The Impact of Internal Knowledge Sharing on Sales Department’s Innovativeness and New Product Commercialization

Abstract

Background and Purpose: Innovativeness and new product commercialization are highly important for companies. Therefore, a deep understanding of the impact of all potentially influential drivers of success is critical. The purpose of the paper is to explore the impact of internal knowledge sharing on new product selling and sales innovativeness as well as the impact of empowerment on internal knowledge sharing and, indirectly, on new product selling and sales innovativeness.
Design/Methodology/Approach: The research encompassed 101 salespeople working at the top 1000 value add­ed creators in Croatia. The questionnaire was developed and adapted using four scales, to assess internal knowl­edge sharing, new product selling, sales innovativeness, and empowerment. The data was analyzed by using the PLS-SEM method to examine the relationships between constructs.
Results: As evidenced by the survey results, internal knowledge sharing positively impacts new product selling and sales department’s innovativeness, and empowerment is positively linked to internal knowledge sharing and, indirectly, to new product selling and sales department’s innovativeness.
Conclusion: Managers should underpin different activities in order to enhance empowerment and internal knowl­edge sharing with the aim to affect companies’ performance in commercialization of a new product and sales depart­ment’s innovativeness. Future research could include moderator variables between the empowerment construct and the internal knowledge sharing construct and deepen the insight into the type of information shared, the dynamics of sharing and the barriers in the process, and other factors that positively affect knowledge sharing.
Keywords: New product selling, Sales department’s innovativeness, Internal knowledge sharing, Empowerment, Salespeople