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Translating sales effort into service performance: it's an emotional ride
Abstract
It has been broadly assumed by both researchers and managers that the more effort salespeople exert, the better their performance outcomes are likely to be. However, organizations are placing an increasing emphasis not just on objective sales outcomes, but on subjective, customer service outcomes as well. This research tests relationships between employee effort and relational performance. We develop and test the position that employee effort reaches a point of diminishing returns, after which relational performance decreases. Further, in an effort to bound our model, we test the moderating role played by employees' emotional intelligence in this relationship. We test our study model in a lagged, multisource field study, matching survey data collected from 107 employees and 19 supervisors, relational performance metrics, and archived effort data collected for a period of 3 months pre–survey data collection. The results from our analysis indicate that the relationship between effort and relational performance is captured by an inverted U-shaped function that is significantly moderated by emotional intelligence. We find that the effort of employees with low EI reaches an identifiable point of diminishing returns; however, the more effort those with high EI exert, the better their relational performance outcomes tend to be.
... Identical to organizational ambidexterity, ambidextrous selling behavior is also grounded on the contextual aspect of ambidexterity. The contextual factors assisting selling ambidexterity include empowerment, team support, transformational Leadership (Yu, Patterson, and de Ruyter 2013), service-sales climate (Patterson, Yu, and Kimpakorn 2014;Ogilvie, Rapp, Agnihotri, et al. 2017) control system (Faia and Vieira 2017). In realized terms, these factors result in fulfilling service request while selling, (Bouzari and Karatepe 2017;Sok, Sok, and De Luca 2016), service-cross/up-selling (Yu, Patterson, and de Ruyter 2015), product selling ambidexterity (van der Borgh, de Jong, and Nijssen 2017; van der Borgh and Schepers 2014) and a combination of hunting and farming orientations (DeCarlo and Lam 2016;Vieira et al. 2019;Giovannetti, Cardinali, and Sharma 2020). ...
... Service organizations have begun to stimulate cross/up-selling practices among frontline service executives, turning their cost centers into revenue generators. Meanwhile, sales employees are now assessed on their relational selling ability rather than transactional outcomes (Ogilvie, Rapp, Agnihotri, et al. 2017). Modern-day, time-conscious customers demand a single touchpoint for solutions on both sales and service-related issues ). ...
... The service-sales interface facilitates for more seamless execution of sales-service roles by providing coordination, consistency, and congruency between the tasks. Such dynamic capabilities result in superior operational efficiency, enhanced customer satisfaction, revenue generation, value co-creation, and ultimately firm's long term success (Rouziès et al. 2005;Ogilvie, Rapp, Agnihotri et al. 2017;Rapp and Baker 2017;Friend, Malshe, and Fisher 2020). The service ecosystem transforms the traditional transactional selling role of salespersons into relational selling creating value for both customers and organizations in every exchange (Dixon and Tanner 2012;Hartmann, Wieland, and Vargo 2018). ...
Since its inception in the field of organizational learning, ambidexterity has now evolved as a ubiquitous phenomenon, permeating all functional units of an organization. Over the last several years, the investigation of ambidexterity in personal selling and sales management has gained much scholarly attention. This paper aims to conduct a systematic review and synthesize the literature on ambidextrous selling. In doing so, we begin with defining ambidexterity at both organizational and individual levels and delineate the interplay between them. Then, we present and discuss key theories that underpin ambidextrous selling, followed by an in-depth analysis of different themes related to selling ambidexterity. Next, we outline the methodological advancements in ambidextrous selling research. The paper concludes by synthesizing different dimensions of ambidextrous selling as interrelated and overlapping activities that salespeople perform in their daily routines.
... The strong impact of EI on marketing success within a large B2B firm working in the media industry was also emphasised by a study by Ogilvie (2017). ...
This study examines the importance of emotional intelligence (EI) in marketing among professionals in the Algerian telecommunications industry. EI plays a crucial role in building strong relationships, effective communication, and connectionbuilding, especially as technology and AI advance. However, there is limited research on EI in marketing professionals within telecommunications. Using a quantitative survey and regression analysis, the study finds a positive impact of EI dimensions on marketing effectiveness. These findings have implications for improving marketing team performance by implementing training programs that enhance EI skills. The study contributes to the scientific community by emphasising the significance of EI in marketing and encouraging further research.
... By focusing on fewer customers (i.e., low number of sales calls per day), sales reps also can spend more time to establish personal relationships (Homburg et al., 2011;Lawrence, Crecelius, Scheer, & Patil, 2019). Because high sales call efficiency (i.e., high number of sales calls per day) reduces the time a sales rep can spend in preparation, face-toface meetings, and post-processing activities per customer, such a policy may cause customers to sense that their needs are not being adequately addressed or that the sales rep is simply trying to close a deal (Ogilvie, Rapp, Agnihotri, & Bachrach, 2017). High sales call efficiency also leaves sales reps with less time to build relationships or convey trustful intentions, which may result in unfavorable relational outcomes. ...
Research in B2B markets has extensively investigated the role of long-term relationships between vendor firms and their customers. That research has focused on long-term personal relationships and trust between a vendor's sales rep – the key representative of the vendor firm – and B2B customers based on frequent sales encounters. However, in many B2B contexts, especially when serving small accounts whose buying potential are small, sales reps typically have no pre-existing personal relationship with the customer, who encounters the sales rep for the first time. These ad hoc encounters can create distrust in the sales rep, harming the trusting relationship between the buying and the vendor firms. The authors investigate selling behaviors that reduce the negative effects of such distrust. Using data from a telecommunications firm, the results show that distrust in the sales rep has a negative effect on vendor trust, lowering sales performance. However, the authors find that those negative consequences are mitigated if sales reps use relational selling behavior but are exacerbated by functional selling behavior. Finally, the authors show that the effectiveness of functional selling behavior depends on the amount of time a sales rep spends with a customer, while the effectiveness of relational selling behavior does not.
... Organizations are now looking to the sales function not only to generate new sources of business but to build and maintain relationships with customers. (Ogilvie et al., 2017). This relational value will bring future business and retain existing customers. ...
