Adaptive to customers: The roles of learning climate and customer knowledge

Abstract

Based on the theory of organizational socialization, the present study evaluates the effect of learning climate on salespeople's adaptive selling behaviors by reviewing and incorporating their knowledge of customers. The study also explores the mediating role of customer knowledge for learning climate and adaptive selling behaviors. A total of 350 salespeople in 35 consumer electronics and appliances stores located in Taiwan were analyzed using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM), producing results that support the proposed model. More specifically, learning climate was positively related to customer knowledge and adaptive selling behaviors, and customer knowledge was directly related to adaptive selling behaviors. In addition, learning climate was associated with adaptive selling behaviors through customer knowledge. These findings highlight the importance of enhancing the learning climate and salespeople's customer knowledge to enable retailing organizations to improve salespeople's adaptive selling behaviors.