Marketing Control and Sales Force Customer Orientation

This study is predicated on the premise that internal sales force control mechanisms are strategic and operational forces that directly affect the behaviors of the sales force and their accompanying orientation toward customers. Sales managers represent a very different component of the sales force than salespeople. Their motivations, interests, role, and methods of operations all represent different approaches than those embraced by their coworkers: salespeople. Yet, although sales managers operate under an outcome-based control system and can be expected, to some degree, to be motivated by selfinterest (Oliver and Anderson 1994), upper management expects managers to be directed by organizational needs. However, in a results-oriented environment, the foundation of many compensation systems, sales quotas can focus sellers and managers in a direction inconsistent with customer-oriented selling (particularly if this behavior is deemed necessary to achieve quota). Based on this premise, this study examines the influence of sales managers’ quotas on their response to salespeople’s unethical behavior and its resulting effect on the customer orientation of the sales force. To fully explore this condition, this study also examines the role of an important formal process control, the ethical climate (e.g., rules and regulations), in influencing customer orientation. Providing important implications to sales organizations, results indicat that sales quotas can negatively affect sales force customer orientation via their effect on sales managers’ responses to salespeople’s selling behaviors. Interestingly, however, the company’s ethical climate was found to positively influence sales force customer orientation.     

老化过程中人格问题的研究模式

老化过程中的人格问题主要探索的是人格的稳定性及变化的范围和本质,其主要研究模式有特质模式、背景模式和发展阶段模式等。研究结果则因所用的研究模式和研究设计的不同而不同。     

Impulsivity Mediates the Relationship between Future Orientation and Juvenile Deviancy

Both future orientation and impulsivity are intrinsic parts of an adolescent’s self-control, and empirical evidence clearly establishes them as crucial features on the origin of juvenile deviant behavior. However, we do not yet fully understand how these variables relate in explaining deviant conduct. In the present study, we tested a mediation model between these variables among 126 Portuguese adolescents. Findings support the mediation model in analysis, namely that impulsivity fully mediates the effect of future orientation on deviant behavior. In conclusion, our results suggest that lesser future orientated youth develop impulsive behavior which, in turn, explains their higher deviant conduct.     

Selling and Sales Management in Action: The Sales Force's Role in International Marketing Research and Marketing Information Systems

Many companies resist global markets because of seemingly insurmountable problems with these markets. Salespeople are often used successfully to gather market information. There is a wealth of market data that can be collected by a company's international sales force and distributors' sales force which can prove to be valuable in surmounting cultural and marketing barriers associated with global markets. The current paper discusses how and with what success U.S. multinational companies are using their international sales forces in gathering international marketing research data.     

大学生的自我构念与动机定向关系研究

该研究采用自我构念(SCS)量表和工作(学习)动机定向量表对432名大学生进行调查,探讨了中国大学生自我构念与动机定向的关系。结果表明:1)大学生自我构念与动机定向各维度有密切相关;典型相关发现自我构念各维度通过三个典型因素解释动机定向变异的13.2%;2)不同自我构念类型大学生的动机定向存在显著差异,二元型自我构念大学生的总体动机水平最高,边缘型自我构念大学生的总体动机水平最低;独立型自我构念大学生的关注人际竞争和追求回报动机水平显著高于依赖型自我构念大学生,而选择简单任务及关注他人评价动机水平显著低于依赖型自我构念大学生。     

The Role of Sales and Marketing in Market-Oriented Companies

Since little is known about whether both marketing and sales functions pay off in market-oriented companies, this research analyzes the interaction between market orientation and the departmental power of marketing and sales within the firm. Data collected across five industries on the marginal effect of marketing’s departmental power on business performance show that market-oriented companies benefit from a strong marketing function, but a powerful marketing department cannot compensate for low levels of market orientation. Surprisingly, the power of sales impedes successful market orientation implementation. This has important implications for future sales management research. We highlight the significance of these findings for both theory and practice.     

Market and Customer Analysis for Sales Management

Abstract

The application of market and customer analysis to selling is discussed in this article. Four instruments were devised and used with three companies in order to improve the performance of their salespeople. While the needs of salespeople vary according to the company and the industry, these instruments can form the basis for organizing the activities of salespeople.     

Perceived Organizational Ethics and the Ethical Decisions of Sales and Marketing Personnel

Using a scenario-based approach, this study analyzed data collected from marketers with sales backgrounds and investigated the impact of perceived organizational ethics on their ethical issue recognition, ethical judgments, and ethical behavioral intentions. The results indicated that perceived organizational ethics, which was operationalized with two separate measures, was positively related to both the ethical judgments and expressed behavioral intentions of respondents. Further, ethical issue recognition was positively associated with ethical judgments and expressed behavioral intentions, and ethical judgments were positively related to ethical behavioral intentions. The findings suggest that, in order to enhance sales professionals’ ethical reasoning, organizations should focus on developing an ethical context that is relevant to the issues confronted by sales professionals in their work and that is as specific as possible with regard to these ethical dilemmas.     