This paper summarizes the arguments and counterarguments within the scientific discussion on emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is an essential trait for managers to possess to be effective and successful in organizations. Soft skills are becoming as crucial as making quotas. Scholarly literature lacks research on emotional intelligence and employee engagement in retail in St. Lucia. Engaged employees could stay motivated during adversity and help maintain an organization's culture. This exploratory observational study's primary purpose was to examine how retail store managers in St. Lucia perceived their emotional intelligence influences employee engagement. The conceptual framework that grounded the study was emotional intelligence and employee engagement from an organizational performance perspective. The data collection process included reviewing archival data. The paper presents empirical analysis results; several patterns and themes emerged from the data analysis, including emotional intelligence, controlling emotions, coaching, legacy, training, hiring well, communication, and personalized relationships. Increased emotional intelligence training emerged as useful in the St. Lucian business landscape and the Caribbean by extension. The research empirically confirms and theoretically proves that researching other sectors at varying levels may give a broader understanding of how emotional intelligence is perceived. This study's findings may be useful to stakeholders and organizational leaders to allow developing strategies to build more emotionally intelligent and engaged organizations and positively affect social change.
... Emotional Intelligence and Buyer's Performance," Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, 24 salespeople's emotional intelligence on back-office employees' citizenship behavior. Ogilvie et al. (2017) To build and test a model examining the relationship between salesperson effort and relational performance Online survey in the United States on 107 matched subordinatesupervisor dyads in the sales division of a B2B media company There is an inverted U-shaped relationship between sales effort and relational performance, though this relationship becomes a positive linear one when the salesperson has higher levels of emotional intelligence. Briggs, Kalra, and Agnihotri, (2018) To understand the role of the salespeople's ability to appraise emotions and its impact on jobrelated consequences in a transaction-oriented setting Survey in an emerging market on 152 matched pairs of salespeople and supervisors working in a financial services organization Emotion appraisal ability gives rise to emotional exhaustion of the salesperson but improves his or her customer service. ...
Despite the critical importance of emotional intelligence in effectively interacting with other people, its role has been overlooked in scholarly research on cross-border interorganizational relationships. Drawing on emotion regulation theory, the authors propose a model that conceptualizes links among exporters’ emotional intelligence, key behavioral dimensions characterizing the atmosphere of the relationship with import buyers, and the resulting relational performance. They test the model with data collected from 262 Greek exporters using structural equation modeling. The results indicate that higher levels of exporter emotional intelligence enhance communication and social bonding with the importer while diminishing distance and conflict in their working relationship. Relational performance is positively influenced by communication and social bonding but negatively affected by distance and conflict. The results also reveal the moderating effect of both opportunism and interpartner incompatibility on the association between the exporter’s emotional intelligence and the behavioral atmosphere of the relationship with import buyers.
... Rocco and Bush (2016) found significant perceptual differences between the salesperson and their customer with respect to expectations from technology and relationship-building performance measures. Ogilvie et al. (2017) suggested that to develop a fuller understanding of the ways in which "effort" relates to performance, it is critical to account for both the nature of the performance variable in focus and the sophistication of employee efforts toward the achievement of these outcomes. Integration of ST tools into sales activities can significantly improve the performance and justifies the implementation of ST ( Jelinek et al., 2006;Ahearne et al., 2007). ...
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to model the key influencers or predictors for usage of technology by sales professionals in India.
Design/methodology/approach
This study examines the effect of individual, organizational and social factors on the use of technology. The method used for primary research is survey, and data have been collected from 556 sales professionals from across four industries in India. The empirical analysis consists of confirmatory factor analysis using structural equation modeling.
Findings
Confirmatory factor analysis has been used to validate the constructs, namely, peer usage, support service, perceived usefulness, attitude, usage and performance. Based on the results, it has been concluded that attitude and peer usage have a direct effect on the use of technology. Support service affects peer usage and perceived usefulness affects attitude. This model helps us understand the direct and indirect predictors of use of sales technology (ST), and its effect on sales performance.
Research limitations/implications
The limitation of this study is that data pertain to India only.
Practical implications
The findings of this paper will help sales managers and organizations develop strategies to increase the acceptance and use of new technologies, and also strengthen their arguments for convincing the various stakeholders about the benefits and relevance of the ST.
Originality/value
The paper attempts to build and validate a parsimonious model taking into account peer usage (social factor) and support service (organizational factor) in addition to perceived usefulness and attitude.
Purpose-The purpose of this study is to reveal important insights by examining the relationships of two different field managers' monitoring styles with performance through salespersons' engagement. Design/methodology/approach-Data was collected from 318 salespersons' from 20 pharmaceutical firms. Given the performance-driven nature of the pharmaceutical sales profession, field managers seek to adopt the best monitoring style, which can optimize individual's performance while providing a healthy work environment. Findings-The results from multivariate analysis show the evidence of positive relationship between interactional monitoring and salespersons' engagement. The results also confirm that engagement partially mediates the proposed relationships. Originality/value-Authors assimilate and extend research and theory on field managers' monitoring, salespersons' performance and salespersons' engagement to advance a model of salespersons' reactions to different monitoring styles based on self-determination theory. Perhaps in no other field, the salespersons-field managers' relationship is as important as in the field of pharmaceutical selling. The study offers insights about the important consequence of two different monitoring styles; also the study is one of the exceptional efforts to provide evidence regarding the role of engagement in the relationship between two different monitoring styles and salespersons' performance.
Studies in marketing rarely control for spurious moderation, which occurs when unmeasured nonlinear terms affect researchers’ moderation analyses. Spurious moderation can lead to false-positive research conclusions. With a focus on testing moderation hypotheses with multiple regression analysis and covariance-based structural equation modelling, we discuss techniques and, where relevant, develop programming code for modifying these methods so that spurious moderation can be controlled for. After demonstrating the control techniques’ effectiveness with simulated data, we set out guidelines for their use, with particular attention paid to confirmatory research traditions in marketing research.
Much of the current research on salesperson motivation focuses on extrinsic reward expectancy related to compensation, contests, incentives, and quotas. We find that while salespeople want to make money, they also want to make a difference and contribute to society through their work. In Study 1, the qualitative findings reveal that a sense of purpose–the belief that one is making a contribution to a cause greater and more enduring than oneself–is a significant motivator for salespeople. Hence, in Study 2 we develop a measure for sense of purpose and distinguish it from related constructs. Finally, in Study 3 we use a dynamic modeling approach with longitudinal salesperson data to empirically demonstrate that sense of purpose is an antecedent to intrinsic motivation. We also discover that intrinsic motivation is more positively associated with increased salesperson effort, adaptivity, and performance than is a desire for money on average over time, particularly for younger salespeople. These findings not only contribute to theory but also have important ramifications for the effective management of modern sales organizations.
Reacquiring a lost customer is often easier, faster, and less expensive than acquiring a new customer. Thus, reacquisition activities have become important fundamental aspects of selling. Improving our understanding of the customer reacquisition efforts of business-to-business salespeople is the primary objective of this study. When customers leave, they leave behind a network of personal connections with the supplier. This research examines how assessments of these connections by salespeople relate to salesperson effort and reacquisition success. We distinguish between buying center members who support a salesperson (i.e., advocates) and those who work against the salesperson (i.e., adversaries). A conceptual model is developed and results show that advocates in a customer organization enhance both sales effort and the level of reacquisition while adversaries increase salesperson perceptions of reacquisition difficulty.
