“Ba” as a determinant of salesforce effectiveness: an empirical assessment of the applicability of the Nonaka‐Takeuchi model to the management of the selling function

Abstract

Heads of business‐to‐business salesforces in 113 large companies based in Greater London completed mail questionnaires designed to investigate the role of social and other informal gatherings in the exchange of salespeople’s knowledge of specific customers, selling methods, sales leads, lessons learned from past activities, etc. Respondents’ perceptions of these matters were cross‐referenced with, inter alia, the natures of companies’ knowledge management systems, organisational factors such as bureaucracy and the degree of centralisation within a firm, innovativeness, and the ability to accommodate change. The purpose of the investigation was to assess whether the Japanese concept of “ba” was an influential factor facilitating the Nonaka/Takeuchi tacit‐explicit‐tacit knowledge spiral within the sample businesses. It emerged that all four of the ba categories associated with the Nonaka/Takeuchi cycle (externalisation, socialisation, internalisation and combination) exerted a significant impact on one or more key dimensions of salesforce management.