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.     

Gender Differences in Attitudes Toward Women as Sales Managers in the People's Republic of China

The present study promulgates a research stream in the area of understanding women's position in the management of the Chinese sales force. The study investigates attitudes toward women as sales managers held by Chinese salespeople. Male salespeople consistently rated the female sales managers lower than did female salespeople on three sets of attitude items. This finding indicates the presence of male resistance to women in sales management positions.     

Alcohol Abuse in the Sales Force

Abstract

Much of the literature on the problem of alcohol abuse in the nation and in the work place implies that salespeople should be particularly susceptible to problem drinking. Most discussion of alcohol abuse by salespeople has been anecdotal and speculative in nature, however, and little empirical research has been reported to support the anecdotes and speculations. This study examines the problem of sales force alcohol abuse and reports the findings of a nationwide survey of field sales managers concerning the extent of this problem in the nation's sales forces, the methods of dealing with alcohol-abusing salespeople, and factors related to problem drinking in the sales force. Implications for sales managers, sales management educators and trainers, and researchers in the field of sales and sales management are also discussed.     

An Empirical Investigation of Critical Success Factors in the Personal Selling Process for Homogenous Goods

This study uses a Critical Success Factor approach to evaluate a representative set of 51 selling techniques with the intent of determining what techniques are more critical to sales success for salespeople who sell homogenous products than others and what techniques are associated with failure. A set of twelve techniques were identified that distinguished salespeople in the top decile from those in the bottom decile.     

Salesperson Ethical Decision Making: The Impact of Sales Leadership and Sales Management Control Strategy

Enhancing the moral behavior of salespeople is increasingly important, but difficult, in today’s fast-paced and complex selling environment. Sales organizations need to emphasize ethical codes of conduct, but must also address the potential impact of all sales management decisions on the ethical behavior of salespeople. We expand the focus on ethical codes to include an interpersonal dimension of sales organization ethical climate and the cognitive moral development of salespeople. Relationships among sales leadership and sales management control strategy, the structural and interpersonal dimensions of sales organization ethical climate, salesperson cognitive moral development, and salesperson moral judgment are discussed and specific propositions presented. These propositions suggest specific directions for future sales ethics research and have key implications for sales organizations.     

Increasing Sales Productivity by Getting Salespeople To Work Smarter

Recent research indicates that sales productivity can be substantially improved if salespeople place more emphasis on an aspect of working smarter, i.e., practice adaptive selling. This paper suggests ten approaches that sales managers can use to improve sales performance by encouraging and assisting their salespeople to practice adaptive selling.     

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 impact of sales contests on customer listening: an empirical study in a telesales context

Companies often use sales contests to achieve short-term objectives to motivate salespeople and to boost sales. However, sales contests also may encourage salespeople to adopt less relational behaviors and limit their ability to manage customer relationships, as manifested in their customer listening practices. Therefore, this study, based on a natural field experiment, examines the effects of a sales contest on customer listening. In so doing, four dimensions of customer listening (passive, active, adaptive, and assertive listening), associated with a process of listening (Hearing, Processing, and Responding), were identified. The study helps clarify the effect of a sales contest on these four dimensions of customer listening by telesales agents. The results reveal that this sales contest exerts negative effects only on the active and passive customer listening, not on the adaptive and assertive customer listening. The study sheds light on how sales contests influence important behaviors such as customer listening, as well as on the nature of customer listening itself.     

Does Intraorganizational Network Embeddedness Improve Salespeople’s Effectiveness? A Task Contingency Perspective

Using a two-phase research methodology, this study investigates the relationship between salespeople’s intraorganizational network embeddedness and their sales effectiveness. Following the findings of the exploratory research, we first distinguish salespeople’s intraorganizational networks on the basis of their content—work versus social networks—and their tie activation frequency. Next, we focus on three main sales tasks, opportunity-identification, solution-creation, and closing the deal, and uncover that overcoming the challenges of each sales task requires mobilizing particular intraorganizational resources. We show that work and social networks give access to different sets of resources, and we develop a contingency model that explains which networks and network ties are likely to be more instrumental for salespeople’s effectiveness at each sales task. In the second phase of the research, we test the contingency model using a sociometric method. The results indicate that for effectiveness in opportunity-identification, social as opposed to work networks are most instrumental. For effectiveness in solution-creation, work rather than social networks are more critical. And for closing the deal, both work networks and social networks are important. Furthermore, salespeople who have frequently activated network ties are consistently more effective than salespeople who may have many ties but who activate them less frequently.     

The Relationship Between Optimism and Coping Styles of Salespeople

Despite an awareness of the inverse relationship between stress levels and job performance, researchers have not addressed the specific coping strategies used by salespeople in their efforts to cope with sales-related stress. A framework is developed that suggests dispositionally optimistic salespeople may employ different coping strategies than do pessimistic salespeople. Support for hypotheses that have been grounded in this broad proposition was developed in a study that employed a multi-firm sales sample. Optimists were found to employ more problem-focused coping tactics, while pessimists used more emotion-focused coping. Issues relating to why problem-focused coping tactics are preferable as well as how greater use of problem-focused coping may be promoted within a sales organization are discussed.     