In our world, pollution arising from various sources like factories and vehicles, threaten the very environment we live in. We should become more and more aware of the products that pose a threat to our environment because otherwise through our lack of awareness, we will ourselves contribute towards the distractions of our beloved and beautiful world. In this paper, we have bought into focus an work regarding making the supply chain of a product as green as we possibly can. We have developed a strategy based on the manufacturer’s advanced payment policy as well as trade credit facility to the retailer. We have assumed that for any particular retailer, the customers’ demand for his goods is a direct consequence of how green the goods are, along with the selling price and the effort put into the environment friendliness of a product. To this effect, the manufacturer also allows the retailer a credit period for the goods as also a discount that can imposed on the selling price. We have provided a model that optimizes the retailer’s sales effort, the wholesale price demanded by the manufacturer, the green level of the product as well as the selling price effected by the retailers. This model is exemplified numerically of its practicality. We also perform some sensitivity analyses of the model by varying market demand, price elasticity coefficient, greening awareness level and sales effort and the corresponding performance shown by the model are also recorded.
Purpose
Considering recent changes in sales practices, such as the sales role becoming more strategic, increased reliance on technology for sales activities, increased stress from adding technological responsibilities to the sales role and decreased avenues of social support (such as traditional forms of community) to cope with work-related stressors, there is a need to reconsider Verbeke et al. ’s (2011) classification scheme of determinants of sales performance, which was based on literature published before these critical changes became apparent. This paper aims to conduct a systematic review of sales performance research published during 1983–2018 to propose an extension to Verbeke et al. ’s (2011) classification.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper followed a systematic approach to the literature review in five sequential steps – search, selection, quality control, extraction and synthesis – as suggested by Tranfield et al. (2003). In total, 261 peer-reviewed journal papers from 36 different journals were selected for extraction and synthesis.
Findings
The findings make the following additions to the classification: strategic and nonstrategic activities as a new category, technological drivers of sales performance and job-related psychosocial factors as a broader category to replace role perceptions. Derived from the job demand–control–support model, three subcategories within the category of job-related psychosocial factors are psychological demands (encompasses role perceptions and digital-age stressors such as technostress creators), job control and work-related social support.
Research limitations/implications
This paper identifies that manager’s role in facilitating technology skills, providing informal social support to remote or virtual salespeople using technology, and encouraging strategic behaviors in salespeople are future research areas having good potential. Understanding and building positive psychology aspects in salespeople and their effect on sales performance is another promising area.
Practical implications
Newly added technological drivers draw the attention of sales firms toward the influence of technology and its skilful usage on salesperson performance. Newly added strategic activities makes a case for the importance of strategic participation in salesperson performance.
Originality/value
This review extends Verbeke et al. ’s (2011) classification scheme to include recent changes that sales profession and literature have undergone.
The world continues to move with super-fast change, a new era where technology is in control of every change that occurs, or so-called the Industrial Revolution Era 4.0, or so-called the era of disruption. The concept of the Industrial Revolution 4.0 has changed the way of life, the way of working, and even the way people relate. Era disruption has been able to change human habits and even the world in a very short time. The world of education, especially higher education, of course, it must respond to the challenges of this era of disruption. Several times in various opportunities, the minister of education always challenges high-ranking people to make changes that are prepared in preparing the superior human resources for the future of the nation. If it is slow to respond, it is not impossible that Higher Education will have the same fate as Offline Taxis that went out of business with the presence of Online Taxis, or shops that closed due to online shopping.
An important element in the performance of the operational organization (company)
are strategies, such as strategies for improving the quality of planning, human resource strategy (HR), and management strategy finance, which can act as a supervisory tool at the same time performance driver. HR managers often experience related difficulties
with various interests such as interests between agents and Headmaster). HR managers have difficulty in this because quit working from employees who have talent. The company
currently more responsive to the needs of employees, because they do not want to lose their best people. However, the issue of plow hijacking employees is still common.
Observation and thinking are what encourages the author to raises the issue of employee performance, as a form of concern and is a real contribution in forming a paradigm of superior human development that focuses on the strength of Indonesian people who are inspirational and care about research.
Keywords: employee performance, key performance measurment, corporate employee
Dunia terus bergerak dengan perubahan yang super cepat, era baru
dimana teknologi memegang kendali atas setiap perubahan yang terjadi,
atau biasa disebut Era Revolusi Industri 4.0, atau biasa juga disebut Era
disrupsi. Konsep Revolusi Industri 4.0 telah merubah cara hidup, cara
bekerja, bahkan cara berhubungan antar manusia. Era disrupsi telah
mampu merubah kebiasaan manusia bahkan peradaban dunia dalam
waktu yang sangat singkat.
Dunia pendidikan khususnya Pendidikan Tinggi tentu harus
merespon tantangan era disrupsi ini. Beberapa kali dalam berbagai
kesempatan, menteri pendidikan selalu menantang insan pergruan tinggi
untuk melakukan perubahan yang mendasar dalam menyiapkan SDM
Unggul masa depan bangsa. Jika lambat merespon maka bukan tidak
mungkin Pendidikan Tinggi akan bernasib sama seperti Taksi Offline
yang gulung tikar dengan hadirnya Taksi Online, atau pertokoan yang
tutup akibat hadirnya belanja online.
Unsur penting dalam kinerja operasional organisasi (perusahaan)
adalah strategi, seperti strategi peningkatan kualitas perencanaan,
strategi sumber daya manusia (SDM), dan strategi pengelolaan
keuangan, yang dapat berperan sebagai alat pengawasan sekaligus
performance drivers. Manajer SDM sering mengalami kesulitan terkait
dengan berbagai kepentingan (seperti kepentingan antara agent dan
principal). Manajer SDM mengalami kesulitan dalam hal ini karena
tingginya tuntutan dari karyawan yang memiliki Talenta. Perusahaan
saat ini makin tanggap terhadap kebutuhan karyawan, karena tidak ingin
kehilangan orang-orang terbaiknya. Kendati demikian, isu bajak
membajak karyawan masih sering terdengar.
Pengamatan dan pemikiran inilah yang mendorong penulis untuk
mengangkat masalah employee performance, sebagai wujud kepedulian
dan merupakan sumbangsih nyata dalam membentuk paradigma
pengembangan manusia unggul yang menitikberatkan pada kekuatan
manusia Indonesia, yang inspiratif dan peduli terhadap penelitian.
