Earl D. Honeycutt

Elon University · Martha and Spencer Love School of Business

Firms need to deliver high quality customer service to retain clients and improve performance. For online companies, a key customer segment is the highly technologically skilled millennials. This study seeks to better understand millennials’ preference for text (chat) or talk (call) mediums when receiving customer service during the online buying p...

Surveyed job candidates and academic mavens differ in regard to what the candidates should consider most important (e.g., quality-of-life issues, characteristics of the position, and school/department dynamics) when interviewing for an academic position. A principal finding is that candidates weigh quality of life as the most important issue, while...

Many sales organizations invest in “relationship-building activities” by allocating a portion of their budget to socially engage current customers and future prospects. In their boundary-spanning role, salespeople are responsible for developing and managing relationships with customer buying centers and internal cross-functional support teams. The...

This study examines the sales selection and sales training practices of 51 global and domestic firms in Shanghai, China. Respondents reported similar managerial practices for selecting sales persons, while greater differences were found in the sales training area. Global firms are more market-oriented in their training focus and devote significantl...

Military commissaries, or grocery stores, operate as a taxpayer subsidized benefit for military personnel and their families. This study reviews the commissary's history, mission, operations, customer base, competitive and political environments, and vision for the future. Then, a direct market-basket comparison of prices found at all commissaries...

This study examines ethical training, perceptions of ethical behavior, sales person customer-orientation, and company differences between the four largest automobile firms in Taiwan. Low levels of ethical training were reported and certain activities, such as selling more expensive autos, giving preferential treatment, and misinforming customers, w...

This paper examines the profiles of 800 Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) from America’s top corporations and provides factual information for marketing educators to utilize in classroom presentations and to disseminate to students considering marketing careers. Seven research questions related to CEO career path, promotion speed, salary, educational...

This study examines New Zealand business students for their perceptions of careers in sales and marketing positions. The respondents most prefer marketing management as a career, followed by international sales, consumer product sales, and industrial sales, respectively. Unlike earlier studies, grade-point average did not correlate positively with...

A firm must be aware of its current market position before successful marketing strategies are developed. Although positioning has been used extensively by producers of manufactured goods, this planning concept has not been as well developed for service offerings. This study provides a practical application of positioning for the health care market...

Sales training is an educational service provided to new and existing salespersons to improve their performance. Higher-level evaluation helps reduce the incidence of service-related problems and results in higher quality sales training being provided. The purpose of this research is to make recommendations for improving the process of evaluating s...

Purpose: With increased numbers of business to business (B to B) firms hiring professional sales students, it is important that both sales educators and sales managers understand entertainment?s influence and its potential consequences in the professional sales environment. This study examines the perceived role entertainment plays in today?s sales...

Numerous factors influence how marketing faculty prioritize teaching, research, and service activities—including the mission of the college or university employing the faculty member. A total of 203 marketing faculty from balanced and teaching schools, reported different work priorities and publishing records, and held differing attitudes and perce...

This paper presents research propositions to explain why consumers continue to shop from a firm’s Web site. Research from the consumer satisfaction, Internet marketing, and relationship marketing literature was explored to provide evidence for the propositions. A generic model of future purchasing behavior from a firm’s Web site is also presented.

This study examines Philippine business student preparation, attitudes toward sales and achievement motivation, and preference for careers in sales and marketing. First, 26% of students expect to work in marketing/sales, but most major in other business disciplines. Second, marketing students and those intending to work in sales scored higher on a...

This article introduces a model that encompasses all potential marketing faculty members based upon their performance in the three traditional areas of teaching, research, and service. First, the role of each faculty performance criterion is discussed. Employing these three criteria, and maximum/minimum levels of performance, a 2x2x2 matrix of eigh...

One hundred sixty-five respondents with prior home-buying experience evaluated female and male realtor photos on 20 sales representative attributes. Correspondence maps were generated and realtors were located as points in attribute space. Those attributes that most differentiated were 'enthusiastic', 'creative', 'trustworthy', and 'strong', indica...

