Testing for Deterministic Salesperson Attributes in Mature Markets |
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| Authors: | David T. Wilson J. David Lichtenthal |
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| Affiliation: | 1. David T. Wilson (Ph.D., University of Western Ontario) is Professor of Marketing and Managing Director of the Institute for the Study of Business Markets at The Pennsylvania State University. His current research interests are in sales territory management, management of new product development process and the organizational buying process. Professor Wilson authored and co-authored six books in marketing and sales. He is currently writing a book on improving sales territory productivity using computer assisted decision models. A number of his articles have appeared in such publications as the Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Consumer Research, Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Business Research and Decision Sciences. He is the immediate past section editor for industrial marketing of the Journal of Marketing and serves on several editorial boards.;2. J. David Lichtenthal is a Doctoral Candidate in Marketing, The Pennsylvania State University. He currently teaches Business Marketing and Marketing Management and is doing his dissertation research in the Organizational Buying Behavior area. He has published in Research in Marketing. Mr. Lichtenthal, prior to his Doctoral studies, spent four years as a staff market research analyst for a leading manufacturing firm serving business markets. |
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| Abstract: | AbstractIndividual, buying center members seek to acquire a bundle of attributes that satisfy the needs of their organization in a manner similar to that of consumers. For companies in mature industries, it is proposed that sales representative- related attributes may be more important than product- or company-related attributes when customers evaluate alternative suppliers. In fact, these attributes may determine ultimate supplier selection and purchase. Data from an industrial positioning study conducted by a major industrial firm supplying consumable operating supplies supports this contention. Managerial implications are also discussed. |
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| Keywords: | output control behaviour control revenue performance meta-analysis hierarchical linear modeling |
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