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to reveal important insights by examining the relationships of two different field managers’ monitoring styles with performance through salespersons’ engagement.
Design/methodology/approach
Data was collected from 318 salespersons’ from 20 pharmaceutical firms. Given the performance-driven nature of the pharmaceutical sales profession, field managers seek to adopt the best monitoring style, which can optimize individual’s performance while providing a healthy work environment.
Findings
The results from multivariate analysis show the evidence of positive relationship between interactional monitoring and salespersons’ engagement. The results also confirm that engagement partially mediates the proposed relationships.
Originality/value
Authors assimilate and extend research and theory on field managers’ monitoring, salespersons’ performance and salespersons’ engagement to advance a model of salespersons’ reactions to different monitoring styles based on self-determination theory. Perhaps in no other field, the salespersons-field managers’ relationship is as important as in the field of pharmaceutical selling. The study offers insights about the important consequence of two different monitoring styles; also the study is one of the exceptional efforts to provide evidence regarding the role of engagement in the relationship between two different monitoring styles and salespersons’ performance.
In the sales literature it is standard practice for researchers to collect cross-sectional data from multiple salespeople, and to compare those salespeople on the data obtained. This between-person approach is suitable for research aiming to draw conclusions between salespeople. However, many salesperson processes are dynamic and vary within salespeople over time, requiring datasets with repeated-measures. This article highlights the need to adopt a within-person theoretical perspective in sales research. Critically, the article shows how our present understanding of boundary conditions may change depending on whether a between-person or within-person level of analysis is adopted. Using examples from the sales literature, we show how the practical implications from between-persons research designs do not necessarily generalize to the within-person level. Further, we explain the methodological and analytical considerations that researchers must account for when undertaking within-person research. Furthermore, the article provides decision criteria that help to identify when within-person analysis should be conducted, outlining analysis tools that are capable of correctly estimating within-person effects without bias. Examples of how within-person research can enhance theory within future sales research, and how within-person research may influence management implications are also discussed. Finally, potential remedies to within-person research barriers are given.
This research examines how employees’ climate perceptions – or psychological climate – influence their performance of climate-related outcomes. We focus on two specific climates arguably most relevant to boundary-spanning organizations: service and sales climates. Building from the resource-allocation framework, the authors examine the way employees reconcile these multiple psychological climates. Polynomial regression and response surface modeling are used to test for the influence of these distinct climates on employee outcomes using a sample of 252 marketing employees and their 68 immediate supervisors. Specifically, the authors examine relationships between service and sales climates and the employee performance outcomes of customer satisfaction, helping behavior, effort, and sales performance. Results provide insight into the benefits and pitfalls of sales and service climates co-existing. Specifically we find that while sales effort is highest in climates that heavily favor sales, sales performance may exist in both sales-favored and service-favored climates (yet not in the presence of both). From a customer satisfaction perspective we find no significant impact of increasing sales climate in the presence of high service perceptions. These findings – both significant and non-significant – provide implications for future research in the realm of service-sales ambidexterity and interface as well as insight and direction for frontline managers.
The authors propose a methodology for determining the segment-level impact of explanatory variables on multiple criterion measures obtained on a constant-sum scale. These explanatory variables could characterize different product, situation, or person related conditions that either occur naturally or are experimentally manipulated. Their proposed methodology simultaneously estimates market segment membership and multivariate segment-level parameters for each dependent criterion, using finite mixtures of conditional Dirichlet distributions. They conduct a modest Monte Carlo simulation analysis to investigate the performance of the proposed methodology. The authors also provide an empirical application to industrial buying decisions that examines the impact of the type of buying situation on multiple vendor selection criteria such as economic cost, functional performance, vendor cooperation, and vendor capability. We present a methodology for determining the segment-level impact of explanatory variables on multiple criterion measures obtained on a constant-sum scale. These explanatory variables could characterize different product, situation, or person related conditions that either occur naturally or are experimentally manipulated. Consider the subsequent illustrative scenarios entailing constant-sum multiple criterion data: Resource allocation decisions. The analyst might wish to evaluate the impact of specific factors on the allocation of resources among different items. Consider the problem of understanding the effect of key determinants on the manner in which: • product managers allocate the total marketing budget among advertising, sales promotion, and trade promotion; • sales managers divide the total compensation package for sales-people among straight salary, commission, and non-monetary incentives; or • financial investors allocate their investment dollars among stocks, bonds, and various other financial instruments.
Most previous studies have focused on the linear effects of role stressors and job characteristics on salespersons' behavioral (e. g., performance) and psychological (e. g., satisfaction) job outcomes. Drawing on the theoretical frameworks of Yerkes-Dodson law, activation theory, and overstimulation hypothesis, the author examines some unconventional hypotheses of curvilinear and interactional influences of role stressors (i. e., role conflict, ambiguity, and overload) and job characteristics (i. e., autonomy, feedback, task variety, and participation) on five key job outcomes of salespeople. Using data from salespeople across a range of small and large firms, the author finds that curvilinear and/or interactional influences are supported for job tension, turnover intentions, and performance but not for job satisfaction or organizational commitment. The findings specifically indicate support for the overstimulation hypothesis because the dysfunctional effects of role ambiguity tend to be amplified when autonomy, feedback, and task variety are increased. In addition, the results yield evidence of buffering effects because the adverse consequences of role conflict and overload appear to be buffered by task variety and feedback. Overall, the study highlights the inherent trade-offs for sales managers attempting to design jobs with positive job characteristics for salespersons facing high levels of role stressors. The author discusses the implications for theory and practice.
Time management, goal setting, goal attainment strategies, prioritization techniques! These are some of the self-regulation skills that today’s sales organizations are attempting to develop in a sales force through self-regulation training. This study empirically investigates self-regulation training and how it can facilitate salesperson performance. Findings suggest that self-regulatory training can enhance salesperson self-regulation capabilities, decrease role ambiguity, and thereby aid sales performance. Furthermore, our findings suggest that the value of self-regulation training may not be uniform across all sales trainees. Specifically, self-regulation training may be more beneficial to salespeople after they have developed a level of mastery over fundamental core selling capabilities.
This paper posits and tests a model of the individual characteristics of self-efficacy, competitiveness, and effort as potential antecedents of salesperson performance. Based on two studies in different selling contexts, it is observed that whereas effort mediates the relationship between competitiveness and sales performance, self-efficacy has both direct and indirect effects on sales performance. Structural equation modeling results support the proposed model. Implications and conclusions of the studies are presented.
