Special Abstract Section: National Conference in Sales Management

Sales managers need a practical means for evaluating returns from investments in sales technology implementations (including sales automation and sales-based customer relationship management systems). This research proposes a behavioral process model approach that can be applied to evaluate sales technology implementations. We develop and test the model with data collected from the sales force of a major consumer packaged goods company. The results indicate that a salesperson’s technology orientation has a direct impact on internal role performance, and it affects performance with customers through a double-mediated mechanism involving the effective use of information and smart selling behaviors (planning and adaptive selling). Sales managers can influence sales technology orientation by providing better internal technology support, considering technology orientation along with customer’s approval of technology in account assignments, and understanding the probability of negative effects through a salesperson’s experience. In our sample, salesperson experience correlates with age, suggesting a “generation gap” effect on sales technology orientation.     

It is all in good humor? Examining the impact of salesperson evaluations of leader humor on salesperson job satisfaction and job stress

Abstract

Salesperson job stress and job satisfaction have been identified as critical factors affecting job performance. Academic research suggests that sales managers can influence salesperson job stress and job satisfaction. Interestingly, a review of the sales literature finds very little research on the impact of sales leader humor usage on the stress and satisfaction of salespeople. Consequently, we explore how salespeople’s evaluation of their manager’s use of humor influences their individual levels of job stress and satisfaction. We investigate both the positive and negative roles of humor by analyzing the impact of salesperson evaluations of their managers’ use of affiliative and aggressive humor on their job stress and job satisfaction. Furthermore, we examine the mechanism by which these evaluations affect salesperson stress and satisfaction by identifying two critical mediating variables – social loneliness and willingness to cooperate. Using a sample of 299 professional salespeople, we empirically test this process model to find that affiliative humor usage by sales managers, as evaluated by salespeople, reduces social loneliness and stress for salespeople while also increasing followers’ acceptance of cooperation. Evaluations of aggressive humor, on the other hand, increase stress levels among salespeople. Both social loneliness and acceptance of cooperation, in turn, significantly affect job satisfaction.     

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.     

The Effects of Salesperson Need for Achievement and Sales Manager Leader Reward Behavior

A sample of 312 salespeople from diverse industries was used to develop a model that examined the influence of salesperson need for achievement and sales manager positive leader reward behavior on several key organizational outcomes. The organizational outcome variables examined were goal acceptance, sales performance, and organizational commitment. The results suggest that a salesperson’s need for achievement may lead to higher performance, but not necessarily commitment to the organization. However, positive leader reward behavior may strengthen a salesperson’s organizational commitment. The findings, along with suggestions for sales managers, are discussed.     

A Social Learning Perspective on Sales Technology Usage: Preliminary Evidence from an Emerging Economy

Drawing on social learning theory, we examine how the perceived technological savvy of a salesperson’s manager, coworkers, and competitors affects sales technology usage behavior. Data were drawn from a major retail bank in Nigeria, Africa. Analyses of data from relationship managers confirm predictions that while perceived coworker savvy directly influences technology usage, the influence of managers’ and competitors’ perceived savvy is mediated. Perceived manager savvy influences usage by increasing feelings of monitoring and the level of perceived coworker savvy. Similarly, perceived competitor savvy influences usage by increasing perceived manager and coworker savvy. We also confirm that usage of sales technology has a positive influence on salesperson performance.     

Examining the Impact of Servant Leadership on Sales Force Performance

Much has been written about the importance of focusing on customers to drive organizational success. In this paper, aspects of manager–salesperson relationships are examined as drivers of deeper customer focus in salesperson–customer interactions. In particular, managers’ servant leadership, a leadership style emphasizing genuine concern for subordinate welfare, is examined as a catalyst of parallel concern by salespeople for their customers. Salesperson perceptions of managers’ servant leadership empirically relate to salesperson customer orientation, in turn driving adaptive selling behaviors, customer-directed extra-role behaviors, and sales performance outcomes. Other results and implications for management and sales leadership research are presented.     

