Does salesperson’s customer orientation create value in B2B relationships? empirical evidence from India
Abstract
Although value creation in business relationships has taken an important position in the literature, yet scant
attention has been paid to the precise nature of creation or destruction of value in b2b customer-oriented
selling. Moreover, very few empirical studies in the b2b customer value research have focused on emerging
markets, especially the BRIC countries. This study carried out in the context of small and medium sized firms
in India, empirically examines from the SOCO perspective (Saxe and Weitz, 1982), value creation in customeroriented
selling, and value destruction in sales-oriented strategies. We model value creation, relationship
development, and customer satisfaction as direct and indirect consequences of salesperson's customer
orientation. Based on a sample of 249 small and medium sized Indian firms, we show that salesperson's
customer orientation directly leads to value creation and relationship development with customers. On the
other hand, a sales orientation destroys value, although it may lead to relationship development in the shortterm.
We also found that customer satisfaction was unrelated to both types of salesperson's orientations. Our
study has considerable impact for small and medium sized businesses in emerging BRIC markets such as India,
as it throws light on how supplier firms can leverage their salesforce to create value creation with their
customers.
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