Existing research suggests that relationships among organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), task performance, and individual career outcomes are necessarily positive. The authors question this assumption and hypothesize that in organizations with outcome-based control systems, time spent on OCB comes at a cost to task performance. Building on this idea, the authors propose not only that time spent on task performance is more important than time spent on OCB in determining career outcomes (i.e., performance evaluation, salary increase, advancement speed, promotion) in an outcome-based control system but also that time spent on OCB may negatively impact career outcomes. Results based on archival data from 3,680 employees in a professional services firm lend some support for these ideas. Specifically, time spent on task performance was more important than OCB in determining all four career outcomes. Further, controlling for time spent on task performance, employees who spent more time on OCB had lower salary increases and advanced more slowly than employees who spent less time on OCB. These findings suggest that relationships between OCB and outcomes are more complex than originally thought and that boundary conditions may apply to conclusions drawn about the outcomes of OCB.
The point of departure for this article is the need for product-centric firms to compete in the market by adding services to their portfolio, which requires a greater focus on service innovation if they are to remain competitive. A major challenge associated with the shift from product-centeredness to a product-and-service orientation is the management of the essential dynamic capabilities of sensing, seizing, and reconfiguring needed for service innovation. The research study reported identifies key microfoundations forming the basis of successful realignment of a firm's dynamic capabilities so as to achieve a better fit with service innovation activities. Eight qualitative case studies of product-centric firms form the basis of the study. The findings make three primary contributions to the body of knowledge. First, they extend the existing literature on dynamic capabilities by specifically discussing microfoundations related to service innovation. Second, the study extends existing work on service innovation into the manufacturing industries by identifying the key microfoundations in that context. Third, the research provides empirical evidence of dynamic capabilities in practice, especially in product-centric settings in which the service context is novel.
If service quality relates to retention of customers at the aggregate level, as other research has indicated, then evidence of its impact on customers' behavioral responses should be detectable. The authors offer a conceptual model of the impact of service quality on particular behaviors that signal whether customers remain with or defect from a company. Results from a multicompany empirical study examining relationships from the model concerning customers' behavioral intentions show strong evidence of their being influenced by service quality. The findings also reveal differences in the nature of the quality-intentions link across different dimensions of behavioral intentions. The authors' discussion centers on ways the results and research approach of their study can be helpful to researchers and managers.
We tested a model proposing that subordinates' impression management behavior influences performance ratings through supervisors' liking of and perceived similarity to subordinates. We measured impression management behavior, liking, and similarity six weeks after the establishment of supervisor-subordinate dyads and measured performance ratings after six months. Results indicated support for the overall model and several specified relationships. Additionally, impression management behavior had a significant, indirect impact on performance ratings. Implications of the results for research on impression management and performance appraisal are discussed.
Scholars have questioned the effectiveness of several customer relationship management strategies. The author investigates the differential effects of customer relationship perceptions and relationship marketing instruments on customer retention and customer share development over time. Customer relationship perceptions are considered evaluations of relationship strength and a supplier's offerings, and customer share development is the change in customer share between two periods. The results show that affective commitment and loyalty programs that pro- vide economic incentives positively affect both customer retention and customer share development, whereas direct mailings influence customer share development. However, the effect of these variables is rather small. The results also indicate that firms can use the same strategies to affect both customer retention and customer share development.
Marketing is undergoing a paradigmatic shift that involves a change in focus from the exchange of goods, which are usually manufactured output, to providing a service, which is fundamental to economic exchange (Vargo & Lusch 2004).Evidenced by three decades of marketing transformation in B2B (business-to-business) sales organizations, this paper examines the evolution of sales organizations as a result of the shift from product- to service-focused commerce. This paper also identifies areas of future research and practice in marketing. Findings suggest that the traditional product-focused sales organization will evolve in two directions. First, enhanced use of technology will reduce some traditional sales functions and even face-to-face contact. Second, customers who are important to marketers will experience improvements in the level of customer contact—leading to growth in customer-focused sales organizations and an increase in global account management teams. Changes in sales organizations will also lead to changes in the selection, training, and recruitment of salespeople as well as their roles.Direction for future research and managerial implications are highlighted throughout the paper as are changes likely to occur in sales organizations.
Available online here: www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0019850107001526
Financial benefits from quality may be derived from revenue expansion, cost reduction, or both simultaneously. The literature on both market orientation and customer satisfaction provides considerable support for the effectiveness of the revenue expansion perspective, whereas the literature on both quality and operations provides equally impressive support for the effectiveness of the cost reduction perspective. There is, however, little evidence for the effectiveness of attempting both revenue expansion and cost reduction simultaneously, and some of what little empirical and theoretical literature is available suggests that emphasizing both simultaneously may not work. In a study of managers in firms seeking to obtain a financial return from quality improvements, the authors address the issue of which quality profitability emphasis (revenue expansion, cost reduction, or both) is most effective. The authors examine firm performance using managers' reports of firm performance and longitudinal secondary data on firm profitability and stock returns. Although it is clear that no company can neglect either revenue expansion or cost reduction, the empirical results suggest that firms that adopt primarily a revenue expansion emphasis perform better than firms that try to emphasize cost reduction and better than firms that try to emphasize both revenue expansion and cost reduction simultaneously. The results have implications with respect to how both theory and practice view organizational efforts to achieve financial returns from quality improvements.
In this research we integrate resource allocation and social exchange perspectives to build and test theory focusing on the moderating role of time management skill in the nonmonotonic relationship between organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and task performance. Results from matching survey data collected from 212 employees and 41 supervisors and from task performance metrics collected several months later indicate that the curvilinear association between OCB and task performance is significantly moderated by employees' time management skill. Implications for theory and practice are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved).
In the modern customer-centred era, customer value is a strategic weapon in attracting and retaining customers. Delivering superior customer value has become a matter of ongoing concern in building and sustaining competitive advantage by driving customer-relationship-management (CRM) performance. However, related studies are rather divergent, the key dimensions of customer value remain unclear, and there is no agreement on the evaluation of CRM performance. This paper develops an integrative framework for customer value and CRM performance based on the identification of the key dimensions of customer value. Emphasising the customer equity-based view, the paper explores the decomposed effects of customer value on CRM performance in terms of relationship quality and customer behaviours. In doing so, a structural equation model is developed using the partial least square method supported by an empirical investigation of customers in China.
This article provides a commentary on the article “Emotional intelligence, leadership effectiveness, and team outcomes” by Prati, Douglas, Ferris, Ammeter, and Buckley (2003). The role of emotional intelligence (EI) as a construct in organizational behavior is addressed by discussing (a) the boundary conditions of theories in organizational behavior; (b) the relative importance of EI, g and personality in leadership effectiveness; (c) whether EI is needed for leadership effectiveness; (d) the degree EI is a unique construct versus a part of normal psychological functioning; (e) the relationship between EI and levels of analyses in organizations; and (f) whether EI is important for charismatic leadership. This discussion concludes with a cautionary note about premature excitement over the use of EI in the workplace.
