Social Influence and Contextual Utilization of Customer Relationship Management Technology in an International Field Sales Organization

Abstract

Building from related interdisciplinary theories, this research identifies social influence–related variables that are linked to customer relationship management (CRM) technology utilization within an international business-to-business field sales force. Field sales employees (n = 147) in a multinational organization from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States were surveyed to test the research model. Four of 7 primary hypotheses were supported, predicting more than 65% of the variance in the research model. Effort expectancy, uncertainty avoidance, collective performance expectancy, and internal/organizational social influence all showed antecedent significance to contextual utilization of CRM technology. The results of this study suggest that group-oriented individual decision making and the related concept of institutional collectivism are equally as important as individual-oriented decision making in the international utilization of organizational technology. Based on the strong significance shown in the results of this study, it would also be wise to consider cultural value–derived uncertainty avoidance in practical development of training and implementation of multinational CRM systems.