Moral Philosophy,Ethical Evaluations,and Sales Manager Hiring Intentions

A growing body of evidence shows an influence of moral philosophies on ethical decision-making. Despite the importance of ethical considerations in sales force selection, the influence of sales managers’ ethical evaluations on hiring practices has received scant attention. This study examines sales managers’ ideological orientations, ethical evaluations of hypothetical salespeople portrayed in scenarios, and the effect of such evaluations on the intent to hire salespeople. Results of a cluster analysis highlight that four ideology-based segments of sales managers exist, with absolutists dominating the 268 sales executives surveyed. Furthermore, it was found that ideological relativism influences managers’ judgments of ethical behavior and hiring intentions, but idealism did not play a role. In turn, ethical judgments of justness, fairness, moral rightness, and acceptability influence hiring intentions.     

The Effects of Sales Message and Suspicion of Ulterior Motives on Salesperson Evaluation

This research investigates the extent to which a salesperson's presentation and consumer suspicion of ulterior motive affect salesperson evaluations and purchase intentions. Study 1 indicates that a salesperson's presentation plays an essential role in confirming or discontinuing consumer suspicion and that this process has important implications in the formation of salesperson attitudes. Evidence from Study 2 demonstrates that these interaction effects are mediated by persuasion‐motive attributions. The findings also support a direct link between attitude toward the salesperson and purchase intentions. Collectively, these results extend the persuasion literature by demonstrating that suspicion of motive is a dynamic state in which consumers entertain rival hypotheses about the salesperson (e.g., is the salesperson truly motivated to help me, or motivated to make his or her commission?) and that, depending on the degree of suspicion, the same salesperson's tactics will be processed very differently by consumers.     

Enhancing Salesperson Trust: An Examination of Managerial Values,Empowerment, and the Moderating Influence of SBU Strategy

Within a sales environment, the development and conveyance of managerial values play a critical role in enhancing salesperson trust and performance. This study identifies specific managerial values (i.e., integration, flexibility, control, spontaneity, etc.) that support particular business strategies (i.e., prospector, defender, or analyzer). The proposed model investigates the impact of aligning managerial value systems to SBU type on building trusting relationships within a manager–salesperson context. Study results suggest various implications for managers.     

Salespeople's Perceptions of Sex Differences in Sales Managers

A field experiment was conducted to extend the work of Marshall, Mowen, and Stone (1995) on salesperson selection decision making by adding two types of decision makers. Practicing sales managers and human resource managers evaluated a simulated hiring scenario for an open sales position and indicated their preferences between two job candidates with different levels of risk and performance potential. Experimental conditions were level of decision impact (sales manager or HR manager), decision frame (loss or gain), and time of valuation (outcome of the decision known soon or in the more distant future). The results provide evidence to support the findings of prior research in that an interaction occurred between decision frame and time of valuation such that the higher risk/higher performance potential candidate was preferred when managers framed the decision from a loss domain and the decision outcome occurred in the future. In addition, the higher risk/higher performance potential candidate was more preferred by sales managers than by HR managers. The findings are discussed in terms of their importance to salesperson selection research and practice.     

Supervisory Orientations and Salesperson Work Outcomes: The Moderating Effect of Salesperson Location

Although a growing number of companies have salespeople stationed at a site other than their supervisors' (i.e., are remotely located), relatively little attention has been paid in the literature to the differences between managing co-and remote located salespeople. Accordingly, we test the moderating effect of salesperson location on the relationships between three supervisory orientations—output, activity, and capability—and salesperson satisfaction with supervisor and performance.

The results show that salesperson location moderates the relationship between supervisory activity orientation and satisfaction such that activity orientation has a positive effect on the satisfaction of remote located salespeople, but a negative effect on the satisfaction of co-located salespeople. We find that end-results orientation is positively related to the satisfaction of co-located salespeople but not of remote located salespeople. Finally, supervisory capability orientation is positively linked to the performance of co-located salespeople but not of remote located salespeople. The results provide guidance for sales managers about how to structure their interactions with remote and proximally close salespeople.     