Resource allocation, attentional capacity, and role theories all suggest that the well-documented linear relationship between citizenship behavior and task performance may be more complex than previously believed. In a study of 352 incumbents, we develop hypotheses that propose a curvilinear effect of employee citizenship on task performance. We further argue that this nonmonotonic relationship is different across the targets of citizenship performance and is moderated by several factors from the task context. Results support the curvilinear assertion, indicating that the relationship with task performance inflects when citizenship is more frequently performed. These diminishing returns are amplified when the target of citizenship is the organization compared to the individual. Findings further reveal that the task context elements of accountability and autonomy moderate the curvilinear relationship, whereas ambiguity does not. Implications for a reappraisal of the citizenship–task performance relationship are discussed.
Forms of control systems used in salesforce evaluation and based on the monitoring of outcomes or of behaviors are described, contrasted, and evaluated in terms of emerging theories in economics, organization theory, and cognitive psychology. Generally, the principles of behavior control as opposed to outcome control are found to be consistent with these theoretical perspectives with exceptions as noted, though studies of descriptive trends suggest that outcome control remains useful as a sales management philosophy. The authors conclude with a set of propositions intended to stimulate research on the managerial and behavioral consequences of the two control philosophies.
Despite a long history of independent sales and service functions within organizations, customers are pressuring organizations to rethink their sales and service operations. Specifically, customers expect organizations to offer a “single face” of the firm rather than being forced to interact with multiple agents across both sales and service throughout their relationships. As firms attempt to meet these customer demands, they have countless options to integrate sales and service operations, but little is known about which strategies are most effective. This article attempts to shed new light into the challenges and potential benefits of sales-service integration, in an effort to spur research in this area and better inform this managerial challenge. Specifically, we formalize the concept of the sales-service interface, discuss how it relates to sales-service ambidexterity, and identify several opportunities for future research. Given the complexity of the sales-service interface, we contend that future researchers must view these issues through a multilevel lens and, as a result, we focus on identifying opportunities ideally suited for testing in a multilevel environment. The goal of this article is to provide a platform for researchers to tackle this challenging problem and generate new insights into how best to meet customer’s evolving demands.
It is the objective of this study to describe three fundamentally different mechanisms through which organizations can seek to cope with this problem of evaluation and control. The three will be referred to as markets, bureaucracies, and clans. In a fundamental sense, markets deal with the control problem through their ability to precisely measure and reward individual contributions; bureaucracies rely instead upon a mixture of close evaluation with a socialized acceptance of common objectives; and clans rely upon a relatively complete socialization process which effectively eliminates goal incongruence between individuals. This study explores the organizational manifestations of these three approaches to the problem of control.
Moderated regression analysis is commonly used to test for multiplicative influences of independent variables in regression models. D. Lubinski and L. G. Humphreys (1990) have shown that significant moderator effects can exist even when stronger quadratic effects are present. They recommend comparing effect sizes associated with both effect types and selecting the model that yields the strongest effect. The authors show that this procedure of comparing effect sizes is biased in favor of the moderated model when multicollinearity is high because of the differential reliability of the quadratic and multiplicative terms in the regression models. Fortunately, levels of multicollinearity under which this bias is most problematic may be outside the range encountered in many empirical studies. The authors discuss causes and implications of this phenomenon as well as alternative procedures for evaluating structural relationships among variables.
The sales response of an established ethical drug to sales calls by one Belgian pharmaceutical manufacturer is measured. A key feature is the systematic variation in the sales call elasticity over time as a function of the collateral material used.
Customer relationship management (CRM) is perceived to be failing, and there is an urgent need for some practical ways to address this issue. The research presented in this article demonstrates that the implementation of CRM activities delivers greater profits. Using calculations of the lifetime value of customers in two longitudinal case studies, the research finds that customer management strategies change as more is discovered about the value of the customer. These changes lead to better firm performance. The contribution of this article is to show that CRM works and that a relatively straightforward analysis of the value of the customer can make a real difference.
This study explored the communication strategies junior colleagues use to preserve stable mentoring and nonmentoring relationships with their supervisors. Data collected from 259 managerial and technical/professional employees suggest informally mentored subordinates use a distinctive pattern of upward maintenance tactics with their supervisors. Interestingly, few differences among formal supervisory prot6egs, nonsupervisory proteges, and nonproteges emerged. Implications for mentorship theory, research, and practice are discussed. Mentoring relationships facilitate junior colleagues' (proteges) professional development and career progress (Noe, 1988a; Ornstein & Isabella, 1993; Ragins, 1989). However, although mentoring relationships can last many years (Kram, 1983; Shapiro, Hazeltine, & Rowe, 1978), little is known about what maintains them. Mentors promote relational stability by serving career-related functions, such as providing exposure, coaching, and delegating challenging work, and psychosocial functions, such as role modeling, counseling, and providing acceptance, that make such relationships attractive for proteges (Kram, 1985). Less is known about how proteges contribute to relationship maintenance, despite evidence from research on communication suggesting junior colleagues use a variety of tactics to achieve relational stability with valued senior counterparts (Waldron, 1991). Given the importance attached to mentoring relationships and the growing popularity of formal mentoring programs, it would be helpful to understand how proteges contribute to the stability of mentoring relationships. Accordingly, this study examined the upward maintenance tactics junior colleagues use-the communication strategies that preserve an acceptable and lasting relational state with senior colleagues-in formal and informal mentoring relationships. In addition, this study explored a source of mentorship that has received little attention in the mentoring literature: immediate supervisors. Although researchers have speculated that senior colleagues besides immediate supervisors are the most frequent and effective source of men
This research proposes an integrative model of the antecedents and consequences of salesforce role stress, with particular emphasis on two outcomes important to sales reps and firms alike: salesforce performance and satisfaction. Drawing on data from 196 sales representatives for five major industrial firms, the linkages in the proposed model are tested with path analysis procedures. The model is sufficiently comprehensive that it provides a basis to replicate and extend, in one study, much of the key research on the sales representative's role environment, especially as it relates to role conflict, role ambiguity, and their relationships with job performance and satisfaction. Implications of this research for sales managers and researchers in the sales area are given.
