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A Cross-Cultural Investigation of the Stereotype for Salespeople: Professionalizing the Profession
Abstract and Figures
The purpose of this research is to investigate the image of salespeople and of the selling function as perceived by business students across cultures. Of the several empirical investigations that exist in the sales literature, most are based on a single-country sample. This study extends previous knowledge on single-country perception of salespeople by conducting a quantitative survey of business students in Cameroon, France, Japan, Mexico, and the United States. Substantial differences and similarities are found across countries on salesperson’s image, feelings in the presence of a salesperson, as well as the
perception of a career in sales. They all appear to be influenced by cultural values. Several practical strategic implications are suggested, including examining cultural values to identify the origin of negative images, careful gatekeeping to promote professional positions, and supporting mobility of both students and faculty. Finally, limitations to the findings are presented with suggested future research directions.
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... Prior research on stereotypes in the sales function, has examined the impact of salesperson stereotypes on customers (e.g., Babin et al., 1995;Reingen & Kernan, 1993), or the impact of customer stereotypes on salespeople (e.g., Arndt et al. 2019;Cervellon et al., 2019). Additionally, evidence suggests that salesperson stereotypes affect business students' perceptions about a career in sales, across various cultures (Fournier et al., 2014). In contrast, our study focuses on the threat of being stereotyped as a salesperson, and how this threat generates sales anxiety and reduces organizational commitment. ...
... Prior stereotyping research on sales has focused on how first impressions impact customers and salespeople (Arndt et al., 2019;Babin et al., 1995;Cervellon et al., 2019;Reingen & Kernan, 1993;), and how salesperson stereotypes influence students pursuing a sales career (Fournier et al., 2014). By contrast, this study focuses on how the threat of being stereotyped as a salesperson generates sales anxiety and reduces organizational commitment. ...
Salespeople are aware that many customers have negatively stereotyped the sales profession. Consequently, salespeople may become defensive and fearful about how customers perceive them. This phenomenon is called ‘stereotype threat.’ Stereotype threat from customers may be triggered by many stimuli, such as verbal or nonverbal behavior from the focal group (i.e., customers), comments from coworkers, or information from the media. We argue that similarity with customers and sales managers should reduce stereotype threat. Using a survey of professional salespeople, the results show that salespeople are less likely to experience stereotype threats when they perceive themselves to be similar to their managers, but contrary to expectations, not when they feel similar to customers. The results also show that stereotype threat increases anxiety, which can reduce organizational commitment. However, help-focused coping from others in the sales organization will help salespeople cope with their anxiety. The implications of this research will help sales managers reduce stereotype threat and help salespeople cope with this phenomenon.
... Similar suggestions exist for professionals in sales and marketing. Most studies in this area have focused on perceptions of the typical "salesperson" and paint a view of salespeople as forceful, persistent, pushy, fast-talking, and (potentially) knowledgeable (Fournier et al., 2014;Lee et al., 2007). Salespeople and marketers have also been negatively associated with lying and deception (e.g., "marketers are good liars") (Fournier et al., 2014). ...
... Most studies in this area have focused on perceptions of the typical "salesperson" and paint a view of salespeople as forceful, persistent, pushy, fast-talking, and (potentially) knowledgeable (Fournier et al., 2014;Lee et al., 2007). Salespeople and marketers have also been negatively associated with lying and deception (e.g., "marketers are good liars") (Fournier et al., 2014). The marketing prototype (traits necessary to be a successful marketer) has also sometimes included "female" characteristics (Golda, 2018) (versus the masculine association with finance and accounting; Von Hippel et al., 2015). ...
This paper examines perceptual profiles of Chief Information Officers (CIO) relative to other members of the Top Management Team (TMT). The profile of CIOs reveals that they are perceived as less authoritative and less socially adept, important traits for strategic leadership. CIOs are also perceived to have less in common with successful business leaders than either CFOs or CMOs. These findings highlight important differences in the way that CIOs are perceived relative to their top management team colleagues and shed light on a possible reason for some of the challenges that CIOs frequently face in organizations.
... In 1958, a survey found that the most common words used to describe sales were greed, selfishness, aggressiveness, money, fast-talking, appearance and high pressure, suggesting that sales work had a poor image (Swenson et al., 1993). Since then, the stereotypical understanding of what it means to be a salesperson has changed little (Fournier et al., 2014;Swenson et al., 1993). Popular culture, movies such as The Death of a Salesman and caricatured images of insurance salespeople as aggressive and devious have continued to fuel this stereotypical discourse (Darr, 2006). ...