价值观与大学生寻求社会支持的关系研究

在大学学习阶段,各种青年期不可避免的问题和大学生所特有的紧张与压力极大地影响着大学生的健康成长。尽管家长、同学、老师和朋友都可能为他们提供有效的社会支持与帮助,然而他们在遇到困难或烦恼时却很少主动寻求帮助,造成这种现象的原因是多方面的,如个体需要帮助的原因,个人价值观、对自我的评价、对帮助者意图的分析等,本文主要研究和探讨了价值观对大学生寻求社会支持与帮助的影响,并初步揭示了它们之间的相互关系。     

市场经济与中国宗教走向探索

在当代中国,社会主义市场经济代替计划经济的浪潮,正冲击着宗教这个神圣的殿堂。本文就市场经济与当代中国宗教走向的问题,提出了个人看法,认为宗教有着内在的适应机制,它能随着社会的变革而变革,发展而发展,在市场经济条件下,中国宗教的主要走向是世俗化,具体表现在世俗的商品经济活动和价值观念被引入宗教之中,宗教将重视社会道德功能和人际感情投入,且与经济同步发展。     

Collaboration and a Self-Help Orientation in Therapy with Suicidal Clients

Working with suicidal clients historically has placed a heavy burden of responsibility on the therapist for a successful outcome. This orientation generally has left clinicians feeling stressed and in need of controlling their clients' behavior; clients, in turn, often have developed unrealistic expectations of therapy or resistance of the therapist's interventions. In this context, the chance for a potentially valuable collaboration between client and therapist is often lost. This paper builds on previous work that has introduced the notion of a collaborative working relationship with suicidal clients. It is argued that the therapeutic process ideally should not only utilize the therapist's knowledge and skills in treating suicidal clients, but also cultivate self-efficacy by encouraging the client to adopt a self-help orientation to therapy. Several general principles of a collaborative/self-help orientation to working with suicidal clients are discussed and a variety of specific therapeutic strategies consistent with this orientation are described.     

Personal Selling and Sales Management in the Marketing Curriculum: A Status Report

This article reviews the offering of sales and sales management courses over the last few decades. More schools currently offer the sales management course than the sales course, but sales is more frequently required as a part of the marketing major. Larger, public, AACSB accredited schools tend to offer both courses more than smaller, private, nonaccredited schools. Many schools were reportedly dropping these courses in the 1960s and early 1970s, and this study found that the trend has continued overall when considering only the separate courses. An important growing trend is a combined sales/sales management course, and when it is also considered a slight overall increase in courses in the sales and sales management area seems to be the pattern emerging in the 1980s.     

Exploring the Relationship Balance Assessment

Assessments of power in couples’ relationships often only survey one partner, but they do not take into consideration both partners’ perceptions. Thus, many assumptions about power and equality in relationships have not been quantitatively tested due to a lack of dyadic measures of power. Therefore, the purpose of the Gender and Relationships Study was to develop and test a new scale of equality and relative power for couples, the Relationship Balance Assessment (RBA). The RBA may be useful for research and for clinical work with couples to help raise awareness of the balance of power in their relationship. A review of the literature has shown a shift away from focusing on monetary resources and decision-making dominance towards examining relationship processes and the connection between gender and power. This study prescreened a pool of process-oriented questions based on the qualitative literature. Then exploratory factor analysis of data from 268 individuals and 91 couples identified 12 consistent latent factors underlying relationship equality. These 12 subscales are summed up with the TREASURES acronym: Time Discretion, Relational Power, Emotional Power (Emotional Expression and Avoidance subscales), Accommodation, Spending and Saving subscales, Union or Sexual Dominance, Rational Power, Economic Role Power (Status and Childcare subscales), and Social Choices.     

Exploring the Relationship between Psychopathy and Helping Behaviors in Naturalistic Settings: Preliminary Findings

This study examined the helping behavior of participants with high (High-P; 15 males, 13 females) and low (Low-P; 14 males, 16 females) psychopathic traits without their awareness. In the first of three tests, we found Low-P participants offered more help to an apparently lost female confederate than High-P participants. In the second test, High-P compared to Low-P males offered more help to an “injured” female experimenter, the reverse was true for females. In the third test, High-P compared to Low-P females offered more help to a female confederate who had apparently dropped papers they were carrying; whereas the reverse was true for males. Our preliminary findings indicate that context, gender and psychopathic traits interact and impact helping behavior.     