Forms of control systems used in salesforce evaluation and based on the monitoring of outcomes or of behaviors are described, contrasted, and evaluated in terms of emerging theories in economics, organization theory, and cognitive psychology. Generally, the principles of behavior control as opposed to outcome control are found to be consistent with these theoretical perspectives with exceptions as noted, though studies of descriptive trends suggest that outcome control remains useful as a sales management philosophy. The authors conclude with a set of propositions intended to stimulate research on the managerial and behavioral consequences of the two control philosophies.
Previous research on organizational citizenship behavior suggests that employees who engage in such behavior are "good soldiers," acting selflessly on behalf of their organizations. However, such behaviors also may be impression enhancing and self-serving. In this article I provide a framework showing how impression-management concerns may motivate citizenship behavior and address the consequences of citizenship in this context, as well as the interaction of impression-management motives with motives identified in previous research on citizenship. Finally, I discuss the methodological issues associated with isolating self-serving from other-serving motivation and implications for future theory development.
In a previous volume of this journal, the authors presented a behavior versus outcome sales control continuum based on methods of monitoring, directing, evaluating, and compensating the salesperson's efforts and results. They empirically test their propositions about how control system perceptions influence salespeople on a diverse sample of sales representatives. They find that the predicted effects of control philosophy on affective and motivational states are generally supported whereas the effects on sales strategies or performance outcomes are not. Organizational culture differences are also observed.
The rapid growth of research on organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) has resulted in some conceptual confusion about the nature of the construct, and made it difficult for all but the most avid readers to keep up with developments in this domain. This paper critically examines the literature on organizational citizenship behavior and other, related constructs. More specifically, it: (a) explores the conceptual similarities and differences between the various forms of “citizenship” behavior constructs identified in the literature; (b) summarizes the empirical findings of both the antecedents and consequences of OCBs; and (c) identifies several interesting directions for future research.
In this chapter I review empirical studies directly testing the hypotheses of my 1973 paper "The Strength of Weak Ties" (hereafter "SWT") and work that elaborates those hypotheses theoretically or uses them to suggest new empirical research not discussed in my original formulation. Along the way, I will reconsider various aspects of the theoretical argument, attempt to plug some holes, and broaden its base.
This study's premise is that ingratiation and organizational citizenship behaviors are similar but that supervisors will respond differently to employees depending on whether they label their extrarole behaviors as ingratiation or as organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Variables based on Kelley's covariation model did not greatly influence supervisory attributions. The attribution of motive, however, was related to supervisory decisions on employee outcomes.
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 motivates working both smart and hard, whereas a performance goal orientation motivates only working hard. The goal orientations also are found to be alterable through supervisory feedback. Furthermore, self-efficacy, sales-people's confidence in their overall selling abilities, is found to moderate some of the relationships with the goal orientations.
Anderson and Oliver (1987) presented a behavior vs. outcome sales control taxonomy based on methods of monitoring salespersons' effort. Under an outcome system, sales revenue is thought to be a sufficient criterion for sales proficiency. Under a behavior system, the sales process itself is critical and “input” monitoring activities are maximized. Oliver and Anderson (1994) tested these differences on salesperson perceptions and found effects on affective and cognitive consequences. This paper extends these findings and shows that, while conventional behavior and outcome strategies appear to be operating in accord with theory, evidence is found for an integrated or “hybrid” philosophy exhibiting degrees of both. The incidence and nature of such strategies are discussed in terms of their consequences and implications.
A growing body of empirical evidence in the management literature suggests that antecedent variables widely accepted as leading to desirable consequences actually lead to negative outcomes. These increasingly pervasive and often countertheoretical findings permeate levels of analysis (i.e., from micro to macro) and management subfields (e.g., organizational behavior, strategic management). Although seemingly unrelated, the authors contend that this body of empirical research can be accounted for by a meta-theoretical principle they call the too-much-of-a-good-thing effect (TMGT effect). The authors posit that, due to the TMGT effect, all seemingly monotonic positive relations reach context-specific inflection points after which the relations turn asymptotic and often negative, resulting in an overall pattern of curvilinearity. They illustrate how the TMGT effect provides a meta-theoretical explanation for a host of seemingly puzzling results in key areas of organizational behavior (e.g., leadership, personality), human resource management (e.g., job design, personnel selection), entrepreneurship (e.g., new venture planning, firm growth rate), and strategic management (e.g., diversification, organizational slack). Finally, the authors discuss implications of the TMGT effect for theory development, theory testing, and management practice.
Considerable research explores advertising’s role in influencing consumer perceptions and behavior. However, advertising’s impact on another key audience—the sales force—has been largely overlooked. Drawing from social identity and expectancy theories, and using survey and objective performance data across multiple wholesalers, the authors demonstrate that a salesperson’s perception of brand advertising has a significant effect on salesperson effort and performance by positively influencing the extent to which the salesperson identifies with the brand and his or her expectancy that such effort will generate results. These effects are moderated by internal communications and brand size. Model results suggest that advertising’s role may extend beyond “pull” to “push” by motivating salespeople to exert more effort on behalf of a brand. As a result, firms should take steps to proactively manage salesperson perceptions of brand advertising while also considering this dual role when assessing advertising effectiveness and efficiency.
The rapid growth of research on organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) has resulted in some conceptual confusion about the nature of the construct, and made it difficult for all but the most avid readers to keep up with developments in this domain. This paper critically examines the literature on organizational citizenship behavior and other, related constructs. More specifically, it: (a) explores the conceptual similarities and differences between the various forms of “citizenship” behavior constructs identified in the literature; (b) summarizes the empirical findings of both the antecedents and consequences of OCBs; and (c) identifies several interesting directions for future research.
Driven by more demanding customers, global competition, and slow-growth economies and industries, many organizations search for new ways to achieve and retain a competitive advantage. Past attempts have largely looked internally within the organization for improvement, such as reflected by quality management, reengineering, downsizing, and restructuring. The next major source for competitive advantage likely will come from more outward orientation toward customers, as indicated by the many calls for organizations to compete on superior customer value delivery. Although the reasons for these calls are sound, what are the implications for managing organizations in the next decade and beyond? This article addresses this question. It presents frameworks for thinking about customer value, customer value learning, and the related skills that managers will need to create and implement superior customer value strategies.
Identification of the variables that affect the performance of sales professionals has been an endeavor that has lasted for decades. In the current study, the constructs of emotional intelligence and dispositional affectivity were hypothesized as being positively related to sales force performance. The findings of this research indicate that sales performance is significantly related to emotional intelligence and a combination of the measures of dispositional affect. Based on these findings, implications, conclusions, and suggestions for future research are provided.
