Alan J. Bush

• University of Memphis

Customer entertainment is any activity considered to provide entertainment, amusement, or recreation. Business-to-business firms, as part of their sales strategy, have entertained customers for decades in hopes of influencing purchasing and building long-term relationships. Using social exchange theory and the element of reciprocity, this study exa...

Salespeople have long been considered unique employees. They tend to work apart from each other and experience little daily contact with supervisors and other organizational employees. Additionally, salespeople interact with customers in an increasingly complex and multifunctional environment. This provides numerous opportunities for unethical beha...

By conceptualizing customers’ organizational citizenship behavior as a communication cue, a customer evaluation criterion, and a sales performance facilitator in a relational selling context, the authors empirically demonstrate the effect of salespeople's perceptions of their customers’ voluntary, prosocial behavior on three components of sales per...

The authors use the theory of organizing framework for sales research to demonstrate that customer organizational citizenship behavior (COCB) is a meaningful and useful customer segmentation criterion. First, they discern from open-ended responses what salespeople mean by “best,” “typical,” and “worst” customers. They then empirically demonstrate t...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to conduct an exploratory study of potential business-to-business (B2B) customers that includes an empirical analysis that investigate the effect that customer entertainment has on customer suspicion toward the salesperson, and how those negative attitudes are influenced by the relationship stage and the percei...

Purpose – This paper aims to understand an emerging paradigm for business-to-business selling, Sales 2.0, which connects various enabling technologies within leading sales processes to drive improved business and relational outcomes. In the context of Sales 2.0, this paper addresses the need for buyer–seller dyadic sales research in the literature...

By conceptualizing customers' organizational citizenship behavior as a communication cue, a customer evaluation criterion, and a sales performance facilitator in a relational selling context, the authors empirically demonstrate the effect of salespeople's perceptions of their customers' voluntary, prosocial behavior on three components of sales per...

This study focuses on differences in preference and usage behavior toward various banking methods between male and female consumers of retail banking services. It is based on survey data drawn from customers of a large commericial bank in a major metropolitan city in the southeastern United States. The findings indicate significant differences in p...

The authors are attempting to explore the relationship between organization of attributes within an advertisement and the ability to recall the advertisement. The study applies memory theory to marketing with an experimental design manipulating the number of categories or chunks in the organization of an advertisement. Results confirm the earlier l...

Undergraduate sales education is somewhat unique in that it prepares students for a career which functions mostly outside of traditional corporate management structures. Concurrently, the demand for well-qualified salespeople has intensified partly due to high turnover. This article contends that there may be a disconnection between student expecta...

2012),"What makes sales presentations effective – a buyer# seller perspective", Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Vol. 27 Iss 2 pp. 78-88 Access to this document was granted through an Emerald subscription provided by 537882 [] For Authors If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald f...

In order to provide direction, the research productivity of a discipline should be evaluated and reported upon periodically. This paper documents all selling and sales management articles published in the Journal of Marketing, the Journal of Marketing Research, Industrial Marketing Management, and the Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management...

In order to objectively assess the progress of a discipline, it is important to periodically examine its publication outlets to identify topics and trends that reflect the state of knowledge. In this paper, the content of 13 years of sales force research in four established marketing/sales force journals was analyzed to identify the direction in wh...

The authors explore salesforce socialization tactics as a means of building organizational value congruence—an important dimension of salesforce culture strength. An empirical study is presented in which six socialization tactics are measured and it is found that certain socialization tactics have a greater effect than others on organizational valu...

The recent confluence of technological advancements, globalization, and increased diversity and intelligence of the workforce has had a profound effect on the role of the salesperson. As boundary spanners, salespeople are often the foundation for profitable customer relationships. However, the changing business environment and performance pressures...

A large body of pedagogical research exists on developing curricula and ethics training tools to prepare college graduates for entering the workforce. However, many college students are already in the workforce while they attend school. Many of these jobs are entry-level or frontline employee positions in retail or service industries, which can be...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to introduce the concept of salesperson coachability and to propose potential relationships between it and sales coaching and sales performance. Design/methodology/approach This conceptual paper reviews the sales coaching and sales performance literature to highlight how the knowledge of each may be enhanced by...

This paper argues for the adoption of the theory of organizing and sensemaking framework as the theoretical underpinning of the personal selling process in a relational selling context. For relational selling, one should not think of the selling process as a normative series of steps that a salesperson passes through with the help of a sales manage...

