Centralized or decentralized? How intra- and inter-team network centralization impacts customer-oriented selling and performance of the B2B cross-functional sales team

Based on the structural perspective of social network theory, this study aims at investigating how intra-team and inter-team network centralization of cross-functional B2B sales teams as well as their interaction influence team’s customer-oriented selling and sales performance, and the moderating effects of team structure (team instability) and sales complexity (customer purchase complexity) variables.

319 valid responses from 76 cross-functional sales teams are used to test the hypotheses, and a structural equation model and hierarchical regression are employed to examine the proposed main and moderating effects.

The results indicate that intra-team centralization positively impacts customer-oriented selling, while inter-team centralization negatively impacts customer-oriented selling, and their interaction negatively impacts customer-oriented selling. Moreover, team instability positively moderates the link between intra-team network centralization and customer-oriented selling, and purchase complexity negatively moderates the relationship between inter-team network centralization and customer-oriented selling.

From a theoretical perspective, this paper extends the research level of customer-oriented selling from the individual level to the team level and enriches its antecedents from the network perspective. In addition, this study verifies the interaction effect of intra-team and inter-team centralizations on the team’s customer-oriented selling and sales performance, providing more comprehensive insights into the impact of network structure on team-level outcomes. From a practical perspective, the results offer valuable suggestions for enhancing customer-oriented selling and sales performance of B2B sales teams via effectively setting up the centralized intra-team network structure and the decentralized inter-team network structure.