Drivers and outcomes of salespersons’ value opportunity recognition competence in solution selling

Abstract

In B2B markets, firms seek to provide customer solutions instead of merely selling goods or services. As boundary-spanners, salespeople are pivotal for implementing this strategic shift. Yet, extant literature provides limited insights into salesperson’s resources and competencies required for customer solutions, particularly in the early phases of solution selling. This research focuses on salesperson’s value opportunity recognition competence (VOR), which is a central requirement for salespeople to be able to navigate the early phases of solution selling. Analyzing large-scale, multi-level data of 799 salespeople and their respective sales managers in 29 sales organizations, the authors investigate the role of different salesperson resources and work environment characteristics for strengthening their VOR. The authors find that salespeople need both customer and technical knowledge, but customer knowledge is more important. Salespeople also can substitute individual technical knowledge with strong internal relations, but strong customer relations are no substitute for individual knowledge about customers’ business models and processes. Formalization turned out to be a double-edged sword in the context of VOR development, while transformational leadership has positive effects only. The findings bear concrete implications for improving the selection, training, and work environment of solution salespeople.     

Manager–salesperson congruence in customer orientation and job outcomes: The bright and dark sides of leadership in aligning values

To create customer-oriented organizations, managers are often asked to promote a values-based vision. Yet, many managers struggle with transferring their values to employees making strategic value changes difficult. Despite this challenge, research has yet to demonstrate how managers effectively align values within the sales force, or the impact alignment has on job outcomes. Therefore, we develop and empirically test a conceptual framework to examine the role of transformational leadership in aligning salesperson customer orientation (CO) values. We find that transformational leadership is a strong mechanism in creating perceived value congruence, yet may have a surprising dark side. Results suggest that transformational managers achieve congruence by raising or, contrary to conventional wisdom, lowering salesperson CO values to meet the perceived values of the manager. Response surface modelling results support the importance of perceived manager values. Customer-oriented salespeople have higher job satisfaction and sales performance when they perceive their manager to also have high CO. When values are misaligned, job satisfaction increases more for low CO salespeople as perceptions of manager CO increase. Exploratory findings show that performance was higher under situations of perfect alignment but also under severe misalignment suggesting that values generate performance under complementary or supplementary conditions.     

Examining the impact of salesperson interpersonal mentalizing skills on performance: the role of attachment anxiety and subjective happiness

Due to the dynamic and interpersonal nature of selling, understanding affective and cognitive relationships and their influence on performance has gained the attention of sales scholars. Moreover, recent literature has created opportunities to study the impact of cognitions, such as salesperson theory-of-mind, on sales performance. This research develops a model involving salesperson interpersonal mentalizing skills (i.e. rapport building, detecting nonverbal cues, taking a bird’s-eye view, shaping the interactions), subjective happiness, attachment anxiety, and sales performance. Although salesforce optimization is critical in any economy, emerging economies are the growth frontier for many global companies. Using three samples from Brazil, we investigate the telecom, banking, and retail industries, providing generalizable results from one such emerging economy. We find that, in general, it is the influence of attachment anxiety and subjective happiness on interpersonal mentalizing skills which ultimately impacts sales performance. Based on these findings, we discuss several theoretical and managerial implications.     

Sales Manager Behavior Control Strategy and its Consequences: The Impact of Manager Gender Differences

Salesperson gender studies have consistently reported no differences. In contrast, a single-company study found several differences based on sales manager gender concerning salesperson attitudes, behavior, and outcome (Piercy, Cravens, and Lane 2001). The present research examines the sales manager gender issue across multiple companies from the perspective of sales managers. Sales units led by female managers display higher effectiveness. Female sales managers perform significantly higher levels of behavior-based control activities and display higher competence in this management approach, compared to male counterparts. There are few differences in managers’ assessments of salespersons’ behavior performance based on gender. Female sales managers do not show higher levels of organizational citizenship behavior as part of their management approach. Interestingly, no differences based on gender were found concerning several salesperson and organizational characteristics. These findings suggest that different selling environments are not affecting the study gender results. Several promising future research directions are discussed.     

