The Manager-Salesperson Relationship: an Exploratory Examination of the Vertical-Dyad Linkage Model

Abstract

The Vertical-Dyad-Linkage Model (VDL) is offered as a tool to explore the infrastructure of a sales team. Building on the philosophy found in most sales management literature that salespersons are to be managed as individuals, VDL theory allows an exploration of the underlying social organization that is present in all sales forces. Thus, the style that a manager uses with a particular salesperson will vary depending on the exchange relationship established (cadres, hired hands). The objectives of the paper are to explore the general tenets of VDL theory, to assimilate the theory in sales management, to provide implications for sales managers and salespeople, and to discuss the important implications for sales management research.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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 Image of the Salesperson: Prestige and Other Dimensions

Abstract

In this study the general public rated sales and other occupations on prestige and nine other attributes. It was found that the prestige of professional sales occupations was related to the attributes tested such as education. On some, but not all attributes, different sales jobs were found to vary. Differences were found in public perceptions of sales in comparison to other occupations and generally professional salespeople ranked below an engineer or physician. The image of salespersons did not involve a single stereotype. Steps that could be taken to advance the prestige of salespeople are discussed.     

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.     

Call for Papers: National Conference in Sales Management

This article combines a constructivist grounded theory approach with a focus on structuration theory to propose a new mental model for understanding motivation in the context of solving complex problems in contemporary business-to-business (B2B) settings. This study uses the interpretative tradition of qualitative research to conduct in-depth interviews of 24 B2B sales professionals and subsequently analyze their lived experiences. Findings indicate that intrinsic motivation stems attitudinally from a need to foster an identity of helping customers, introducing a concept called “interpersonal identification” with customers. That identity motivates the development of more cognitively intense sales proposals using a more holistic proposal development process – referred to herein as “systems-savvy selling.” While interpersonal relationships have long been components of B2B relationships, this study challenges laypeople’s stereotypes of salespeople who use interpersonal relationships to improve business outcomes. Instead, systems-savvy selling helps salespeople build interpersonal relationships and use business outcomes as feedback to strengthen interpersonal relationships and their identification with customers. Unexpectedly, it also finds that dual-role sales managers, who have roles both in selling and managing, confront a paradox of self versus others when managing systems-savvy selling processes. By sampling within an industry in which the research team benefits from significant expertise, the constructivist grounded theory approach relying on semistructured, in-depth interviews used herein leverages the research team’s expertise while controlling for industry-level effects.     

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.     

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.     

Selling & Sales Management in Action: The Importance of Various Motivational Factors to College Students Interested in Sales Positions

Sales professionals in the computer industry have had to confront a fundamental shift in the definition and source of value within their marketplace. From an emphasis on hardware, vendors and customers are now looking to software and systems for the next advancements in technology and productivity. As the sources of value within the industry have changed, so have the requirements for sales success. No longer able to rely on their traditional and “proven” approach to selling, salespeople have had to learn new competencies. Based on studies of the sales organizations of six computer companies, this article explores how—and why—computer salespeople must adopt a new sales orientation and expand their behavioral repertoire.     

Salesperson Job Involvement: A Modern Perspective a New Scale

Job involvement is a person's psychological identification or commitment to his/her job. Job involvement is an important construct in salesforce performance research because (1) it is a relevant consequence of a salesperson's work environment and internal feelings, (2) it is a relevant antecedent of a number of important sales job outcomes, and (3) it impacts the socialization process for salespeople. Because sales jobs have changed markedly over the past decade, a salesperson's job involvement now tends to be more focused on relationships with clients and less on aspects within an organizational boundary. The most widely used measure of job involvement (Lodahl and Kejner 1965) is not occupation-specific to sales. This article outlines the development of a new scale for relationship-based salesperson job involvement utilizing rigorous assessments of reliability, validity, and dimensionality within a broad sample of practicing salespeople.     

Psychological ethical climate,leader–member exchange and commitment to superior customer value: influencing salespeople’s unethical intent and sales performance

In today’s competitive environment, salespeople are challenged with creating customer value in an ethical manner while meeting performance goals. Sales supervisors play a critical role in ensuring that this challenge is met. This research examines the roles of psychological ethical climate and leader–member exchange (LMX) in encouraging salespeople’s commitment to providing superior customer value, reducing their unethical intentions and improving sales performance. Results indicate that business-to-business salespeople’s psychological ethical climate perceptions influence their perceived relationship with their sales supervisor (i.e. LMX relationship) as well as their commitment to providing superior customer value. LMX also directly influences commitment to providing superior customer value, which in turn affects salespeople’s unethical intent and quota performance. Theoretical and managerial implications based on the study’s findings are provided, as well as directions for future research.     

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.     

Elaboration on potential outcomes (EPO) and the consultative salesperson: investigating effects on attributions and performance

Past work has found that salespeople make very different attributions when describing successful versus unsuccessful sales. In this article, we explore the influence of elaboration on potential outcomes (EPO), a relatively new individual-specific personality construct that has not been previously examined in the sales context. We show that salespeople's predisposition to engage in predecision elaboration on the potential outcomes of their sales activities across the sales cycle has an important impact on their selling attributions and on their performance, even after accounting for the effects of self-efficacy and trait competitiveness, two other person-specific variables that have been heavily examined in past research. Juxtaposing survey responses with objective sales performance data from 301 salespeople drawn from two sales organizations, the results show that EPO and the more heavily examined variables help to systematically explain salespeople's attributions for success but are only weakly linked to attributions for failure. Moreover, the results show that EPO itself explains a modest, but nevertheless promising, portion of variance in sales performance.     

The Identification of Selling Abilities Needed for Missionary Type Sales

This field study using salespeople, sales managers, and physicians identified 14 abilities necessary for successful pharmaceutical salespeople, the prototypical missionary sales position. Six of the abilities were identified by all three parties and make up the core requirements while one ability was recognized by physicians and not the other two groups. Finally, this research offers suggestions, based on the 14 identified abilities, for recruiting and sales training efficiencies to improve salesperson performance.     

Gritting their teeth to close the sale: the positive effect of salesperson grit on job satisfaction and performance

This research is the first to examine the effect of “grit” – defined here as perseverance in pursuit of long-term goals – on salesperson performance and job satisfaction in a business-to-business (B2B) sales context. While more commonly studied in the psychology and education literatures, grit has heretofore been underexplored in sales research, a notable omission given its importance in predicting performance outcomes across multiple domains. In response, we demonstrate that gritty salespeople perform better and enjoy greater job satisfaction than their less gritty counterparts. Moreover, we show that competitiveness and self-efficacy help to develop grit and reveal important moderating effects; grit is highest when salespeople are self-efficacious and socially astute. Moreover, the results also suggest that need for power attenuates the positive effect of grit on performance, revealing a potential “dark side” of grit. We then provide some future research ideas involving grit in an effort to encourage further exploration of this construct in sales research. Finally, we conclude by offering cautions to future researchers as they decide whether to examine this interesting construct in a sales context.