Consumer perceptions of their sex role portrayals in advertising have been heavily researched since the 1970s, but few studies have extended this research into cross-cultural settings. This study compares the perceptions of American and Japanese business students. The findings indicate that: 1) Japanese students are less critical than American stud...

This study examines sales and marketing career perceptions and preferences of graduate business students in Great Britain. Management consulting and marketing management were preferred as career paths, while few respondents selected industrial or consumer product sales. Negative descriptors such as, boring, stressful, and pushy ware utilized to des...

In this study, African—American students preferred public relations as a career, followed by marketing research, marketing management, international and consumer product sales. Caucasian students selected international sales as a marketing career path, followed by public relations and marketing research. Unlike earlier studies, grade-point average...

A 1987 Carnegie Foundation report stated that U. S. education was in need of reform. Specifically, college faculty members were troubled about their current status, future prospects, and the increasing emphasis on research. However, business professors were underrepresented in the Carnegie study. This study examines 333 marketers’ responses to the...

Recent studies have focused on the research productivity of marketing academics; however, few studies have contrasted the results with effort allocated to teaching, research, and service. The purpose of this paper is to examine the allocation of time and effort by marketing academics to research, teaching, and service and to evaluate the attitudes...

Reforms in the education sector have been taking place in a number of countries since early 1970s (Ginsberg et al 1991 and Lawson 1992). The reform of the education sector in New Zealand started with the focus of achieving efficiency and increasing competition. In order to compete, educational institutions need to differentiate themselves from othe...

Consumer perceptions of their sex role portrayals in advertising have been investigated in the United States since the early 1970s. However, few studies have attempted to extend this research into cross-cultural settings. This study compares the perceptions of American and New Zealand business students concerning their role portrayals in advertisin...

This study attempts to extend the research on perceptions of role portrayals in advertising to a cross-cultural setting. The instrument used was identical to the one used by Lundstrom and Sciglimpaglia in their landmark 1977 Journal of Marketing study. The respondents used were business students from comparable universities in the United States, Ja...

This study examines the attitudes of Chinese managers, enrolled in an MBA program, toward careers in sales and marketing. These managers most preferred international sales as a career followed, respectively, by marketing management, finance, and marketing consulting. Consumer product sales and industrial sales were viewed as being much less attract...

This study examines the characteristics of 1000 Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of America's top corporations, in order to provide factual information marketing educators may disseminate to students considering careers in marketing. Six research questions related to CEO career path, promotion speed, salary, educational level, and educational releva...

This volume includes the full proceedings from the 1998 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Annual Conference held in Norfolk, Virginia. The research and presentations offered in this volume cover many aspects of marketing science including marketing strategy, consumer behaviour, entrepreneurial marketing, international marketing, advertising, marke...

Limited attention has been devoted to the financial evaluation of sales training programs. In response to this shortcoming, this research proposes a sales training evaluation framework that integrates economic utility theory with Kirkpatrick's (1959a, 1959b, 1960a, 1960b) four-level training evaluation model. The proposed utility theory framework i...

For a variety of reasons, corporations have turned their attention to diversifying the sales force. If firms are to attract racial minorities, sales recruiters must be aware of differences in how African-American students perceive sales careers. This study evaluated 488 African-American and Caucasian business students in terms of their appeal for a...

Video enhanced sales training (VET) is being adopted by a substantial number of firms. The reported advantages of video enhanced programs are lower costs and results-oriented training. The major characteristics and applications of this sales training technology are presented. The application of video enhanced training at Motorola Inc. is described....

This study examines the current usefulness of academic research and the need for additional research in 34 sales training subareas. Overall, 77% of responding sales training executives rated academic publications as being useful. They also stated that additional research in the sales training areas of determining effectiveness, design and administr...

Professional certification is a process that was initiated in order to improve the image and professionalism of both salespersons and sales managers. Sales personnel currently have two national certification programs from which to select. To assist managers, this article examines the benefits of certification programs, investigates existing certifi...