This paper examines how professionals position themselves and negotiate their identity in the intersection of professional work and sales work in the context of two professional service firms. We propose the concept of camouflaging as identity work to illustrate how professionals (re)construct their identity and position themselves as professionals by integrating and blurring the lines between the various discourses of professionalism and sales in a way that makes sales work appear as a natural part of their professional work and identity. We identify four ways in which professionals position themselves in relation to sales work, namely, as relationship builders, trustworthy partners, problem solvers and helpers. The present paper contributes to 1) the literature on professional identity by emphasizing the importance of work for professional identity construction, 2) previous studies of identity tensions by illustrating camouflaging as a way to navigate and negotiate various discourses and 3) the literature on identity work by showing how a variety of available social identities propels identity work in unexpected ways.
... In the past decades, the majority of literature on personal selling and its career appeal largely consists of research among U.S. and U.K. students (Fournier et al., 2014). Students outside the Anglosphere were often ignored (Ballestra et al., 2017). ...
The sales profession has suffered from negative perception and misconception. Despite a huge opportunity in this industry, several reasons have been highlighted as deterrents to job applicants from applying for a career in sales including the unethical practices, low prestige, and uncertainty of the job. This study examines the influence of job characteristics and feelings on intention to pursue a sales career among undergraduate and postgraduate students. A cross-sectional study was conducted with 251 questionnaires analyzed using Partial-Least Square-Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The findings suggest that job characteristics and feelings have a favorable impact on intention. Job characteristics, on the other hand, influence feelings, and feelings mediate the relationship between job characteristics and intention. This study contributes to the body of knowledge by examining feelings as one of the constructs influencing sales career intention, and provides several implications to employers and business instructors to develop effective strategies to spark student interest in sales-related careers.
... In order to know student perceptions of salespeople and a sales career in a cross-cultural study, (Barat and Spillan, 2009) investigated that students' negative perceptions regarding sales career is consistent in the Unites States and two Latin American nations. Fournier et al. (2014) argued that poor image of selling function in mind of general public stops talented sales students from choosing sales career. In the same line, Karakaya et al. (2011) also concluded that sales profession is not considered as a prestigious one and found negative perceptions among students of United States, Switzerland and Turkey. ...
The continuous increase in demand of professionally trained sales force provoked marketing experts to find out the ways through which this demand can be met. This paper articulates and empirically validates through an experimental research design that sales competition at campus is one way to create interest among students for the pursuit of this demand driven profession. The controlled and experimental group are formed by using randomized trial method to remove researcher bias. The results highlight that sales competition has significant impact in changing students’ negative perception about sales profession. The research is useful for researchers, sales managers, academics, trainers, policy makers, educationists for rational decision making.
... Much of the extant literature for sales educators is concerned with the drivers of student interest in a sales career (Cummins et al., 2013;Fournier et al., 2014). The Intent to Pursue a Sales Career (ITPSC) instrument developed by Peltier et al. (2014) is one of the few sales-specific instruments designed to better understand student perceptions of sales careers. ...
This research is one of the first Intent to Pursue a Sales Career (ITPSC) studies to link intent to actual student behavior. In addition, this study systematically revisits the validity and reliability of the ITPSC-scale and its associated antecedents. Based on partial least square analysis, we find support for the validity and reliability of the four-item ITPSC-scale, but notice room for improvement on the ITPSC-Ethics and ITPSC-Knowledge antecedents. We extend prior work by investigating how ITPSC performs differently for women, students with a sales role model, and students who are more advanced in their academic career. We also observe differences in the antecedent structure compared with earlier work. Of the ITPSC-antecedents, the Perceptions of the Sales Profession construct dominates when it comes to predicting intent to pursue a sales career, something that calls into question the recent grounding of the ITPSC in the Theory of Planned Behavior.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the distinct effects of aggressive and constructive humor on perceptions of Machiavellianism, relationship quality and willingness-to-switch (WTS).
Design/methodology/approach
The empirical analysis includes a first replication study with 138 business-to-business buyers and a second study with 175 business-to-business buyers that aims to test the theoretical model. The Process macro is used to test the study’s hypotheses.
Findings
Results indicate that aggressive and constructive humor types have distinct effects on relationship quality and subsequent buyers’ WTS. Specifically, and contrary to constructive humor, aggressive humor from sellers increases buyers’ perceptions of Machiavellianism, which reveals detrimental to relationship quality and subsequently increases buyers’ WTS.
Research limitations/implications
Although the results about the effects of humor on relationship quality were obtained from actual buyers and consistent across the two studies, they were obtained from two cross-sectional designs, which limits the causality of the effects being observed.
Practical implications
Sellers may benefit from getting deep understanding of how usage humor may impact their relationship with buyers. In particular, this research makes clear for sellers that as long as the type of humor that they use when dealing with a buyer is constructive, no negative outcome might emerge. However, if the humor is aggressive, then the stereotype of Machiavellianism might emerge, leading to lower relationship quality and an increase in WTS from the buyer.