A Framework of Technology Mediation in Consumer Selling: Implications for Firms and Sales Management

Firms regard technology as a strategic tool to enhance sales effectiveness, improve customer service, and reduce costs. Within the context of sales technology, the focus of the paper is on the effect of technology mediation in consumer selling environments. Extant research has typically been at a micro-level and concentrated in two distinct areas: (1) salesperson adoption of sales technology and its effect on salespeople’s performance and (2) consumer adoption of technology and the use of technology in decision making. The paper examines the simultaneous effect of technology-mediated selling on both salespeople and consumers, at both micro- and macro-levels.     

Inferring salesperson capability using stochastic frontier analysis

This paper proposes an easy-to-implement econometric method for inferring salesperson capability from archival panel data, namely stochastic frontier (SF) analysis. We demonstrate this method with a sample of salespersons provided by a life insurance company. Using the proposed SF model, we are able to estimate each salesperson’s capability. Furthermore, we examine the relationship between the estimated salesperson capability and three future outcomes (i.e. future sales performance, future customer attrition, and future salesperson turnover) under different time horizons. We find that, in general, the estimated salesperson capability has a stronger explanatory power for the near than for the more distant future. Since an individual salesperson’s capability cannot be directly observed by researchers (and thus is typically omitted), traditional analyses of sales performance suffer from an omitted-variable problem that can lead to biased estimates of focal variables. The SF model can significantly mitigate this omitted-variable problem. Statistical tests indicate that our sales performance model with estimated salesperson capability results in a statistically significant improvement in model fit. Of note, our model differs methodologically from SF models previously used in the marketing literature in that it is based on a three-component model that disentangles unobserved individual heterogeneity, efficiency, and random shocks.     

Effect of salespeople's acquisition–retention trade-off on performance

This research examines the impact of the acquisition–retention resource allocation at the individual salesperson level – that is, the proportion of their time dedicated to acquisition versus retention activities – on their sales performance. We extend prior research that investigates the acquisition–retention trade-off below (i.e., customer value approach) or above (i.e., firm portfolio approach) the salesperson's perspective by also incorporating many ‘within-firm’ factors that are critical to capturing the contingent nature of the allocation decision. The results suggest that firms can double their sales gains by implementing a trade-off strategy that customizes the acquisition allocation at the salesperson level. Using matched triadic data gathered from 227 salespersons, 106 supervisors and the seller's database, the authors find an inverted U-shaped linkage between the proportion of time allocated to acquisition activities and sales performance. Moderation analyses show that salespeople's optimal acquisition allocation depends on their knowledge breadth and job commitment, their supervisor's experience and job commitment and the quantity and quality of the prospects in their relationship portfolio.     

Ideal Versus Actual Number of Sales Calls: An Application of Disconfirmation Theory

The current study focuses on the relationship that buyers have with their salespeople. Specifically, the study uses disconfirmation theory to evaluate whether a salesperson that meets or exceeds the buyer’s ideal number of sales calls has higher levels of commitment, trust, and satisfaction from the buyer than a salesperson that does not meet expectations. The study also looks at the impact of meeting expectations on the buyer’s evaluation of the salesperson’s commitment and performance versus a salesperson that does not meet expectations. Findings suggest that when a salesperson contacts a buyer with a frequency and consistency that the buyer perceives as ideal, the buyer will have a higher level of satisfaction with and trust of the salesperson as well as a higher level of commitment to the buyer–seller relationship. Managers could take advantage of this by making an effort to align a salesperson’s call frequency with what a buyer perceives as ideal.     

Cognitive Style as an Antecedent to Adaptiveness,Customer Orientation,and Self-Perceived Selling Performance

Data from 396 real estate salespeople offer structural model evidence of the antecedence of salesperson cognitive style (Jung, 1971) to adaptive selling behavior, and to sales orientation-customer orientation and self-perceived selling performance. Four hypotheses were supported: Salespeople who prefer information intake by intuiting (rather than sensing) and information processing/decision-making by thinking (rather than feeling) were found to be more likely to practice adaptive selling; the more adaptive selling was practiced, the greater customer orientation became; and the greater the customer orientation, the better the self-perceived selling performance. Implications exist for salesperson training, management, and motivation research.