This paper extends the growing body of research in the area of sales training evaluation by proposing a three-stage model that allows sales managers to determine: (1) training needs for salespersons; (2) training impact on trainees; and (3) training impact on the firm. When all three assessment stages are utilized to plan and evaluate sales trainin...

In the 1960s, Burlington Industries was the largest textile firm in the world, and in 1973 the U. S. textile industry employed more than 1 million workers. Dynamic change came to the textile industry beginning in the 1960s, and in 2001 Burlington Industries filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. This case traces the dynamics of the market and the actions...

The authors report a content analysis that assessed gender role portrayals in advertisements from highest circulation Japanese magazines. They found that, although some indigenous gender stereotyping was evident, several traits previously associated with Japanese women (devoted, obliging, rattle-brained, superstitious, thorough) were associated wit...

An experiment using a probability sample of 263 U.S. consumers was conducted to document the psychometric effects of translation error on a semantic differential scale. The results demonstrate that data distributions and response styles are significantly altered as a result of mistranslation (inequivalence). Unexpectedly, results show attenuation o...

Sales training practices were examined in the Malaysian banking industry. Banking sales personnel completed 292 surveys out of 750 distributed, yielding a response rate of 38.7%. Commercial banks in Malaysia followed a joint-trainer approach and utilized evaluators from middle and upper management positions to assess sales training program. Trainin...

Subjects rated the (dis)similarity of pair-wise combinations of female and male salesperson realtors. The selected realtors represent the range of appearance features, in terms of physical traits, grooming, and adornment. Subject responses were analysed using multidimensional scaling (MDS) to generate male and female perceptual maps, with 19 female...

Purpose The purpose of this article is to improve the sales training process by gaining a deeper understanding of the first two levels – reaction and learning. Design/methodology/approach A total of 79 sales supervisors of a US firm operating in Egypt participated in the study. They evaluated level 1 (reaction) by rating the design and operation o...

In order to provide the highest quality services at lower costs, global firms have shifted their customer service functions offshore. Despite the apparent advantages of offshoring services, customers tend to object to the practice based on concerns about private/personal information being sent overseas. Additionally, executing service exchanges wit...

This paper seeks to understand (1) how chairs evaluate and motivate faculty performance and (2) how these practices challenge marketing chairs. One hundred nine chairs, a 24 percent sample response rate, completed a Web survey that addressed five research questions. First, teaching and research performance importance levels differed based on instit...

Purpose: Sales literature has traditionally considered technology adoption from acceptance and diffusion perspectives. This article examines the impact of customer relationship management (CRM) technology on business-to-business (B2B) sales professionals' ability to collaborate with internal stakeholders and also assesses the relationship between C...

This paper seeks to understand (1) how chairs evaluate and motivate faculty performance and (2) how these practices challenge marketing chairs. One hundred nine chairs, a 24 percent sample response rate, completed a Web survey that addressed five research questions. First, teaching and research performance importance levels differed based on instit...

This paper proposes a three dichotomies model that encompasses the performance of marketing faculty members in the areas of teaching, research, and service. First, each area is discussed in regard to marketing faculty member performance. Second, employing acceptable/unacceptable performance levels for teaching, research, and service, a 2 × 2 × 2 ma...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to determine if consumers exhibit a country of service origin preference and to understand what service quality attributes consumers perceive to be most important when receiving services that originate from abroad. Design/methodology/approach Respondents rated their perception of service quality, measured throu...

Given the prevalence of using celebrity endorsers as part of restaurants’ merchandising promotions (and the potential complications), this study examined the following preferences of a consumer panel of 278 respondents: (1) their favorite chain restaurant, (2) a celebrity who would be an effective endorser for the chain, and (3) a primary reason fo...

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to determine if consumers exhibit a country-of-service-origin preference and to understand what service quality attributes consumers perceive to be most important when receiving services that originate from abroad. Design Methodology: Respondents rated their perception of service quality, measured through an...

This paper seeks to understand (1) how chairs evaluate and motivate faculty performance and (2) how these practices challenge marketing chairs. One hundred nine chairs, a 24 percent sample response rate, completed a Web survey that addressed five research questions. First, teaching and research performance importance levels differed based on instit...