Recently, an increased number of advertisements have been questioned as being potentially unethical. Because of complaints from academicians, special interest groups, competitors, and broadcasters, certain advertising campaigns have been pulled from the media. The fact that potentially unethical ads are reaching the marketplace suggests that curren...

A content analysis of the major networks and three cable networks was conducted to investigate the current status of animation in television advertising. A total of 2,454 advertisements were analyzed over a seven-day period. Findings suggest that advertisers are using animation as a method of execution in their TV advertisements directed at adults...

This study investigates one of the fastest growing, yet relatively unknown market segments—singles. The purpose of the study is to access the homogeneity of single females in respect to a variety of advertising-related variables. Never-marrieds, divorced and widowed females were assessed. The results confirm the heterogeneity of the single female m...

Information provided by television advertising is an important weapon in the fight against a new public health pandemic—AIDS. The authors assess the brief history of AIDS advertising through a rhetorical analysis of the 1987, 1988, and 1989 federal AIDS television campaigns. The descriptive findings from this analysis provide insights for rethinkin...

This study introduces the concept of perceived salesperson transparency to the Sales literature. It addresses how recent technological developments impact traditional agency theory concerns, while simultaneously creating a conceptual definition of perceived transparency for application on an individual level. Salesperson perceptions regarding manag...

Purpose This exploratory research aims to examine the commonalities and differences in how buyers and sellers perceive and characterize an effective sales presentation in an attempt to present issues/themes that may help start a dialogue into the theoretical underpinnings of effective sales presentations. Design/methodology/approach The paper cons...

The issues surrounding attorney advertising have become even more controversial with the recent Supreme Court decision allowing attorneys to advertise through the mail. For years the legal profession had prohibited direct mail advertising by attorneys because it was viewed as a form of in-person solicitation. As with advertising in general, direct...

Building durable buyer–seller relationships is commonly accepted as a foundation for successful business-to-business selling. As a result, the literature is replete with research that addresses various dimensions of how business executives and salespeople develop interpersonal relationships, create affective commitment, and generate customer loyalt...

In this two-part empirical study, a measure of athletic coachability is adapted and applied to salespeople in a business-to-business sales context. Relationships among salesperson coachability, salesperson trait competitiveness, sales manager leadership style, and sales performance are conceptualized and tested. Results suggest that sales performan...

The use of technology in marketing has become an increasingly important competitive tool in developing and maintaining efficient and productive customer relationships. However, the ethics of using this technology has received little attention. This study investigates how and if marketing organizations are adapting their ethics policies to incorpora...

This research supports and extends the theoretical foundation of relevant associative linkages via examination of the effects of Christian cues or symbols on relevant and irrelevant symbol product ad evaluations. Results indicate that a relevant Christian symbol product linkage supports the basic premises of associative linkage theory with signific...

Sales technology has had a major impact on the efficiency, effectiveness, and relationship building processes between the organization, manager, salesperson, and ultimately, the customer. However, this technology may generate ethical issues for these stakeholders. While the importance of sales force ethics and information technology are undeniable,...

Salespeople are in a unique position of being in very close proximity to customers and thus have the ability to create and maintain long-term relationships with them. Sales force automation systems (SFA) have the ability to help or hinder this relationship building process. This article looks at SFA and its impact on sales force productivity. Much...

The critical importance of the marketing-R&D interface in the new product development process is widely acknowledged in the marketing literature. Generally, problems in achieving a productive integration of the two departments has been blamed on differences in the orientations of the two areas. Previous studies have focused largely on organizationa...

There has been little, if any attempt to develop a standard operationalization of response quality in marketing research. Additionally, marketing studies using response quality have been almost exclusively mail surveys. This study employs a theoretical base from the Self-Disclosure literature in operationalizing response quality in telephone and ma...

This study examined antecedents and performancerelated consequences of customer-oriented selling. The antecedents include sales managers’ leadership styles, psychological empowerment, and the psychological climates of organizations. Data were gathered on two separate performance outcome measures. Responses from 106 sales managers and 313 sales repr...

Purpose To investigate the influence of word‐of‐mouth (WOM) behavior among the growing teenage female market segment in the flourishing sports market. Design/methodology/approach A sample of 118 teenaged girls, aged 13‐18, participated in the study. The theory of consumer socialization and interpersonal influence was used as the conceptual foundat...

