“Manager feedback as a bittersweet symphony”: exploring the impact of manager feedback on the relationship between social media use, salesperson creativity, and job satisfaction

Despite the recognized importance of salesperson creative selling behaviors for job outcomes, limited research has examined their antecedents, outcomes, and boundary conditions. Drawing on task-technology fit theory and contingency theory, this study proposes that social media use enhances salesperson creative selling behaviors, which subsequently influence job satisfaction. Using time-lagged survey data from 143 B2B salespeople, the findings largely support the proposed framework. Social media use positively predicts creative selling behaviors, but this relationship weakens as manager feedback increases, consistent with contingency theory. Although creative selling behaviors exhibit a negative, non-significant relationship with job satisfaction, manager feedback strengthens the positive effect of creative selling behaviors on job satisfaction. These findings provide a more nuanced understanding of how social media use and managerial feedback jointly shape salesperson creativity and work attitudes. The study contributes to sales literature by identifying important contextual influences on creative selling behaviors and discusses theoretical, managerial, and future research implications.