Personal selling as knowledge-based activity: communities of practice in sales

This research posits personal selling as a knowledge-based activity. In their day-to-day
interaction with customers, sales personnel gain priceless insights into their personalities, likes and dislikes, their process requirements or their position in formal and informal networks. If such ‘soft’ knowledge is externalised and made available in organisations, it can be a highly precious asset in developing genuine customer-oriented marketing and sales strategies. In most firms, however, such knowledge is not included in databases and other technological means of knowledge exchange. Using the Grounded Theory method, an exploratory investigation is undertaken to examine if and how such personal customer knowledge is shared in sales teams. The findings point toward the importance of so-called ‘communities of practice’ in the sales organisation and show that knowledge exchange is inseparable from the social environment in which it is created and put to use.