Beyond adoption : how TOE factors shape the use of social media technologies and performance in B2B companies : research data underlying the doctoral dissertation

Grabner, Peter (author), Čater, Barbara (author)

This study examines how technological, organizational, and environmental factors shape social media technology (SMT) use in business-to-business (B2B) markets and how SMT use relates to customer relationship performance and marketing performance. Building on the Technology–Organization–Environment (TOE) framework, we develop and test a structural model in which perceived simplicity of SMT (technology), SMT strategy (organization), and mimetic competitive pressure (environment) shape SMT use, which in turn affects customer relationship and marketing performance. We collected data with an online survey of 195 marketing and sales professionals from B2B companies in Slovenia. Results indicate that SMT strategy is the strongest predictor of SMT use, followed by mimetic competitive pressure, while the effect of perceived simplicity on SMT use is not statistically significant. SMT use is positively related to marketing performance and only marginally to customer relationship performance. Customer relationship performance further enhances marketing performance. The study contributes to digital communication research in B2B markets by showing how SMT use in a mature technology context is related to relationship outcomes and overall marketing performance.

• Language: English
• Keywords: TOE framework, social media technology use, customer relationship performance, marketing performance, business-to-business markets
• Typology: 2.20 - Complete scientific database of research data
• Geographic coverage: Slovenija
• Time coverage: Podatki pridobljeni oktobra 2025
• Organization: EF - School of Economics and Business
• Year: 2026
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-180592
• Data col. methods: Self-completed questionnaire: CASI
• Publication date in RUL: 07.04.2026

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.