Despite the growing importance and potential of sales force automation (SFA), failure rates for SFA implementations have been reported to be as high as 55–80%. Given the growth of SFA programs, the potential effectiveness and efficiency SFA can bring to the sales force, and the magnitude of SFA failures, it is surprising that relatively few studies...

Teenagers currently spend an estimated $153 billion a year on everything from computers to cars to clothes (Brand, 2000). Trend conscious teens are very active in utilizing the media and advertising in seeking out the latest products, services, and fashions (Zollo, 1995). A greater understanding of teens role model influences can help organizations...

Recent research investigating customer-oriented selling has indicated that greater attention needs to be focused on organizational or personal antecedents influencing customer-oriented selling behaviors. Similar to most other departments, a selling department’s environment would include its goals, objectives, and culture, as well as the behaviors,...

Academics and practitioners alike have voiced their concerns about how to continuously improve the quality of education in the business school. Two central issues that have received recent attention are (1) how to address a rapidly changing and increasingly global economy, and (2) how to infuse technology into the business school curriculum. Both o...

The debate over how services should be advertised and communicated has raged on for decades. Much of the early work on services emphasized the use of tangible cues and was primarily issue and/or profession specific. There are no real communication guidelines that encompass all service marketers. This paper looks at how consumers use information in...

The goal of the present research was to analyze the consumer socialization process of adolescents, utilizing social learning theory as a conceptual guide to understand how role models influence adolescents’ materialism and marketplace knowledge. A convenience sample of 175 teenagers between the ages of 15 and 18 were surveyed in a major metropolita...

Attempts to determine which individual, or group of individuals, has the strongest influence on adolescent consumer purchase intentions and purchase behavior. By introducing the concepts of direct (fathers and mothers) and vicarious (favorite entertainers and favorite athletes) role models into the consumer behavior literature, the study allows gre...

The explosive growth of the internet has the potential to alter agency-advertiser relationships and blur the functions performed by each. Moreover, newer challenges are also surfacing in regard to web-related activities and functions performed by agencies and outside internet specialists from public relations firms, computer design boutiques, and s...

The astonishing growth of the Internet coupled with its unique capabilities has captured the attention of the marketing community. Although many businesses are acknowledging the importance of a Web site, to date, little attention has been given to the business community'sperceptions of the ethicality of this new medium. A national sample of marketi...

Using the theory of consumer socialization, the authors explore factors that might shape attitudes toward advertising for African-American and Caucasian young adults. Though the African-American market is growing in importance to advertisers, little if any research has explored African-American perceptions of advertising. The theory of consumer soc...

While a growing number of companies are interested in developing an Internet presence, there is still a great deal of confusion about it and what this new medium has to offer to the advertising community. The purpose of this study is to gain preliminary insights into advertisers' perceptions of the Internet and, hopefully, assist companies in under...

While universities in the U.S. appear to be addressing international business and marketing curriculum, research emphasizing the input of practitioners to this area has been limited. The purpose of this paper is to further identify the particular skills and characteristics perceived by experienced international business practitioners that MBA stude...

Interviews with six experts in international business and a survey of 48 international business practitioners indicate that practitioners would like college business students to graduate with more specific skills and characteristics related to actual job experience. The findings provide insights for educators for curriculum development and highligh...

The arena of services marketing provides numerous opportunities for ethical violations. As competition intensifies, service providers strive harder to please the customer which can increase the temptation to make ethical compromises. Presents the narrative paradigm as a normative model for ethical decision making in the services marketing environme...

Major changes are expected for shopping centers in the next several years as many highly competitive non-mall retailers are successfully targeting value-conscious and convenience-oriented consumers. This trend suggests that shopping centers may be loosing certain types of shoppers to these non-mall retailers. Given these changes, marketing research...

As business education looks toward the twenty-first century, numerous challenges await. In the face of declining enrollments, and a trend toward accountability, business schools exist in an increasingly threatening environment. However, the future is not completely bleak. The employment of professional marketing-based strategies targeted at student...

Advertising has long been criticized for its role in selling products and for its influence on society. Regardless of the viewpoint one takes on advertising, criticism remains a constructive tool for understanding the nature of the discipline. Although the literature is replete with various scholarly criticisms, one viewpoint has been neglected — t...

After a decade, years of battling acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), the spread of this disease still represents one of the most important issues facing health care officials today. Even though many individuals have changed their sexual behavior since becoming aware of AIDS, a group of high-risk young adults has not. The authors explore the...

