A multidimensional perspective of business-to-business sales success: A meta-analytic review

The role and nature of business-to-business (B2B) sales has evolved since the end of the 20th century, mostly driven by technological, organizational and social changes. However, the literature has yet to catch up with that evolution. Particularly, the literature lacks contemporary studies that exclusively showcase the key determinants and practices that facilitate the success of B2B sales. Hence, we conduct a meta-analysis of the literature and summarize the results of 139 independent published studies from 1980 to 2019 that examined the relationship between several determinants and B2B sales success. Our results show that such success may be influenced by 31 different determinants associated with four dimensions of the selling process (i.e., salesperson, organization, customer, and environment). We also investigate the moderator effects of measurement source (subjective vs. objective), measurement items (single vs. multiple), industry context (goods vs. services), number of industries (single vs. multiple), sales function (inside sales vs. outside sales) and year of publication (before 2010 vs after 2010) between several determinants and B2B sales success. Our findings convey important implications for theory and practice on the key determinants of B2B sales success, as well as the conditions on which each determinant is effective. We also provide recommendations for further research on B2B sales success.