Originality/value
While research on humor as a communication technique for sellers has increased lately, to the best of the authors’ knowledge this research is the first to examine the effects of the distinct types of aggressive and constructive humor and to provide empirical evidence for the different effects of these two types of humor. This research also contributes to the literature on stereotypes associated with sellers, by presenting insights into how the negative stereotype of Machiavellianism is prompted by the use of aggressive humor.
Purpose
Salespeople’s unethical behaviors have been the subject of extensive academic research and practitioner outcry. High pressure, complex selling environments and extant methods of monitoring, control and compensation of salespeople have been found to lead to short-term sales behaviors, such as lying, that are detrimental to both customers and firms in the long run. Furthermore, work and family pressures can lead to unethical sales behaviors. However, research on the impact of the social environment on unethical behaviors in sales is scant. This study aims to examine the impact of social factors (e.g. supervisor support and family work support) on salespeople’s unethical behaviors as a social exchange process in an emerging market context where work and family pressures are high. Specifically, the mediating role of emotional and cognitive engagement on the relationship between social support and unethical behaviors is investigated.
Design/methodology/approach
An empirical study was conducted to examine the relationship between social support (family work support and supervisor support), engagement (emotional and cognitive) and unethical behaviors. Survey data were collected from 496 salespeople from multiple industries in India, and partial least squares structural equation modeling was used to test the hypothesized relationships. In addition, post hoc qualitative interviews were conducted with 15 salespeople to corroborate the findings.
Findings
Supervisor support is positively related to emotional and cognitive engagement and negatively related to unethical behaviors. Contrary to our hypothesis, family work support is positively related to unethical behaviors. However, this relationship becomes negative when the salesperson is emotionally and cognitively engaged with their work.
Research limitations/implications
This research enhances the understanding of the antecedents of unethical behaviors in sales. Supervisor support, emotional engagement and cognitive engagement reduce unethical behaviors. However, family work support increases unethical behaviors. The relationship between social support (supervisor and family work) and unethical behaviors is mediated by emotional and cognitive engagement. These findings offer sales managers dealing with increasing work and family pressures and the blurring of personal and professional life a way to motivate their sales force to act in a manner that benefits customers and the firm in the long run.
Practical implications
The findings offer insights on how sales managers and organizations can help design supportive work environments for their salespeople to help reduce unethical behaviors. The findings also highlight the importance of understanding salesperson family values during the hiring process and keeping salespeople engaged, especially while they work from home, are isolated from their work environment and spend more working hours at home with family members.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the current research is the first to investigate the impact of family work support on unethical behaviors. This is timely and valuable as the current COVID-19 pandemic has increased the number of salespeople working from home, reduced sales performance and increased anxiety due to economic uncertainty, all of which could encourage unethical sales behaviors. This paper is also the first to investigate the mediating role of engagement on the effects of social support on unethical behaviors.
This research contributes to the growing literature on inclusive pedagogy toward creating a psychologically safe environment for learning. The authors build on the prior multi-disciplinary literature suggesting that stereotype threat exists in assessment tasks. An instrument is designed and implemented to investigate whether the presence of gendered demographic data in a marketing assessment task will trigger stereotype threat, and in turn, affect the performance of female-identifying students. While exploratory in nature, the findings suggest that gendered data used for assessment purposes may negatively impact the performance of both female- and male-identifying marketing students, highlighting the importance of continuing conversations about biases in traditional marketing pedagogy.
This research addresses a challenge within cross-national surveys of salespeople and sales managers: systematic differences between respondents from different countries in their interpretation of response categories associated with survey items measuring a construct of interest. As a result of these discrepancies in interpretation, analyses based on uncorrected survey responses may yield misleading results. We mathematically demonstrate the issue and then, drawing upon the literature in education and political science, demonstrate a potential solution, "anchoring vignettes," which possesses substantial appeal in contexts where a researcher is interested in comparing construct means across contexts where intergroup differences would otherwise make such comparisons problematic. We use the proposed method on data from a cross-national survey of 1,051 salespeople and 163 sales managers across three countries (Brazil, Japan, and the United Kingdom) to evaluate self-assessments and upward-assessments of a sales manager's drive. Our findings highlight the importance of correcting for systematic differences in survey responses driven by cross-national differences, especially when the goal is to compare construct means. Further, we demonstrate the value of anchoring vignettes concerning several analytical goals relevant to academics and practitioners.
Students' desire and intention to pursue a career in sales continue to lag behind industry demand for sales professionals. This article develops and validates a reliable and parsimonious scale for measuring and predicting student intention to pursue a selling career. The instrument advances previous scales in three ways. The instrument is generalizable across academic settings and is shown to be sensitive to differences across varied course coverage and learning activities. The instrument is parsimonious and offers a high reliability coefficient. Finally, the instrument is validated both before and after exposure to a sales module, thus capturing perceptual and attitudinal changes as students become more familiar with this career option.