While the strength of direct response advertising lies in its accountability, trends in the direct marketing industry indicate other effectiveness measures, to complement sales, are needed for enhancing long-term customer relationships. Two such effectiveness measures are ad likability and feeling toward direct response products/services. Thirty ra...

Recently it is becoming more common for advertisers to employ numbers and statistics in their print advertisements. However, there has been no published research that investigates how this number-based copy influences the reader. This study presents the results of a controlled experiment in which a number-oriented versus a non-number-oriented ad wa...

Despite a recent research commitment to the area of service marketing, very little research has been conducted in the field of direct response service advertising. The present study addresses a series of research questions pertaining to television advertising strategies associated with direct marketers of services. In an attempt to assess these res...

While many direct marketers are starting to include direct response commercials as part of their marketing strategy, very little empirical knowledge exists regarding the current content, trend, and emphasis that direct response advertising occupies in the advertising arena. In order to provide more empirical insight into this neglected area, the au...

The authors attempt to expand the dialogue between the health care industry and the marketing discipline on perhaps the most crucial issue facing health care marketers today--AIDS. They offer a critique of a JHCM article by Ronald Paul Hill. Their intent is to prompt a reconsideration of the normative propositions Hill suggests for health care mark...

Describes the development of a behavior- or activity-based scale for assessing retail sales force performance. The scale development process follows the paradigm developed by G. A. Churchill (see record 1980-20197-001). Topics discussed in scale development include initial selection of performance-related items, items analysis and purification, sc...

Economists and marketers have developed theoretical con structs which suggest that effective market segmentation can be used to identify differences in price sensitivity among market segments. The purpose of this investigation is to extend theory in the industrial marketing literature by using marketing research to distinguish market segments that...

The article focuses on demonstrating how importance-performance analysis can serve as an easily applied technique for reducing the difficulties in translating faculty-course performance results into meaningful actions. A specific faculty-course evaluation example which uses an extended version of the technique is offered. Important insights are pre...

Economists and marketers have developed theoretical constructs which suggest that effective market segmentation can be used to identify differences in price sensitivity among market theory in the industrial marketing literature by using marketing research to distinguish market segments that are useful in industrial pricing decisions. Both macrosegm...

AIDS in the United Slates may be the most urgent public health issue facing public policy makers today. Since there is currently no chemical cure or vaccine for the AIDS virus, the only weapons available for prevention are public information and education. This study assesses the role of advertising in disseminating information during the AIDS cris...

One unique group of consumers which has recently attracted the attention of many marketing professionals is the yuppie (young urban professional) market segment. Yet little is known or understood about this segment's service needs, preferences, and behavior or about the marketing strategies necessary to attract this type of consumer to various type...

Presently, more and more business educators are relying on computer and video technologies to complement their teaching effectiveness. This article argues for a literary approach to teaching marketing principles that can be used as an effective complement to the video and computer-aided lectures to enhance student interest. Personal selling princip...

Much has been written recently in the area of professional services marketing. The research in this area, however, tends to be survey research, centering on one professional group—typically in print media. Little, if any, research has compared the effects of television advertising across various professions. This paper draws from the source credibi...

Recently it is becoming more common for advertisers to employ numbers and statistics in their print advertisements. However, there has been no published research that investigates how this number-based copy influences the reader. This study presents the results of a controlled experiment in which a number-oriented versus a non-number-oriented ad wa...

Recently the mall intercept method of data collection has emerged as one of the most popular methods among market researchers. Little progress has been made, however, in empirically assessing the mall intercept approach. In an exploratory study, the authors assess the mall intercept by comparing it with telephone interviewing on response quality an...

Recently the mall intercept method of data collection has emerged as one of the most popular methods among market researchers. Little progress has been made, however, in empirically assessing the mall intercept approach. In an exploratory study, the authors assess the mall intercept by comparing it with telephone interviewing on response quality an...

This article presents an illustration of what evaluations and obstacles a new product can face in an industrial market. Guidelines are also suggested which will hopefully better prepare industrial marketers for more success in marketing new products.

Recent research on attitude toward the advertisement provides a theoretical base that questions the usefulness of multiattribute attitude measures. Arguments for global measures of brand attitude in affect-referral choice situations are presented. The two types of measures are tested as predictors of purchase intentions for ten supermarket brands....

Traducción de: Professional Sales Management