Culture uncovered: B2B salesforce job reviews as windows into corporate values

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to help uncover corporate culture and values to attract and retain talent by understanding job reviews written by business-to-business (B2B) salespeople.

Design/methodology/approach

Over 40,000 job reviews on Glassdoor.com are analyzed by a dictionary-based content analysis tool, Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC2015), to explore the links between corporate culture and linguistics characteristics of reviews as articulated by B2B salespeople. This study adopted a multidimensional scaling approach based on the nine cultural value scores to create a map of corporate profiles. A projection of the LIWC2015 scores on this map uncovers differences in language patterns and emotions expressed across the profiles.

Findings

Findings reveal a map of corporate profiles with two dimensions, namely, product-centricity and customer-centricity, that divide salesforce subculture into a 2 × 2 matrix of four types: Empathic Innovators, Product Pioneers, Customer Champions and Commodity Traders.

Originality/value

This study combined two data sets, scores on CultureX’s nine cultural values (agility, collaboration, customer orientation, diversity, execution, innovation, integrity, performance and respect) and job reviews on Glassdoor.com. This research seeks to develop profiles of the organizational culture and to use a blend of qualitative and quantitative methods. This study adds to the literature on salesforce subculture and showcases a solution to the methodological difficulty in categorizing and measuring culture.

Citation

Lam, J., Mulvey, M.S., Robson, K. and Pitt, L. (2023), "Culture uncovered: B2B salesforce job reviews as windows into corporate values", Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/JBIM-03-2023-0145