Barton A. Weitz

• University of Florida

This study focuses on an intraorganizational sales resource-coordination behavior of salespeople, i.e., internal selling. Taking the organizational politics perspective, we define internal selling as a political behavior, in which salespeople intentionally use interpersonal influence attempts to secure needed resources to support external selling a...

New developments and trends in selling and sales management are creating demands and opportunities that require adaptation and new approaches on the part of both sales organizations and academic researchers. This paper summarizes critical dimensions of change in the environment that affect the practice of selling and sales management and introduces...

In this paper, we identify sales and marketing activities and common impediments to their integration. We then discuss the concept of sales–marketing integration and distinguish it from related concepts such as involvement and communication. Following this, we discuss approaches businesses can use to improve sales–marketing integration as well as t...

Business-to-business firms are increasingly focusing on building long-term partnering relationships with key customers. Salespeople are often responsible for managing these relationships. To be effective as relationship managers, salespeople need to be embedded in both their firm’s and customers’ organizations. They need to have extensive knowledge...

Given differing organizational needs and goals, underlying conflicts and tensions are an inherent part of buyer–seller relationships. This research presents and tests a conceptual framework examining the effect of the type of conflict (affective and task) in the relationship, the conflict management approaches used by the salesperson, and the subse...

Why do managers choose one sales compensation form rather than another? Theoretical answers typically focus on the type of plans managers should design, not on the factors that managers actually consider. Managers from various national origins pursue and weigh objectives through experience in a way that theoretical models may not capture. Incorpora...

This paper tests propositions derived from the sales and human resource management literature about the adoption of sales personnel recruitment and promotion policies in an international context through a comparative study of managers in six European countries. The results indicate that the regional culture of decision-makers has a strong effect on...

Abstract Electronic agents help consumers,locate new products and generate demand,by recommending,products with which consumers,may be unfamiliar. We explore the effects of these unfamiliar recommendations,by addressing the following questions: (1) How do unfamiliar recommendations,affect consumers’ attitudes towards the agent? (2) How does informa...

The use of sales contests in sales force management is growing in popularity and receiving increasing allocations of sales budgets in many industries. So far, however, the sales management research literature offers little guidance on why and when firms benefit from employing "openended" and/or "closed-ended" sales contests instead of regular commi...

This study considers how relationship marketing is manifest in actual interactions between buyers and sellers involved in on-going relationships with varying degrees of relationship quality. Seven buyer–seller, interaction encounters were observed, audiotaped, and analyzed. Before observing the encounters, however, in-depth interviews were conducte...

The authors examine how the practice of personal selling and sales management is changing as a result of the increased attention on long-term, buyer-seller relationships and identify some implications of these changes. Changes in the traditional personal selling and sales management activities are needed to support the emergence of the part-nering...

This research focuses on the impact of four staffing policies (promotion from within, promotion through seniority, well-defined career paths, and opportunities for intraorganizational mobility) on the job attitudes and behaviors of retail employees. A test of the conceptual framework using survey data collected from 207 retail buyers and divisional...

The interest of practitioners and academics in channel relationship management has shifted from corporate channel structures and relationships in conventional channels governed by use of power to relationships between independent firms involving contractual and normative control mechanisms. In this article, we identify several factors leading to th...

This goal of this paper is to establish a research agenda that will lead to a stream of research that closes the gap between actual and normative strategic managerial decision making. We start by distinguishing strategic managerial decision making (choices) from other choices. Next, we propose a conceptual model of how managers make strategic decis...

This paper explores propositions dealing with the influence of buyer-supplier relational characteristics on their joint decision making. Specifically, the proposed conceptual framework focuses on the link between three relational constructs (trust, commitment, relationship maturity) and two types of joint decision making (strategic and tactical). S...

Learning and performance goal orientations, two motivational orientations that guide salespeople's behavior, are related to working smart and hard. Working smart is defined as the engagement in activities that serve to develop knowledge of sales situations and utilize this knowledge in selling behavior. It is found that a learning goal orientation...

Learning and performance goal orientations, two motivational orientations that guide salespeople's behavior, are related to working smart and hard. Working smart is defined as the engagement in activities that serve to develop knowledge of sales situations and utilize this knowledge in selling behavior. It is found that a learning goal orientation...

A 16-item scale is developed to measure the degree to which salespeople practice adaptive selling—the degree to which they alter their sales presentation across and during customer interactions in response to the perceived nature of the sales situation. This paper-and-pencil scale assesses self-reports of five facets of adaptive selling: (1) recogn...

This exploratory study assesses the impact of variables associated with a financial portfolio model (marginal returns, growth, synergy, and uncertainty) and characteristics of the channel relationship (power, organizational climate, and communications) on the selling time allocated by 71 independent sales agencies to the principals they represent....

This exploratory study assesses the impact of variables associated with a financial portfolio model (marginal returns, growth, synergy, and uncertainty) and characteristics of the channel relationship (power, organizational climate, and communications) on the selling time allocated by 71 independent sales agencies to the principals they represent....

The authors propose that adaptive selling is influenced by salespeople's knowledge of customer types and sales strategies as well as their motivation to alter the direction of their behavior. Pertinent research in psychology and personal selling is reviewed and specific propositions relating to knowledge, motivation, and adaptive behavior are advan...

The authors propose that adaptive selling is influenced by salespeople's knowledge of customer types and sales strategies as well as their motivation to alter the direction of their behavior. Pertinent research in psychology and personal selling is reviewed and specific propositions relating to knowledge, motivation, and adaptive behavior are advan...

The concept of customer orientation in salespeople is defined, a scale is developed to measure the degree to which salespeople engage in customer-oriented selling, and the properties of the scale are reported. A test of the nomological validity indicates the use of customer-oriented selling is related to the ability of the salespeople to help their...

A new approach for research on effectiveness in sales interactions is proposed. This approach is based on considering the moderating effect of the salesperson's resources, the customer's buying task, and the customer-salesperson relationship. A contingency framework is presented and research directions related to the framework are suggested.

A multistage model of the process by which an industrial salesperson influences a customer's preferences is introduced. The relationship between a salesperson's abilities during the two initial stages—impression formation and strategy formulation—and relative sales performance was examined. Industrial salespeople's perceptions of their customers’ b...

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