Steven P. Brown

University of Houston | U of H, UH · Department of Marketing & Entrepreneurship

Previous research has made a distinction between “open” and “closed” salesperson influence tactics (Spiro and Perreault 1979; Weitz 1981). Open tactics are conceptualized as straightforward, legitimate and above-board, whereas closed tactics are characterized as manipulative, illicit and containing an ulterior motive. This paper posits that the sam...

An exploratory investigation of selected voice characteristics of 21 direct salespeople revealed that rate of speaking, average pause duration, and fundamental frequency contour were significantly related to a measure of output sales performance. Although a sample of 26 housewives (who constituted the target market for the product being sold) was a...

The authors served as Special Issue Guest Editors for this issue of JPSSM. In this introduction to the Special Issue, they discuss how the issue was conceived and produced, and express their gratitude to the many colleagues who worked to make the issue a success.

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...

The authors discuss the need to adapt research in three substantively related but paradigmatically diverse research domains (salesperson motivation, control systems, and compensation) in light of the evolving selling environment. A key objective is to suggest the desirability of integrating these literatures, which, ultimately, all seek to inform m...

This article considers informal control mechanisms based on organizational climate as a means of guiding salespeople's efforts toward organizational priorities. It examines the relationship between formal control systems and the informal control function inherent in the organizational climate. It focuses on the least investigated of these: how orga...

Customer satisfaction constitutes the conceptual centerpiece of marketing thought and practice. Research on customer satisfaction is briefly reviewed from three distinct perspectives: the philosophical, the psychological, and the managerial. From the philosophical perspective, customer satisfaction is seen as the fundamental objective and purpose o...

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...

Using an assimilation and contrast framework, the authors assess the buffering and amplifying effects of relationship commitment on organizational buyers' intentions to switch suppliers when a relationship is strained by the incumbent's own misbehavior. The results of three studies show that both calculative and affective commitment buffer incumben...

The authors report a meta-analysis of relationships linking employee job satisfaction to customer satisfaction and perceived service quality in studies that correlate employee data with customer data. Overall, both relationships are positive and statistically and substantively significant. Moderator analyses show that service industry characteristi...

The authors review issues related to the application of structural equation modeling (SEM) in marketing. The discussion begins by considering issues related to the process of applying SEM in empirical research, including model specification, identification, estimation, evaluation, and respecification, and reporting of results. In addition to these...

The reported research examines the moderating effects of role overload on the antecedents and consequences of self-efficacy and personal goal level in a longitudinal study conducted in an industrial selling context. The results indicate that role overload moderates the antecedent effect of perceived organizational resources on self-efficacy beliefs...

The authors examined the moderating effects of coping tactics on the relationship between negative emotion and work performance. Findings indicate an adverse effect of emotion on performance; however, this effect is moderated by coping tactics. Venting (expressing one's negative feelings to others) amplified the adverse effects of negative emotion....

This research reports an investigation of the use of standardized regression (beta) coefficients in meta-analyses that use correlation coefficients as the effect-size metric. The investigation consisted of analyzing more than 1,700 corresponding beta coefficients and correlation coefficients harvested from published studies. Results indicate that,...

Research in relationship marketing has documented the importance of social relationships between buyers and sellers. However, the extent to which social relationships protect incumbent suppliers from new competitors and their marketing programs is still unresolved. Further, little research has examined possible negative consequences of such social...

The degree of leverage possessed by manufacturers who outsource their customer service function to channel partners over customer satisfaction and loyalty is assessed empirically. Data provided by independent service representatives are linked with data from their customers. Results indicate that a manufacturer's support of its representatives incr...

The authors investigated the motivational effects of goal conflict in a complex goal performance setting. Goal conflict was found to have an indirect influence on performance through its relationship with goal commitment. Goal conflict was negatively associated with goal commitment when controlling for the other antecedents, including expectancy, s...

The authors assessed previously unexplored processes by which information seeking and self-efficacy contribute to self-regulatory effectiveness in industrial selling. They assessed the synergistic interaction of inquiry and monitoring with respect to role clarity and tested whether this interaction was further moderated by self-efficacy. Results in...

This study replicates, integrates, and extends prior research on the dispositional, contextual, and cognitive antecedents of feedback-seeking behavior. Regression analysis was used to analyze data collected from a sample of salespeople (N = 310) from 2 Fortune 500 companies. The study hypotheses were supported with the following results. First, the...

This study replicates, integrates, and extends prior research on the dispositional, contextual, and cognitive antecedents of feedback-seeking behavior. Regression analysis was used to analyze data collected from a sample of salespeople (N = 310) from 2 Fortune 500 companies. The study hypotheses were supported with the following results. First, the...

