Sample and Instrument
Randomly selected sales representatives and managers were contacted via e-mail and asked to click a link to provide responses to questions assessing their use of social media. The sample was gathered via a stratified sample of respondents who were part of a consumer panel managed and maintained by a large Southeastern university. For this study, we sought a sample consisting of B2B and B2C sales professionals. A proportional stratified sampling procedure with random assignment was undertaken with an equal number of participants assigned to each group. Of a total of 1,862 respondents contacted, the process resulted in a total of 395 usable responses (21.2 percent), with 198 for the B2C group and 197 for the B2B group. Applying the Armstrong and Overton (1977) test for potential self-selection bias, a median split of the sample based on response time was used as an independent against each of the stages of the personal selling process serving as dependents. Across all six stages of the process, there existed no significant means differences, thus implying that selfselection bias was not a concern.