成就目标导向对工作要求与工作压力关系的调节效应——以护士为例

采用认知评价视角,在工作压力研究中引入成就目标导向,着重分析了成就目标导向对工作要求与工作压力关系的单一与联合调节效应.对357份样本数据进行回归分析,结果发现:绩效目标导向对工作要求与工作压力关系有显著调节效应,学习目标导向与绩效目标导向对工作要求与工作压力关系有显著的联合调节效应.结论认为:高绩效目标导向倾向于增加工作压力,工作压力形成过程中学习目标导向调节效应是否起效有赖于绩效目标导向.     

Conversation Orientation Moderates the Relationship between Information Sharing of Medically Assisted Reproduction and Child Adjustment

Parents who experienced infertility have increasingly used medically assisted reproduction (MAR) to add children to their families over the past few decades. These parents will need to decide if they will tell their children about being conceived using MAR. Although MAR information sharing operates within family contexts, little is known about the role of conversation orientation—one family contextual factor—in child outcomes associated with MAR information sharing in middle childhood. Derived from the Family Communication Patterns Theory, this study proposes that conversation orientation moderates the associations between MAR information sharing and children's psychosocial adjustment. This proposal was tested using a sample of 81 6- to 12-year-old MAR-conceived children from 55 families and a structured observational measure of conversation orientation. Multiple regression analyses showed that MAR information sharing interacted with conversation orientation to influence children's behavioral and attention problems but not emotional problems. In families with high conversation orientation, MAR information sharing was not significantly associated with children's behavioral and attention problems. In families with low conversation orientation, MAR information sharing was significantly associated with an increase in children's behavioral and attention problems. Results of this exploratory study demonstrate the potential significance of general communication orientation in understanding child outcomes of MAR information sharing and highlight the needed family context nuances in MAR research.     

中学生成就目标定向与学习策略、学业成绩的关系研究

本研究采取问卷法,选取武汉市283名初一和高二学生为被试,考察了中学生成就目标定向与学习策略、学业成绩的关系。结果表明:(1)掌握目标与深加工、元认知策略以及浅表策略三者都存在显著相关,其中与浅表加工策略相关的显著性水平略低,成绩接近目标与三种学习策略都在呈非常显著相关,而成绩回避目标只与浅表策略显著相关;(2)掌握目标和成绩接近目标有助于学业成绩,成绩回避目标不利于取得良好成绩;(3)与初一年级相比,高二年级中成绩接近目标和掌握目标显著下降,采取深加工和元认知策略的水平也下降;初一和高二年级中,男生比女生更多采取掌握目标和元认知策略;(4)多元目标比单一目标的学生更多地使用深加工和元认知策略,但多元目标者并不必然比单一目标者成绩好。     

初二学生知觉到的教师期望、自我价值感与目标取向的关系研究

以274名初中二年级学生为被试,采用验证性因素分析和多元回归方法对教师期望、自我价值感及目标取向的关系进行研究。结果表明:(1)人口统计学变量(性别和班别)对教师期望、自我价值感及目标取向有影响。(2)教师期望与自我价值感和目标取向相关显著:积极效应与自我价值感及目标取向的各维度呈显著正相关,消极效应与自我价值感及目标取向各维度呈显著负相关。(3)在控制了人口统计学变量后,教师期望与自我价值感仍对目标取向各维度具有较强的预测作用。(4)自我价值感在教师期望对目标取向各维度的影响上起到了中介作用。     

Effects of Sales Force Automation use on Sales Force Activities and Customer Relationship Management Processes

This study defines a framework for understanding the impact of sales force automation (SFA) on customer relationship management (CRM) processes from the perspective of information systems and motivation theories. Investigating the relationship between these processes, with sales activities as the common link, sheds new light on several crucial issues. To enrich this study, two alternative models that distinguish the efficiency and effectiveness of salespersons’ activities also are formulated. Data from a longitudinal field study demonstrate that different SFA functionalities generate counterintuitive effects on sales activities. The main outcomes of SFA implementation in CRM processes include a mostly negative effect of SFA reporting and conflicting but complementary and globally positive effects of SFA call planning and product configuration.     

Sales Force Activities and Marketing Strategies in Industrial Firms: Relationships and Implications

This study explores the role of the sales force in formulating and executing marketing strategies. Specifically, the relationships between sales force activities such as providing information about customer needs, hiring and training salespeople, and assessing new market segments and four marketing strategies (market penetration, product development, market development, diversification) are examined. Results indicate that the use of sales force activities is related to a firm's strategic choices, and that the relationships vary by firm size and type of offering.