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Improving customer knowledge transfer in industrial firms: how does previous work experience influence the effect of reward systems?

Silja Korhonen-Sande (NMBU School of Economics and Business, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Ås, Norway)
Jon Bingen Sande (Department of Marketing, BI Norwegian Business School, Oslo, Norway)

Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing

ISSN: 0885-8624

Article publication date: 7 March 2016

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Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to improve customer knowledge management practices in industrial firms by examining the role of knowledge integration mechanisms (KIMs) and customer-oriented reward systems in non-marketing managers’ use of customer information.

Design/methodology/approach

Cross-sectional survey data were collected from 221 R & D and manufacturing managers from large, Finnish industrial companies. Ordinary least squares regression with bootstrap procedures was used to test the hypotheses.

Findings

The use of KIMs mediates the positive effect of customer-oriented reward systems on non-marketing managers’ use of customer information. However, non-marketing managers’ previous work experience in sales and marketing negatively moderates the effect of customer-oriented reward systems on the use of customer information. The use of knowledge integration systems mediates this moderation effect.

Research limitations/implications

This paper provides empirical evidence concerning the antecedents of successful customer knowledge transfer from sales and marketing to R & D and manufacturing. The findings imply that non-marketing managers with T-shaped skills (previous work experience also in sales and marketing) are unlikely to increase their use of KIMs if they are exposed to customer-oriented reward systems. Hence, broadening employees’ knowledge base substitutes for using customer-oriented reward systems as a tool for improving customer information use.

Originality/value

Building on the research on customer knowledge management, marketing’s cross-functional relationships and the motivation for knowledge transfer, this paper increases our understanding of how to develop organizational support for customer knowledge transfer. The authors consider both the impact of reward systems and their interaction with employees’ knowledge and skills.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge funding for data collection from the Academy of Finland Research Programme on Business Know-How (LIIKE 2). Comments from the participants at the EURAM Annual Conference 2013 and the two anonymous reviewers greatly assisted the authors in improving the paper.

Citation

Korhonen-Sande, S. and Sande, J.B. (2016), "Improving customer knowledge transfer in industrial firms: how does previous work experience influence the effect of reward systems?", Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Vol. 31 No. 2, pp. 232-246. https://doi.org/10.1108/JBIM-03-2014-0048

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2016, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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