The role of social capital and knowledge transfer in selling center performance

Purpose - This paper aims to understand how organizational and interpersonal relationships influence selling centers, and how to form an effective selling center to establish cooperation among the functional departments to satisfy customer needs. Design/methodology/approach - The selling center and social capital literatures are reviewed. A social network perspective is employed to explore the internal and external relationships of corporate selling centers. Findings - Building upon social capital literature and team literature, the authors propose that selling center performance is influenced by its internal and external social capital. Social capital influences selling center performance through facilitating knowledge transfer and absorption within and across the selling center. Practical implications - The findings help sales managers diagnose the problems of the social networks among their selling center members, to improve their selling center performance in the future. Originality/value - The paper investigates the relationships among social capital, knowledge transfer and absorption and team performance in the selling center context. By considering both intra-firm relationships and inter-firm relationships, this study provides a relatively complete picture of selling center performance and adds knowledge to the field.