Triadic Capabilities: Sales-Service-Digital Capability

The PLOS One study finds that transitioning power-generation staff form a "sales–service–digital" triadic capability rather than only sales–service ambidexterity, as reported in PLOS One.

• The study interviewed 28 participants and reported 146 valid questionnaire responses (response rate 90.1%), as documented in PLOS One (published August 10, 2026).
• The authors report that 87.5% (24/28) of interviewees independently raised digital capability as a distinct competence, according to PLOS One (Kong et al., 2026).
• The study coded 197 initial codes into 127 first-order concepts and consolidated those into 24 second-order themes and 7 aggregate dimensions, showing deep qualitative granularity (PLOS One, published August 10, 2026).

The study answers who, what, when, and how by using a dual-case grounded-theory design with CGN New Energy Guangxi and CGN New Energy Shenzhen, as described in PLOS One (Kong et al., 2026).

According to PLOS One (published August 10, 2026), the authors collected 28 semi-structured interviews (16 in Guangxi, 12 in Shenzhen), transcribed about 270, 000 words, digitized roughly 280 pages of archival documents, and validated findings with a 146-response survey (90.1% response rate).

The research used the Gioia three-tier coding method (open, axial, selective), achieved inter-coder agreement rising from 79.6% to 91.3% after three rounds, and produced a triadic framework organized into foundation and innovation layers for each capability, as reported in PLOS One.

Research teams should treat sales-service-digital capability as three distinct but interacting constructs, according to PLOS One (Kong et al., 2026).

HR and L&D should design tiered training that builds foundation-layer proficiency (basic data handling, service routines, sales fundamentals) before innovation-layer skills (predictive models, solution design), following the study’s foundation-to-innovation ordering described in PLOS One.

Organizational strategy should select a developmental pathway aligned to context: analytics-driven in highly digitalized markets, relationship-driven where customer complexity is high, and market-driven where expansion matters most, as the study documents.

The PLOS One study (Kong et al., 2026) provides a replicable triadic model and concrete timelines for turning foundation-layer proficiency into innovation-layer practice, which research and HR teams can use to design differentiated training pathways.

AI-enabled qualitative research platforms make that translation faster by automating transcription, suggesting codes, and linking themes to survey metrics, enabling teams to move from insight to program in weeks rather than months.

To test the approach on your company data, export transcripts and surveys into an AI-enabled workflow and pilot a tiered training curriculum based on the triadic capability map.

Start a pilot today: Try Evidano for free.