The Top Ten Sales Articles of the 20th Century

The dawn of a millennium brings reflection on accomplishments and progress over the prior century. A common exercise is to identify the “best of the best” in a variety of fields of endeavor (e.g., music, science, art, or literature). In this article we identify the “best of the best” in academic research concerning sales management and professional selling. We conducted a survey of practicing sales academics to identify the “Top 10” sales articles of the century. Each of these articles is briefly reviewed, with attention to its purpose, content and contribution. A citation analysis was also conducted to validate the expert opinion rankings. In total, the results present an intriguing perspective on the accomplishments of the sales academy and its progress as a scholarly community.     

CRM in Sales-Intensive Organizations: A Review and Future Directions

With the advent of technology enabling greater customer tracking, more robust knowledge management, and direct customer communication, the implementation of customer relationship management (CRM) strategies has grown in importance with many implications for sales-intensive organizations. Implications of CRM strategy, analytical CRM, and operational CRM are discussed, particularly in terms of research opportunities. Although there are, no doubt, many other interesting and worthwhile research opportunities available, the nexus of technology, CRM, and sales-intensive go-tomarket strategies provide myriad opportunities for exciting research.     

Rural Embedded Assistants for Community Health (REACH) Network: First-Person Accounts in a Community–University Partnership

Community research and action projects undertaken by community–university partnerships can lead to contextually appropriate and sustainable community improvements in rural and urban localities. However, effective implementation is challenging and prone to failure when poorly executed. The current paper seeks to inform rural community–university partnership practice through consideration of first-person accounts from five stakeholders in the Rural Embedded Assistants for Community Health (REACH) Network. The REACH Network is a unique community–university partnership aimed at improving rural health services by identifying, implementing, and evaluating innovative health interventions delivered by local caregivers. The first-person accounts provide an insider’s perspective on the nature of collaboration. The unique perspectives identify three critical challenges facing the REACH Network: trust, coordination, and sustainability. Through consideration of the challenges, we identified several strategies for success. We hope readers can learn their own lessons when considering the details of our partnership’s efforts to improve the delivery infrastructure for rural healthcare.     

The Effects of Therapist Competence in Assigning Homework in Cognitive Therapy With Cluster C Personality Disorders: Results From a Randomized Controlled Trial

Therapist competence in assigning homework was used to predict mid- and posttreatment outcome for patients with Cluster C personality disorders in cognitive therapy (CT). Twenty-five patients that underwent 40 sessions of CT were taken from a randomized controlled trial (Svartberg, Stiles, & Seltzer, 2004). Therapist competence in assigning homework was rated by 2 independent raters assessing a session early in treatment (mostly Session 6) using the Cognitive Therapy Scale (CTS; Young & Beck, 1980). Higher ratings of therapist competence in assigning homework predicted a positive outcome at both mid- and posttreatment, even when controlling for initial symptom improvement. The results indicated that therapist competence in assigning homework is important for both symptom reduction and personality change in CT in the treatment of patients with Cluster C personality disorders.     

Help or hinder? When recommendation signage expands consideration sets and heightens decision difficulty

This research examines whether recommendation signage helps or hinders the consumer when faced with choosing from large product assortments. In spite of frequent usage and retailer intuition suggesting that providing recommendation signs (e.g., “Best Seller,” “Award Winner”) should help consumers in the choice process, we propose that signs can hinder choice for consumers with more developed preferences by adding to the complexity and difficulty of the decision process. In three experiments using horizontally differentiated products in multiple categories, we provide evidence that recommendation signs create preference conflict for consumers with more developed preferences, leading these consumers to form larger consideration sets and ultimately experience more difficulty from the decision-making process. In addition, we show that these effects are mitigated for consumers with less developed preferences and when the choice is from a small assortment. The results suggest that recommendation signage may not be an effective tool for aiding choice from large assortments; instead signage can exacerbate the difficulties associated with having too many choices, with implications on purchase quantity.     

Viciousness and the structure of reality

Given the centrality of arguments from vicious infinite regress to our philosophical reasoning, it is little wonder that they should also appear on the catalogue of arguments offered in defense of theses that pertain to the fundamental structure of reality. In particular, the metaphysical foundationalist will argue that, on pain of vicious infinite regress, there must be something fundamental. But why think that infinite regresses of grounds are vicious? I explore existing proposed accounts of viciousness cast in terms of contradictions, dependence, failed reductive theories and parsimony. I argue that no one of these accounts adequately captures the conditions under which an infinite regress—any infinite regress—is vicious as opposed to benign. In their place, I suggest an account of viciousness in terms of explanatory failure. If this account is correct, infinite grounding regresses are not necessarily vicious; and we must be much more careful employing such arguments to the conclusion that there has to be something fundamental.     

Dyadic Power Profiles: Power‐Contingent Strategies for Value Creation in Negotiation

Using a simulated employment negotiation, we tested the conditional relationships among dyadic power profiles (symmetric high, symmetric low, and asymmetric), the choice and sequencing of strategies, and value creation. We showed that negotiators in symmetric high, symmetric low, and asymmetric power dyads took distinctly different paths to value creation. Value creation was associated with increased mutual accommodation in high‐power dyads but with increased contentiousness in low‐power dyads. Asymmetric power dyads maximized value creation when they adopted a neutral stance, neither overusing nor underusing any one strategy. Although strategy use was a better predictor of value creation than strategy sequencing, sequences played an increasingly important role in value creation as the level of total power within the negotiation increased.     

Effects of Cognitive Complexity and Emotional Upset on Processing Supportive Messages: Two Tests of a Dual‐Process Theory of Supportive Communication Outcomes

We report tests of hypotheses derived from a theory of supportive communication outcomes that maintains the effects of supportive messages are moderated by factors influencing the motivation and ability to process these messages. Participants in two studies completed a measure of cognitive complexity, which provided an assessment of processing ability, and reported their degree of upset with a problem situation, which was hypothesized to impact both motivation and ability; they subsequently evaluated the helpfulness of comforting messages that varied in person centeredness. Consistent with predictions, an index of message processing depth—the degree to which participants discriminated between the helpfulness of better and worse supportive messages—was associated with the factors additively in both studies and interactively in one study.