Corporate Culture and Sales Force Management in Japan and America |
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| Authors: | Yao Apasu Shigeru Ichikawa John L Graham |
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| Institution: | 1. Yao Apasu (Ph.D., School of Business Administration, University of Southern California) is Associate Professor of Marketing at the School of Business, Florida International University in Miami. His research interests include sales management, international marketing, and marketing and the law.;2. Shigeru Ichikawa (Ph.D., Waseda University, Tokyo) is a Professor of Marketing at Chukyo University in Nagoya, Japan. He has previous business experience with Hitachi, Ltd., Tokyo. He has published numerous articles in scholarly journals and has authored a text titled, Dynamic Marketing (Waseda University Press).;3. John L. Graham (Ph.D., School of Business, University of California, Berkeley) is an Associate Professor of Marketing and International Business at the School of Business Administration, the University of Southern California. His articles have appeared in several journals including the Journal of Marketing, the Harvard Business Review, and Marketing Science. He has coauthored a book with Yoshihiro Sano (a partner at Ernst &4. Winney), entitled Smart Bargaining, Doing Business With The Japanese (Ballinger, Cambridge, MA). His management experience includes service in the U.S. Navy and marketing research at a Solar Turbines Inc., a division of Caterpillar Tractor Co. |
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| Abstract: | AbstractManagers' personal values are a key aspect of corporate culture. Sales representatives' agreement with their managers' values (hereafter “value congruence”) can be expected to influence sales performance, satisfaction, and propensity to quit. These propositions are investigated in two countries. One hundred seventy-five sales representatives and 93 sales managers from a Japanese firm and 146 sales representatives and 21 sales managers from a comparable American firm participated in the study. A questionnaire was distributed to the managers and representatives. Value congruence was found to be weakly related to performance, but strongly related to satisfaction and propensity to quit for both cultural groups. The Japanese group was found to be higher in value congruence and propensity to quit, but lower in satisfaction. Suggested are implications for future research and for managers. |
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