Psychological safety: How seller and buyer knowledge impact educational interactions and outcomes in the pre-purchase process

While research recognizes salespeople as knowledge brokers, less research considers the role of the highly informed buyer in the pre-purchase process. As buyers become more informed, this creates educational tensions where educational roles and expectations can be difficult to navigate and hard to define for buyers and sellers. Consequently, this study explores the role of psychological safety in the pre-purchase education context. Employing 60 in-depth interviews of buyers and sellers in business-to-business contexts, our findings provide initial evidence that psychological safety is a critical catalyst for optimizing education prior to a purchase decision. We also find that varying levels of both seller and buyer knowledge can impact their perceptions of psychological safety and ultimately learning, relational, and purchase efficacy outcomes. We provide theoretical and managerial implications for sales scholars and practitioners.