Firms continue to struggle with the implementation of sales force technology tools and the role they play in sales representative performance. This research expands previous literature in the area of sales force automation (SFA) and customer relationship management (CRM) by looking at the consequences after technology adoption by a sales force. Data were gathered from three sources to include 662 sales representatives, 60 sales managers, and fi rm archival data. Using structural equation modeling, our fi ndings indicate that SFA usage has a direct impact on effort, thereby reducing number of hours worked, and CRM usage has a direct positive impact on adaptive selling behaviors. Moreover, experience moderates the relationship between CRM usage and adaptive selling. Discussion, limitations, and directions for future research are also discussed.
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 accepted theoretical models and suggests that the perspective of work as a ''terminal value'' (i.e., an end in itself, rather than strictly a means to an end) has been underemphasized in models of work behavior. As such, either (1) measures of sales performance should be broadened to encompass the terminal value perspective on the psychological value of work or (2) conceptual models should be revised to reflect that narrowly defined measures of sales performance do not completely mediate the effect of effort on job satisfaction. The authors conclude with a discussion of managerial implications of these findings.
The authors combine findings from 155 samples of more than 31,000 salespeople to test alternative models of antecedents and consequences of adaptive selling behavior (ASB) and customer orientation (CO). A random-effects meta-analysis yields average values for 28 different correlations ranging from -.16 to .35, 19 of which are significant. Controlling for salesperson gender and selling experience, structural equation modeling indicates that ASB increases self-rated, manager-rated, and objective measures of performance, whereas CO increases only self-rated performance. Both ASB and CO increase job satisfaction. Tests of reciprocal relationships indicate that ASB increases CO and job satisfaction increases performance rather than vice versa. Selling experience increases performance but not job satisfaction, and saleswomen rate their performance and satisfaction slightly higher than salesmen do. The magnitudes of the relationships indicate that ASB and selling experience have greater effects than CO and gender on salesperson performance.
The authors use meta-analysis techniques to investigate the evidence that has been gathered on the determinants of salespeople's performance. A search of the published and unpublished literature uncovered 116 articles (the list of which is available upon request) that yielded 1653 reported associations between performance and determinants of that performance. The results indicate the determinants can be ordered in the following way in terms of the average size of their association with performance: (1) role variables, (2) skill, (3) motivation, (4) personal factors, (5) aptitude, and (6) organizational/environmental factors. When ordered according to the amount of the observed variation in correlations across studies that is real variation (i.e., not attributable to sampling error), the determinants rank as follows: (1) personal factors, (2) skill, (3) role variables, (4) aptitude, (5) motivation, and (6) organizational/environmental factors. To investigate whether the associations between each of the categories of predictors and performance could be partially accounted for by the presence of moderator variables, the results were broken out by customer type, product type, and type of dependent measure used. The results indicate that the strength of the relationship between the major determinants and salespeople's performance is affected by the type of products salespeople sell. The authors discuss the implications of these findings for sales managers and researchers.
This paper suggests that feelings (moods and emotions) play a central role in the leadership process. More specifically, it is proposed that emotional intelligence, the ability to understand and manage moods and emotions in the self and others, contributes to effective leadership in organizations. Four major aspects of emotional intelligence, the appraisal and expression of emotion, the use of emotion to enhance cognitive processes and decision making, knowledge about emotions, and management of emotions, are described. Then, I propose how emotional intelligence contributes to effective leadership by focusing on five essential elements of leader effectiveness: development of collective goals and objectives; instilling in others an appreciation of the importance of work activities; generating and maintaining enthusiasm, confidence, optimism, cooperation, and trust; encouraging flexibility in decision making and change; and establishing and maintaining a meaningful identity for an organization.
Salespeople involved in the marketing of complex services often perform the role of "relationship manager." It is, in part, the quality of the relationship between the salesperson and the customer that determines the probability of continued interchange between those parties in the future. A relationship quality model is advanced and tested that examines the nature, consequences, and antecedents of relationship quality, as perceived by the customer. The findings suggest that future sales opportunities depend mostly on relationship quality (i. e., trust and satisfaction), whereas the ability to convert those opportunities into sales hinges more on conventional source characteristics of similarity and expertise. Relational selling behaviors such as cooperative intentions, mutual disclosure, and intensive followup contact generally produce a strong buyer-seller bond.
This series of studies describes the development of a measure of emotional intelligence based on the model of emotional intelligence developed by Salovey and Mayer [Salovey, P. & Mayer, J. D. (1990). Emotional intelligence. Imagination, Cognition and Personality, 9, 185–211.]. A pool of 62 items represented the different dimensions of the model. A factor analysis of the responses of 346 participants suggested the creation of a 33-item scale. Additional studies showed the 33-item measure to have good internal consistency and testretest reliability. Validation studies showed that scores on the 33-item measure 1.(a) correlated with eight of nine theoretically related constructs, including alexithymia, attention to feelings, clarity of feelings, mood repair, optimism and impulse control;2.(b) predicted first-year college grades;3.(c) were significantly higher for therapists than for therapy clients or for prisoners;4.(d) were significantly higher for females than males, consistent with prior findings in studies of emotional skills;5.(e) were not related to cognitive ability and6.(f) were associated with the openness to experience trait of the big five personality dimensions.
The authors develop a conceptual model depicting relationships between salesforce control systems, characteristics, performance, and sales organization effectiveness as a framework for testing the propositions formulated by Anderson and Oliver (1987). The results from a study of 144 diverse sales organizations provide support for the relationship between behavior-based salesforce control systems and specific salesforce characteristics, different salesforce performance dimensions, and sales organization effectiveness. The results imply a limited role for incentive compensation in salesforce control systems. They also suggest the need for a proper blend between field sales management and compensation control and identify important avenues for future research.
Exploring the factors that explain the choice of governance structures in interfirm alliances, this study challenges the use of a singular emphasis on transaction costs. Such an approach erroneously treats each transaction as independent and ignores the role of interfirm trust that emerges from repeated alliances between the same partners. Comprehensive multiindustry data on alliances made between 1970 and 1989 support the importance of such trust. Although support emerged for the transaction cost claim that alliances that encompass shared research and development are likely to be equity based, there is also strong evidence that repeated alliances between two partners are less likely than other alliances to be organized using equity.
Moderated hierarchical multiple regression (MHMR) typically is used to test for the presence of interactions. When an interaction term is composed of correlated variables, linearity and additivity become confounded. The result of this confounding is that an interaction term in MHMR may be statistically significant only because of its overlap with unmeasured nonlinear terms. The author recommends that squared terms be used as covariates in such situations and shows that the resulting loss of power with respect to the test of significance for the interaction term is limited to that associated with the loss of degrees of freedom and is therefore negligible, if it exists at all. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)