Career Path Charting: Framework for Sales Force Evaluation

The authors compare several approaches to the evaluation of field salespeople to see if an improved analytical framework can be created. Based on performance data from 56 industrial salespeople, results suggest sales increase with experience and with the number of customer calls. The findings also provide support for the sales force career cycle and a new multi-attribute performance matrix. The use of a matrix approach allows managers to review and compare the accomplishments of the sales force along several dimensions at the same time.     

Bouncing Back: How Salesperson Optimism and Self-Efficacy Influence Attributions and Behaviors Following Failure

Previous research reports a relationship between attributions and specific behaviors following a failed sales call. This study investigates the influence of individual differences on both the attribution process and the relationship between attribution and the behavioral intentions of sales representatives following a failure using a sample of financial services salespeople. This research reveals the important roles that optimism and self-efficacy play in shaping salespeople’s attributions for failed sales calls and in their behavioral responses to attributions for failure. Implications for managers and future research are discussed.     

Distinguishing Between the Roles of Customer-Oriented Selling and Adaptive Selling in Managing Dysfunctional Conflict in Buyer–Seller Relationships

A national random sample of industrial salespeople was surveyed to examine the relationships among selling behaviors, trust, conflict, and sales outcomes, such as performance and anticipation of future interaction. Results indicate that trust mediates the effects of selling behaviors on sales outcomes, and conflict moderates this mediating effect. While salespeople could use customer-oriented selling as an antidote for the ill effects of dysfunctional conflict on trust, adaptive selling only serves to enhance salesperson trust in customers. Thus, the results of the study distinguish between the roles of customeroriented selling and adaptive selling in relationship marketing. Furthermore, when salespeople perceive that their sales managers are highly customer oriented and highly adaptive, they themselves become more customer oriented and more adaptive. Thus, as role models, supervisory selling behaviors contribute to salespeople’s ability to leverage their trust in customers. Based on these results, the managerial implications for selling organizations are discussed.     

A within-person theoretical perspective in sales research: outlining recommendations for adoption and consideration of boundary conditions

Abstract

In the sales literature it is standard practice for researchers to collect cross-sectional data from multiple salespeople, and to compare those salespeople on the data obtained. This between-person approach is suitable for research aiming to draw conclusions between salespeople. However, many salesperson processes are dynamic and vary within salespeople over time, requiring datasets with repeated-measures. This article highlights the need to adopt a within-person theoretical perspective in sales research. Critically, the article shows how our present understanding of boundary conditions may change depending on whether a between-person or within-person level of analysis is adopted. Using examples from the sales literature, we show how the practical implications from between-persons research designs do not necessarily generalize to the within-person level. Further, we explain the methodological and analytical considerations that researchers must account for when undertaking within-person research. Furthermore, the article provides decision criteria that help to identify when within-person analysis should be conducted, outlining analysis tools that are capable of correctly estimating within-person effects without bias. Examples of how within-person research can enhance theory within future sales research, and how within-person research may influence management implications are also discussed. Finally, potential remedies to within-person research barriers are given.     

Product Innovativeness,Customer Newness,and New Product Performance: A Time-Lagged Examination of the Impact of Salesperson Selling Intentions on New Product Performance

In this time-lagged study, we illuminate the role of the sales force in new product introductions by examining the impact of salespeople’s selling intentions on new product performance. Survey responses from 439 salespeople selling one product and 362 salespeople selling a second product suggest that salespeople’s selling intention is a key mediating variable. In particular, product innovativeness has a positive impact and customer newness has a negative impact on new product performance. However, both variables work indirectly through salespeople’s intention to sell new products. We conclude with managerial implications of our fi ndings and directions for future research.     

Selling and Sales Management in Action Examining the Bases Utilized for Evaluating Salespeoples' Performance

Evaluating salespeoples' performance is an important task for sales managers. However, little is known about what bases are used by sales managers to evaluate the performance of their salespeople. A study was conducted to determine the bases actually used by sales managers and the results were compared with a study conducted in 1983. Findings indicate more emphasis on profit and cost control, a continued reliance on qualitative measures, and a wide variety of bases being utilized to evaluate the performance of salespeople. Furthermore, the stability of results, across a wide variety of respondent job titles as well as business types and sizes, indicates a good deal of generalizability to other firms.     

Selling behaviours and sales performance: the moderating and mediating effects of interpersonal mentalizing

A random sample of independent insurance agents was surveyed to explore the relationships among learned behaviours, such as, adaptive selling and customer orientation and personal dispositions, such as, interpersonal mentalizing in predicting sales performance. The primary focus of this research was to reexamine salespeople's theory of mind in a broader theoretical base of human abilities. The results confirmed that the dimensions of interpersonal mentalizing, such as, taking a bird's-eye view, shaping the interaction by creating a positive ambience, detecting nonverbal cues and rapport building have different roles for the effectiveness of selling behaviours. While taking a bird's-eye view was a moderator, creating a positive ambience was a mediator of the relationship between selling behaviours and performance. Furthermore, salespeople's ability to build rapport improved sales performance only when they were able to detect nonverbal cues from customers. Taken together, these findings shed light on the complementary role of autonomous abilities of salespeople in improving the productivity of their learned selling behaviours. Several managerial implications were derived from the findings.