UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY International School of Business Nguyen Minh Thien THE BENEFITS OF SOCIAL NETWORKING PROFESSIONAL GROUPS FOR SALESPERSONS: SOCIAL CAPITAL & SALESPERSONS PERFORMANCE MASTER OF BUSINESS (Honours) Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2014 UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY International School of Business Nguyen Minh Thien THE BENEFITS OF SOCIAL NETWORKING PROFESSIONAL GROUPS FOR SALESPERSONS: SOCIAL CAPITAL & SALESPERSONS PERFORMANCE ID: 22110058 MASTER OF BUSINESS (Honours) SUPERVISOR Dr Le Nhat Hanh Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2014 ABSTRACTS Recently social networking professional groups (SNPG) are increasing and becoming popular in various social media sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, Forum, and Blog Many people using them as tools to share information together, acquire existing & new connections, and maintain relationships Typically, salesperson has demand to connect and maintain with customers every day, and the SNPG is a very useful tool for them to build up, develop, and nourish relationships with their business partners By drawing on the social capital theory, there are three kinds of benefits that salesperson can attain from SNPG, including SNPG bridging, SNPG bonding, and SNPG maintaining This study attempts to investigate the effects of these SNPG benefits on salesperson’s self-efficacy, which in turn influence salespersons performance The data were collected from 120 salespersons, and the result shows that among the social capital benefits of SNPG, only bringing is positively associated with self-efficacy of salespersons Besides, self-efficacy of salespersons is found to significantly increase salespersons performance These findings implies that, in order to improve salesperson performance, salespersons need to enhance their selfefficacy, and two sub-dimensions of SNPG bridging can help salespersons enhance this factor is bridging involvement and bridging devotion Keywords SNPG, Social Capital, Self- Efficacy of Salespersons, Salespersons Performance TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract List of tables Chapter 1: Introduction………………………………………………………….1 1.1 Research Background………………………………………………………….1 1.2 Research Problems…………………………………………………………… 1.3 Research Objectives……………………………………………………………4 1.4 Research Methodology and Scopes……………………………………………4 1.5 The Structure of Research…………………………………………………… Chapter 2: Literature Review and Hypothesis Development…………………7 2.1 Social Networking Professional Groups (SNPG)…………………………… 2.2 Social Capital Benefits: Bridging, Bonding, and Maintaining…………… .7 2.3 Self-Efficacy of Salespersons …………………………………………………9 2.4 Salespersons Performance……………………………………………………13 Chapter 3: Research Methodology………………………………………… 16 3.1 Research Process…………………………………………………………… 16 3.2 Measurement Scale………………………………………………………… 17 3.2.1 Measures of Social Capital…………………………………………………17 3.2.2 Measures of Self-Efficacy of Salespersons……………………………… 18 3.2.3 Measures of Salespersons Performance…………………………………….18 3.3 Data Collection Method………………………………………………………19 3.4 Qualitative Research………………………………………………………….21 3.5 Quantitative Research…………………………………………………… 22 3.6 Data Analyzing Method………………………………………………… 23 Chapter 4: Data Analysis and Results…………………………………… 25 4.1 Characteristic of Sample ………………………………………………….27 4.2 Reliability Analysis: Cronbach’s Alpha Testing……………………… 28 4.3 Exploratory Factor Analysis………………………………………………33 4.4 Revised Research Model…………………………………………………40 4.5 Multiple Regression Analysis…………………………………………… 41 Chapter 5: Conclusions, Implications and Limitations……………………54 5.1 Conclusion……………………………………………………………… 54 5.2 Managerial Implications………………………………………………… 56 5.3 Limitation and Future Research………………………………………… 58 References…………………………………………………………………… 59 Appendix A………………………………………………………………… 63 Appendix B………………………………………………………………… 71 Appendix C……………………………………………………………… …79 Appendix D………………………………………………………………… 82 Appendix E………………………………………………………………… 85 LIST OF TABLES Table 4.1 Frequently of Salespersons using SNPG…………………………………….26 Table 4.2 Characteristic of Sample…………………………………………………… 27 Table 4.3 Reliability Statistics for SNPG Bridging…………………………………….28 Table 4.4 Item-Total Statistics for SNPG Bridging…………………………………….28 Table 4.5 Reliability Statistics for SNPG Bonding…………………………………… 29 Table 4.6 Item-Total Statistics for SNPG Bonding…………………………………….29 Table 4.7 Reliability Statistics after deleting Bonding3……………………………… 30 Table 4.8 Reliability Statistics for SNPG Maintaining…………………………………30 Table 4.9 Item-Total Statistics for SNPG Maintaining…………………………………30 Table 4.10 Reliability Statistics for Self-Efficacy………………………………………31 Table 4.11 Item-Total Statistics for Self-Efficacy………………………………………31 Table 4.12 Reliability Statistics for Salespersons Performance……………………… 32 Table 4.13 Item-Total Statistics for Salespersons Performance…………………………32 Table 4.14 KMO and Bartlett's Test …………………………………………………….33 Table 4.15 Total Variance Explained ………………………………………………….35 Table 4.16 Rotated Component Matrix ……………………………………………… 35 Table 4.17 Rotated Component Matrix …………………………………………………36 Table 4.18 Correlations………………………………………………………………….43 Table 4.19 Model Summary…………………………… …………………………… 44 Table 4.20 ANOVA…………………………………………………………………… 45 Table 4.21 Coefficients of multiple linear regression analysis in first running …………46 Table 4.22 Model Summary…………………………………………………………….46 Table 4.23 ANOVA…………………………………………………….