The authors investigated the influence of goal orientation on sales performance in a longitudinal field study with salespeople. As hypothesized, a learning goal orientation had a positive relationship with sales performance. This relationship was fully mediated by 3 self-regulation tactics: goal setting, effort, and planning. In contrast, a perform...

The authors assess the effects of trait competitiveness and competitive psychological climate on self-set goal levels and sales performance. The results indicate an interaction between trait competitiveness and competitive psychological climate, such that (1) salespeople who are high in trait competitiveness set higher goals when they perceive the...

The authors assess the effects of trait competitiveness and competitive psychological climate on self-set goal levels and sales performance. The results indicate an interaction between trait competitiveness and competitive psychological climate, such that (1) salespeople who are high in trait competitiveness set higher goals when they perceive the...

The authors conduct meta-analyses of relationships involving positive and negative ad-evoked feelings to determine (1) whether the effects of positive and negative feelings on advertising responses are symmetrical or asymmetrical and bipolar or bidimensional; (2) whether study design characteristics influence the strength of effects of positive and...

The authors conduct meta-analyses of relationships involving positive and negative ad-evoked feelings to determine (1) whether the effects of positive and negative feelings on advertising responses are symmetrical or asymmetrical and bipolar or bidimensional; (2) whether study design characteristics influence the strength of effects of positive and...

The authors investigate the motivational effects of emotions in a sales force context. The personal stakes that salespeople have in a goal situation triggered anticipation of emotions that result from attaining or failing to attain their performance goal. Positive anticipatory emotions were positively related to volitions and mediated the relations...

The authors investigate the motivational effects of emotions in a sales force context. The personal stakes that salespeople have in a goal situation triggered anticipation of emotions that result from attaining or failing to attain their performance goal. Positive anticipatory emotions were positively related to volitions and mediated the relations...

This study investigated the process by which employee perceptions of the organizational environment are related to job involvement, effort, and performance. The researchers developed an operational definition of psychological climate that was based on how employees perceive aspects of the organizational environment and interpret them in relation to...

The author develops a theoretical framework relating job involvement to its antecedents. correlates, and consequences and reports meta-analyses of 51 pairwise relationships involving job involvement. Results of the meta-analyses support research suggesting that job involvement is influenced by personality and situational variables. Job involvement...

Questions regarding what motivates people to perform their best and feel good about their jobs are of enduring interest to managers and researchers. Understanding the motives that impel top performance and make work satisfying can facilitate superior organisational performance and development of a healthy and productive organisational culture. Deve...

A conceptual model of the relationships among buyers’ perceptions of and attitudes toward elements of a vendor company’s marketing mix is developed and tested, and the moderating effects of insupplier/outsupplier status are assessed. Attitude centrality and self-perception theories predict that buyer perceptions of and attitudes toward the company,...

The authors address a fundamental gap in understanding how sales performance and job satisfaction are determined in an investigation of the sales force of a direct-selling organization. Results indicate a direct positive effect of work-related effort on job satisfaction that is not mediated by sales performance. This is inconsistent with commonly a...

The authors address a fundamental gap in understanding how sales performance and job satisfaction are determined in an investigation of the sales force of a direct-selling organization. Results indicate a direct positive effect of work-related effort on job satisfaction that is not mediated by sales performance. This is inconsistent with commonly a...

A psychological success model of the relationships between sales performance and job attitudes is developed and tested. The model posits that feelings of success mediate the relationship between work performance and job satisfaction. Previous research based on purely cognitive theoretical models has posited a direct relationship between performance...

A three-phase quantitative investigation of relationships involving salesperson job satisfaction was undertaken. First, the strength, valence, and consistency of pairwise relationships were assessed by means of a meta-analysis. Second, methodological characteristics coded as moderator variables were used to account for variability in study effects....

A three-phase quantitative investigation of relationships involving salesperson job satisfaction was undertaken. First, the strength, valence, and consistency of pairwise relationships were assessed by means of a meta-analysis. Second, methodological characteristics coded as moderator variables were used to account for variability in study effects....

A meta-analysis of pairwise relationships involving attitude toward the ad was conducted. Analyses of correlations across studies are first analyzed and reported. Because significant variance across studies was found, moderator analyses were conducted to account for interstudy variance. The results suggest a number of methodological variables that...

Results of a controlled experiment on the role of brand awareness in the consumer choice process showed that brand awareness was a dominant choice heuristic among awareness-group subjects. Subjects with no brand awareness tended to sample more brands and selected the high-quality brand on the final choice significantly more often than those with br...