Hotel companies could include marketing messages with their e-mail signature files (.sig files), but this study found that fewer than half of 392 hotels did so. Many e-mail signature files simply contained the title and contact information of the responding party, often with a privacy statement. Since the prospective customer has contacted the hote...

This study employed a series of in-depth interviews, supplemented by a literature review, to identify six elements that frame the offshore service ethnocentrism construct: security concerns, home country bias, animosity towards firms that offshore, enmity toward overseas service providers, communication/anxiety concerns, and support for legislation...

The Journal of Business-to-Business Marketing (JBBM) has been in existence for thirteen years. This article reflects upon the original article, written by Lichetenthal, Mummalaneni, and Wilson, that conducts a self-examination of the journal's first years of operation. In response, we raise questions about the original article, take an alternative...

This study proposes a framework that identifies and explains the relationships of input, mediating, and output variables for global sales training programs. Input or antecedent variables include high-quality: determination of sales training needs, objective setting, designing/implementing the training program, and evaluating training outcomes. The...

Promotional clutter makes it extremely difficult for hospitality firms to capture the attention of prospective buyers with sales messages. One way firms attempt to penetrate clutter is by utilizing an effective celebrity endorser. When the proper celebrity endorser is selected to represent a firm, sales and brand image can be significantly bolstere...

In “Business-to-Business Marketing Textbooks: A Comparative Review,” the authors provide a detailed analysis of 16 English language and 23 other than English Business-to-business textbooks by looking at the approach, readability level, number of illustrations, etc. Our response raises questions and issues distinct from the authors in an effort to f...

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to address the discrepancy between research that supports the service failure recovery and that which does not by examining customer satisfaction in the event of a service failure empirically. Design/methodology/approach – The objective of the study was achieved by conducting role‐play experiments on undergra...

The purpose of this commentary is to examine the authors' recommendations, raise questions and concerns, and extend the authors' experiences by suggesting ways graduate B2B educators at both large and small programs can benefit from the authors' recommendations and their considerable expertise in teaching business marketing.

Data from a cross-section of 438 Russian consumers were collected and analyzed to evaluate consumer preference for ten product types—five consumables and five durables. Results indicate that when Russian consumers consider purchasing a consumable product, consumer ethnocentrism levels and product characteristics reinforce each other, resulting in a...

This research assesses the impact of consumer regional affiliation, within a single country, on relationships among various marketing constructs. Secondary qualitative and quantitative data support the premise that decision-making models differ across regional societies in Russia. Primary data were collected from three Russian regions and then empl...

This study compares the importance undergraduate business students place on five career attributes: career position, entry-level salary, length of workweek, time to management, and freedom to make choices at work. Five hypotheses were tested on 220 and 152 student respondents, respectively, at two medium-sized universities, located in the southeast...

Data from a cross-section of 438 Russian consumers were collected and analyzed to evaluate consumer preference for ten product types—five consumables and five durables. Results indicate that when Russian consumers consider purchasing a consumable product, consumer ethnocentrism levels and product characteristics reinforce each other, resulting in a...

Firms around the globe are rushing to invest in sales force technology or sales force automation (SFA). SFA appears to mean different things to different people. For example, management and sales personnel view the need for, application of, and advantages of SFA quite distinctly. As a result of technology, this special issue examines many areas of...

Sales force automation (SFA) occurs when firms adopt technology to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of sales-related activities. Research has shown, however, that 55–75% of SFA projects fail. This paper first identifies and explains impediments that exist in three SFA areas: planning, communication, and evaluation. The high failure rate of...

The Singaporean hotel industry is examined, with particular emphasis on me differences between global and local sales force training. Empirical evidence indicates that there is a wide divergence between global and local practices. It appears that global firms perceive that sales training leads to greater sales force performance and view sales train...

This article proposes a framework that industrial marketing managers can utilize to improve their understanding of and ability to select industrial products for export to attractive global markets. The framework is arrayed along two axes: export products and existing global markets. As a result of the suggested process, a 2×2 model emerges that pro...