……………….47 Table 4.24 Coefficients of multiple linear regression analysis in second running…… 48 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Research Background According to We Are Social, a new kind of globe agency combines an innate understanding of social media with digital, public relation, and marketing skills, entirely focused on innovative, creative and effective social media marketing and communications Following this agency’s report of South East Asia (SEA) consist of Vietnam in January, 2014: SEA has nearly 196 million internet users with 31% Internet Penetration and nearly 162 active social networks users with 26% social networking penetration (Kemp, 2014) For further details, Internet Live Stats (2014) show a report: there are about 40 million internet users in Vietnam as of July 01st , 2014 Internet users grow 9% compare with 2013 in the same period And internet penetration shares 1.28% country’s share of World Internet Users, and ranges at No.14 of Global rank And We Are Social has just updated the report of Vietnam in Jan , 2014 significant social indicators: social media penetration as of percentage of the total population is 38%, the average time that internet users spend using the internet each day through all devices: hours and 20 minutes While, the average time social media users spend on social media each day: 2hours and 23 minutes Specially, report also represent Vietnam situation in social media use: 97% of Vietnam internet users have any social network’s account: Facebook, Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and 81% all of them use one of these social network in the previous month With the more detail in percentage of social media usage: 67% Facebook, 34% Google+, 16% Twitter, 8% LinkedIn, 5% Pinterest Kemp (2014) also state that: communities or social networking professional groups (SNPG): we can categorise audience in the common group by instead, look for the interests, motivations and attitudes that the people we want to engage have in common, and use these commonalities to define your audience People are drawn to others whom they feel affinity for, and when it comes to the borderless internet, this affinity is far more dependent on passion than it is on place around their shared motivation Currently, in Vietnam now there are many groups or e-communities in social networking They are established everyday to invite the new members anytime whom have the common professional or interests or fan club So that, they can connect together, sharing experiences, new things or interesting topic From this report, we observe Vietnam internet user, typically the benefits of social network is very large The development of social networking in Vietnam very fast which make many organizations cannot overlook this opportunity This is the big chance for salespersons whom need to connect people, customer engagement, building new customer, approach new prospect or maintain relationship with customer for building customer service or simply for product warranty or new product introduction However, in order to understand in-depth SNPG in Vietnam, salesperson need to know what people think and feel when joining these professional groups Furthers detail, salesperson need to understand what factor impact to salesperson when participate SNPG and from this salesperson can enhance their skill and improving their working performance when using SNPG 1.2 Research Problems SNPG in Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Plus, Pinterest, Forum, Blog… are becoming an indispensable part of every societies, with many people using them as tools to share information together, acquire existing & new connections, maintain relationships online & offline SNPG not only facilitate individuals to connect together but also allow business organizations to find-out more customers and help generate new customers, identify potential customers, build customer relationship effectively, and even solve customer complaints on time As salespersons playing the role of boundary-spanners in business organizations, they can utilize SNPG for both personal and professional purposes which might improve the quality of their lives, and enhance their working capacity, thus leading to better performance in their job Besides, the reason of joining of salespersons in SNPG from different reasons, for instance, customer service for customer orientation, attracts and finding new customers, while company think about their business, some marketing campaign and public relation activities to pose on SNPG Depending on particular purposes and objectives, each subject will develop their account in right way ...UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY International School of Business Nguyen Minh Thien THE BENEFITS OF SOCIAL NETWORKING PROFESSIONAL GROUPS FOR SALESPERSONS: SOCIAL CAPITAL & SALESPERSONS. .. to improve their working performance Therefore, the purpose of the current research thesis is to investigate the relationships mechanism that three aforementioned benefits of social capital (i.e.,... support for one another, both emotionally and physically The diversity of these social bonds and social capital is the result of strong interpersonal 12 connections “Bonding social capital is good for