A qualitative study of leader behaviors perceived to enable salesperson performance

Abstract

This study builds on and extends previous sales leadership research by exploring sales professionals’ perceptions of effective leadership behaviors. Semistructured interviews with both sales leaders and salespeople working in a global enterprise software company were examined through a qualitative analysis. Results indicated that participants believed sales leadership played an important role in influencing sales performance. When asked to describe specific sales leader behaviors that best enable salesperson performance, sales professionals – both sales leaders and salespeople – overwhelmingly referenced coaching, followed by collaborating, championing, and customer engaging. We define and describe these four key sales leader behaviors and identify four potential mediating variables (trust, confidence, optimism, and resilience), from which emerges a conceptual framework of sales leader behaviors perceived to enable salesperson performance. We examine these four key sales leader behaviors and mediators in the broader context of leadership theory, particularly transformational, servant, authentic, and adaptive leadership theories. The key contribution of this study is the identification of a set of leader behaviors that are likely to be especially effective in modern sales organizations given that they originated from the perceptions of sales professionals themselves.     

个人化设计在临床研究中的应用——从个体角度研究个体差异

本文从有关研究证据的基础上,介绍了个人化设计的理论基础和实验设计,并在此基础上讨论了个人化设计在临床研究领域中的应用价值,总结出一种适合临床病人使用的研究程序。个人化设计允许对个体的个人价值进行分析,并能同时研究不同刺激信息的作用,在个体水平上分析个体差异。通过简化了的实验程序,个人化设计为解决临床研究中的问题提供了一种新的思维方式。文中还对相关研究法的局限进行了讨论。     

Speech comprehension after unilateral injection of sodium amytal

A unilateral cerebral dominance model predicts that speech comprehension will be disrupted after injection of sodium amytal into one hemisphere but not after the other. This model was supported when an auditory receptive task involving relatively nonredundant stimuli similar to that contained in the Token Test (E. DeRenzi & L. Vignolo, 1962, Brain, 85, 665–687) was administered to 17 epileptic patients undergoing bilateral amytal injections.     

Models of central capacity and concurrency

According to single channel theory, the ability of humans to perform concurrent mental operations is limited by the capacity of a central mechanism. The theory was developed by analogy with early computers which had a single central processing unit and required sequential processing. These limitations are not likely to be properties of the mind. But now computers have begun to employ extensive concurrent processing, because of the decreasing cost of the necessary hardware. In this review we will try to bring the computer analogy up to date. Theoretical issues important for concurrent systems may be of interest to psychologists and have applications to such problems as the speed-accuracy trade-off. Several hypotheses about the way signals gain access to the central mechanism are reviewed. Recent variations of the single channel theory are discussed, including the hypotheses that more than one process can use the central mechanism at a time, and that some processes do not use the central mechanism and can be executed concurrently with those that do. In addition, relevant concepts from scheduling theory and operating systems theory are introduced and difficulties encountered by concurrent systems, namely complexity, deadlocks, and thrashing, are discussed.     

The power within: Mass media,scientific entertainment,and the introduction of psychical research into China, 1900–1920

How did a new science initially promoted by only a few individuals eventually become a widespread cultural phenomenon practiced and known by thousands of people? Following a transnational approach, this article traces the introduction of psychical research into China during the first two decades of the 20th century. Known in the Republican period (1912–1949) as Spiritual Science (xinling kexue or xinling yanjiu), psychical research flourished between the 1920s and 1930s, playing a key role in the popularization of applied psychology and mind-cure across China. This article takes a step back from the heyday of Spiritual Science by looking at the period that immediately preceded and helped define it. Focused on wide-circulation newspapers, popular manuals, and stage performances, it teases out the ways in which Chinese popular culture translated European, American, and Japanese psychical research to local Chinese audiences in the midst of China's search for modernity. By naturalizing the reality of psychic powers, spiritual scientists blurred the boundaries between science and superstition in a period when these were posited as diametrically opposed.     

Centering culture in the treatment of opioid use disorder with American Indian and Alaska Native Communities: Contributions from a National Collaborative Board

American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) communities are disproportionally impacted by the opioid overdose epidemic. There remains a dearth of research evaluating methods for effectively implementing treatments for opioid use disorder (OUD) within these communities. We describe proceedings from a 2-day Collaborative Board (CB) meeting tasked with developing an implementation intervention for AI/AN clinical programs to improve the delivery of medications to treat OUD (MOUD). The CB was comprised of Elders, cultural leaders, providers, individuals with lived experience with OUD, and researchers from over 25 communities, organizations, and academic institutions. Conversations were audio-recorded, transcribed, and coded by two academic researchers with interpretation oversight provided by the CB. These proceedings provided a foundation for ongoing CB work and a frame for developing the program-level implementation intervention using a strength-based and holistic model of OUD recovery and wellbeing. Topics of discussion posed to the CB included engagement and recovery strategies, integration of extended family traditions, and addressing stigma and building trust with providers and clients. Integration of traditional healing practices, ceremonies, and other cultural practices was recommended. The importance of centering AI/AN culture and involving family were highlighted as priorities for the intervention.     

Vulnerable workers in insecure jobs: A critical meta-synthesis of qualitative findings

Job insecurity is a widespread workplace stressor that has been extensively investigated using quantitative approaches. With the use of a critical organisational psychology framework, we conducted a meta-synthesis of 20 qualitative studies to investigate the experience of job insecurity among vulnerable employee groups (i.e., women and immigrants). The qualitative meta-synthesis results suggest that there are meaningful differences. Specifically, whereas women were more concerned with and exposed to deteriorating working conditions, men experienced job insecurity as a threat to their identity. Among immigrants, the experience of job insecurity is viewed as largely intersecting with the legal system, impacting their ability to remain in their country and making them feel powerless. Thematic evidence also emerged regarding individual actions that participants use to attain security in contrast to corporate strategies that enhance job insecurity. We contribute to the critical organisational psychology literature by discussing how these results test common academic theories and neoliberal assumptions pervasive within the job insecurity literature: We highlight how organisations manufacture job insecurity, question the existence of harmonious social exchanges, discuss the use of job insecurity as a form of worker control, consider the role of the legal context in aiding worker exploitation and argue for an intersectional view of job insecurity.     

Taking stock of the longitudinal study of romantic couple relationships: The last 20 years

Longitudinal dyadic research provides significant benefits for our understanding of romantic couple relationships. In this systematic review, we begin by providing a broad overview of topical trends and approaches in longitudinal couple relationships research from 2002 through 2021. Then, we narrow our review to dyadic relationship quality articles, highlighting key themes as well as noting important gaps in the research. Using an intersectional perspective that acknowledges multiple ways that disadvantage, power, and oppression may be seen in both research and in couples' lived experience, we note prominent paradigms used in examining couple relationships, what types of questions have been most valued, and what groups and approaches are underrepresented in the literature. Most longitudinal couple relationships research is quantitative, relies on self-report approaches from American couples in the early-to-middle years of their relationships, concentrates more on negative aspects of relationships than positives, and takes a communication-satisfaction paradigm in studying couples. We see a clear need to increase the use of methodologies beyond self-report measures, conduct more studies with within-group minority, older adult, culturally-diverse, and context-specific samples to explore the diversity of relationships, and fully consider both strengths and positive processes in relationships as well as the challenges couples experience.