Hospitality corporations continually seek to implement strategies that enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty. One potential strategy that contributes to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty is training both associates and managers in techniques to recognize guests' faces and names. Psychological research has shown how face recognition an...

This study examines managerial perceptions of the impact sales training has on sales force performance among 46 multinational and 59 national firms in Malaysia. The results demonstrate that, unlike their national counterparts, multinational firm sales managers perceived greater improvement in all five hypothesized measures of performance: company i...

This research examines the structure of the national identity (NATID) scale in Russia. On the basis of confirmatory factor analysis results, the authors recommend modifications to strengthen the construct's application. By employing multi-group analysis, the authors assess the relationships between each NATID scale component (national heritage, cul...

Sales training practices of international and domestic retailers are contrasted in the context of the internationalizing retail environment of Singapore. An empirical evaluation identifies significant differences between domestic and international retailers with respect to the use of various sales training techniques, particularly: the formality of...

Health Marketing Quarterly (HMQ) is one of the leading journals in its field and has been published since 1983. This article reports the findings of a content analysis ofHMQover a period of more than a decade. The study identifies most frequent authors and institutional affiliation of contributors, the primary subject of articles, methodology utili...

This study examines educational preparation, attitudes toward sales career and motivation to work, and career intent by business students in the Philippines. First, 26% of students, the majority of which were concentrating in other business disciplines, intended to work in an area of marketing or sales. Second, students that concentrated in marketi...

US-based multinational hotel corporations experience a high level of failure among expatriate managers. Research suggests that expatriate success is highly correlated with both technical competence and adaptability. While there are numerous ways to measure an expatriate candidate's technical competence, evaluating a nominee's ability to adapt is mo...

Cet article présente la politique de ressources humaines et la culture d'une entreprise comme deux éléments importants à considérer lors de l'élaboration d'une stratégie supply chain. Il montre aussi qu'une entreprise doit considérer l'interaction entre sa politique ressources humaines (relation ou transaction), et sa stratégie logistique (relation...

This study examines initial high-tech sales training practices of firms in Malaysia. A review of initial sales training programs reveals that firms that engage in high-tech sales training practices report significantly greater levels of needs determination, objective setting, instructional methods, and training program content than their low-tech c...

This study examines initial high-tech sales training practices of firms in Malaysia. A review of initial sales training programs reveals that firms that engage in high-tech sales training practices report significantly greater levels of needs determination, objective setting, instructional methods, and training program content than their low-tech c...

Practitioners and researchers acknowledge the importance of sales training; however, limited attention is devoted to empirical sales training evaluation practices. This article addresses four major sources of sales training evaluation difficulties: (1) managerial perceptions; (2) evaluation restrictions; (3) methodological problems; and (4) lack of...

As firms attempt to broaden the racial diversity of their corporate sales force through recruiting activities, the perceptions of sales careers held by college recruits is an important issue. Although both black and white college students rate sales careers as being less appealing, previous research suggests that students differ in how they reach t...

Afirm's corporate culture and human resource management (HRM) policies have an important impact upon the success of that organization's supply chain management strategy. A model that examines the relationship between organizational culture, HRM policies, and the firm's transaction/relationship orientation toward its employees and the impact of thes...

This study proposes a model that explains the ethical behavior of automobile salespeople in terms of their ethical perception, legal perception, method of compensation (commission-based or salary-based), age, and education. The model is estimated by using five scenarios that involve ethical issues commonly found in the automobile industry and respo...

The use of appropriate color in international business-to-business advertisements can profoundly impact the success of an advertised product. This study compares the usage of colors in business advertisements in France, the United States, and Venezuela. The findings conclude that Venezuelan ads use significantly more red, orange, and green colors,...

This study examines the sales selection and sales training practices of 51 global and domestic firms in Shanghai, China and 74 global and domestic companies in the Eastern Euro-pean country of Slovakia. Respondents from both groups reported similar managerial practices for selecting salespersons while greater differences were evident in the sales t...