Sales recruiters have been paying their attention to diversifying their sales force. In order to attract students from diverse ethnic backgrounds, companies must be aware of their preferences and perception of different sales and sales-related careers. This paper presents the results of a survey conducted to assess the influence of ethnicity on students' preferences and per-ceptions to sales career. To address the paucity of research undertaken in the Asia-Pacific region, as compared to Western countries, data were collected in Malaysia. Survey findings reveal that ethnicity of students generally does not influence on sales ca-reer preferences. The descriptors used by students to describe sales career are discussed. Students' preferences for various occupations were also evaluated. Further, the implications of the survey are discussed.
This article focuses on managing motivated engineers means having to tell them it is time to stop tinkering with one design and move on to the next. Managing means knowing when to say what, as after all, the equipment will never meet the engineers’ exacting specifications. Volunteers sometimes travel to a location to figure out how a piece of equipment might be used. Oftentimes, however, the budget doesn't allow for overseas trips. Committees meet monthly, and during the interim, committee members experiment alone or in groups with parts of a project. Management is best accomplished when a project with a particular need is attached to a competent volunteer who has an interest in that need. Projects sound easy in execution: highly trained engineers and food scientists—many with an illustrious career are worth of experience to contribute—volunteer to design fairly straightforward tools. But sometimes the simplest tools are the most difficult to design.
Engaging students and motivating them to learn is a continuous challenge for university faculty. This paper discusses the introduction of competition into the classroom in conjunction with experiential role-play exercises as an effective pedagogical tool for teaching selling skills. Role-play sales competition combines three teaching methods and solves several logistical issues related to the use of role-play exercises. These methods are reviewed in the context of sales education and followed by a discussion of the resources and implementation required.
The revolutionary study of how the place where we grew up constrains the way we think, feel, and act, updated for today's new realities
The world is a more dangerously divided place today than it was at the end of the Cold War. This despite the spread of free trade and the advent of digital technologies that afford a degree of global connectivity undreamed of by science fiction writers fifty years ago. What is it that continues to drive people apart when cooperation is so clearly in everyone's interest? Are we as a species doomed to perpetual misunderstanding and conflict? Find out in Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind.
A veritable atlas of cultural values, it is based on cross-cultural research conducted in seventy countries for more than thirty years. At the same time, it describes a revolutionary theory of cultural relativism and its applications in a range of professions. Fully updated and rewritten for the twenty-first century, this edition:
Reveals the unexamined rules by which people in different cultures think, feel, and act in business, family, schools, and political organizations
Explores how national cultures differ in the key areas of inequality, collectivism versus individualism, assertiveness versus modesty, tolerance for ambiguity, and deferment of gratification
Explains how organizational cultures differ from national cultures, and how they can--sometimes--be managed
Explains culture shock, ethnocentrism, stereotyping, differences in language and humor, and other aspects of intercultural dynamics
Provides powerful insights for businesspeople, civil servants, physicians, mental health professionals, law enforcement professionals, and others
Geert Hofstede, Ph.D., is professor emeritus of Organizational Anthropology and International Management at Maastricht University, The Netherlands. Gert Jan Hofstede, Ph.D., is a professor of Information Systems at Wageningen University and the son of Geert Hofstede.
This study compares sales and marketing career perceptions and preferences of business students in the United States, New Zealand, and the Philippines. In all three countries students most preferred marketing management as a career path, while few, if any, selected industrial sales. In contrast to prior U.S. studies, grade-point average correlated in a mixed fashion with sales career preference. Students, in all three groups, utilized negative sales descriptors such as “stressful,” “boring,” and “pushy.” Based upon these findings, students do not appear to accurately understand the role played by industrial salespersons. Findings and implications for industrial marketers are presented.
Previous research has shown female college students are less favorably predisposed toward selling than males. However, recent trends in the educational and work environments lead one to expect females to be more favorable. This article investigates this expectation and presents findings that indicate females are indeed more positive toward selling than males. Suggestions are made for future research and recommendations are offered for marketing practitioners.
Corporate recruiting on college campuses has been an important vehicle for selecting and hiring new employees. Previous research has focused on identifying, locating, and selecting new employees, but the recruiting function of attracting good prospects to the interview and job has received less research attention. Increased importance of the attraction function of recruiting may be indicated for the future, particularly given projections of a decline in business college enrollments. The purpose of this article is to examine recruitment of college graduates for sales positions, using the perspective of attracting employees by communicating aspects of the job and company which are important to them. A survey of students and recruiters was used to reveal the attributes of importance to students, differences among students, and the extent to which recruiters are aware of student importance ratings. Differences between students and recruiters perceptions are identified for half of the 50 attributes examined, revealing an opportunity for recruiters to obtain better knowledge of students' perceptions and, thus, to improve their ability to attract graduates to sales positions.