd ed.). Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.
Vedder, R. G., Vanecek, M., Guynes, C. S., & Cappel, J. J. (1999).
CEO and CIO perspectives on competitive intelligence. Commu-
nication of the ACM, 42, 109–116.
Verbeke, W. J., Dietz, H., & Verwaal, E. (2011). Drivers of sales
performance: A contemporary meta-analysis. Have salespeople
become knowledge brokers? Journal of the Academy of Market-
ing Science, 39(3), 407–428.
Wagner, R. K., Sujan, H., Sujan, M., Rashotte, C., & Sternberg, R. J.
(1999). Tacit knowledge in sales. In R. J. Sternberg & J. A. Horvath
(Eds.), Tacit knowledge in professional practice. Mahwah: Erlbaum.
Weitz, B. A. (1981). Effectiveness in sales interactions: A contingency
framework. Journal of Marketing, 45, 85–103.
Weitz, B. A., Sujan, H., & Sujan, M. (1986). Knowledge, motivation,
and adaptive behavior: a framework for improving selling effec-
tiveness. Journal of Marketing, 50, 174–191.
Yang, Z., & Peterson, R. (2004). Customer perc value, satisfaction, and
loyalty: the role of switching costs. Psychology and Marketing, 21
(10), 799–822.
Yli-Renko, H., Autio, E., & Sapienza, H. (2001). Social capital, knowl-
edge acquisition, and knowledge exploitation in young technology-
based firms. Strategic Management Journal, 22, 587–613.
Young, M. A. (1989). Sources of competitive data for the management
strategist. Strategic Management Journal, 10, 285–93.
Zeithaml, V. A. (1988). Consumer perception of price, quality, and
value: a means–end model and synthesis of evidence. Journal of
Marketing, 52, 2–22.
Copyright of Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science is the property of Springer Science & Business
Media B.V. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the
copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for
individual use.