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A multidimensional perspective of business-to-business sales success: A meta-analytic review
Abstract
The role and nature of business-to-business (B2B) sales has evolved since the end of the 20th century, mostly driven by technological, organizational and social changes. However, the literature has yet to catch up with that evolution. Particularly, the literature lacks contemporary studies that exclusively showcase the key determinants and practices that facilitate the success of B2B sales. Hence, we conduct a meta-analysis of the literature and summarize the results of 139 independent published studies from 1980 to 2019 that examined the relationship between several determinants and B2B sales success. Our results show that such success may be influenced by 31 different determinants associated with four dimensions of the selling process (i.e., salesperson, organization, customer, and environment). We also investigate the moderator effects of measurement source (subjective vs. objective), measurement items (single vs. multiple), industry context (goods vs. services), number of industries (single vs. multiple), sales function (inside sales vs. outside sales) and year of publication (before 2010 vs after 2010) between several determinants and B2B sales success. Our findings convey important implications for theory and practice on the key determinants of B2B sales success, as well as the conditions on which each determinant is effective. We also provide recommendations for further research on B2B sales success.
... Sales capabilities have been viewed as a firm's boundary-spanning activity that could foster firm performance in the 35 B2B setting (Hughes et al. 2012). More recent literature acknowledges that sales capabilities have unrealized potential to amalgamate and orchestrate various resources and capabilities within the firm to become more effective and contribute to the 40 overall success of the firm's business model (Badrinarayanan et al. 2019;Dugan et al. 2023;Liu et al. 2023;Nijssen et al. 2017;Rangarajan et al. 2022;Ohiomah et al. 2020). Today, firms need to be agile to cope with the unpredictable 45 and volatile landscape of the business environment (Doz and Kosonen 2008; Kalaignanam et al. 2021). ...
... First, we respond to the recent call that mandates firms to leverage DCs, such as agility, to create superior sales capabilities (Badrinarayanan et al. 85 2019). Our study thus contributes to the B2B sales organization literature by revealing how SMEs with exceptional sales capabilities can take advantage of the environmental setting in which they operate (Chonko & Jones 2005;Ohiomah et al. 2020). We 90 show that SMEs operating in B2B sectors can safeguard competitive advantage by grasping opportunities and avoiding environmental threats, thus exploiting the higher potential in their sales capabilities. ...
... For these rea-185 sons, SMEs often need to leverage their DCs to integrate, build, and reconfigure internal and external resources to innovate and drive changes that benefit customers and challenge competitors (Srivastava, Fahey, and Christensen 2001;Teece, 190 Peteraf, and Leih 2016 Q9 ; Vorhies and Morgan 2005). Among OCs, sales capabilities are crucial for sustaining a competitive advantage (Badrinarayanan, Ramachandran, and Madhavaram 2019;Guenzi, Sajtos, and Troilo 195 2016;Ohiomah et al. 2020;Vorhies and Morgan 2005). Sales capabilities are complex and involve various activities, such as personal selling, sales force, or sales process capabilities (Badrinarayanan et al. 2019). ...
... As opposed to conventional/outside sales where sales representatives sell products/services based on in-person (i.e., face-to-face) interactions with potential buyers [2], "inside sales" refers to selling activities conducted from a distance by utilizing one or more Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools [7]. B2B inside sales reps remain indoors (e.g., call center, office) and try to sell products/ services through interactions with potential buying organizations via phone, email, and/or the Internet [3,8,9]. With the COVID-19 pandemic accelerating the shift to online/remote sales [10], it is more critical than ever for B2B inside sales organizations to gain a more comprehensive understanding of their buyers' perspectives to improve their sales performance. ...
... To understand B2B buyers' purchase intention, it is important to consider their preferences and attitudes towards a specific product/brand from multiple perspectives [28,29]. While there are various theories and models on B2B buying behavior [8,19], common determinants exist, such as customer, informational, environmental, group, seller, purchase, organizational characteristics, conflict/negotiation, and process [30,31,21]. To model B2B inside sales buying behavior, this study proposes a conceptual model that incorporates customer and informational determinants [32] which are identified as the most significant among the common ones. ...
... To model B2B inside sales buying behavior, this study proposes a conceptual model that incorporates customer and informational determinants [32] which are identified as the most significant among the common ones. Customer determinants, particularly customer trust, play a critical role in B2B sales success [32,8]. The quality of a salesperson-customer relationship, which is affected by customer trust, significantly influences sales outcomes [8,33], while customer behavior and connection flexibility positively impact customers' purchase intention in a B2B environment [34,35]. ...
... Como já mencionado, os clientes obtem informações a respeito do produto ou serviço previamente ao contato da equipe de vendas (Amit & Han, 2017;Ohiomah, Benyoucef, & Andreev, 2020). Diante disso, na prática de vendas internas, o contato entre o representante com um potencial cliente acontece mais a frente se comparado ao processo de vendas tradicional (Sleep et al., 2020). ...
... Por essa razão, a equipe de vendas ao se reinventar passou a ouvir mais o cliente (Ohiomah et al., 2020). Os representantes de vendas internas desempenham um papel cada vez mais consultivo, preocupado em criar, desenvolver e manter os relacionamentos, viabilizando a troca de conhecimento necessária à cocriação de valor, ao invés de persuadir (Sleep et al., 2020;Ohiomah et al., 2020). ...
... Por essa razão, a equipe de vendas ao se reinventar passou a ouvir mais o cliente (Ohiomah et al., 2020). Os representantes de vendas internas desempenham um papel cada vez mais consultivo, preocupado em criar, desenvolver e manter os relacionamentos, viabilizando a troca de conhecimento necessária à cocriação de valor, ao invés de persuadir (Sleep et al., 2020;Ohiomah et al., 2020). A saber, a tarefa de qualificação de leads é difícil devido a dois principais aspectos. ...
A disponibilidade de dados, devido ao uso intensivo de tecnologias de comunicação, permite que técnicas de análise de dados beneficie práticas de vendas internas e gestão de leads. Tendo isso em vista, realizou-se uma revisão integrativa da literatura para investigar como técnicas de análise de dados estão sendo usadas por estas áreas. Foram consideradios cinco anos de publicações (2015-2020) em bases científicas, como Web of Science, Scopus e similares. A partir da análise das publicações, considerando a percepção de valor do cliente, sugere-se três pontos de ação para técnicas de análise de dados, sendo: o posicionamento na web; a individualização do atendimento e capacitação dos representantes de vendas. Assim, contribuímos com a sistematização de possíveis aplicações para as técnicas de análise de dados nas áreas. Segundo, endossamos a necessidade de estudos empíricos avaliando tais aplicações.
... However, such an exploration is secured from the perspective of a seller in a B2B context. Sales management literature has published broadly from a buyer's perspective (Bolman Pullins et al. 2000;Good et al. 2022a;Kalra, Briggs & Schrock 2023), and numerous researchers have called for further studies in B2B sales from a seller's perspective (Høgevold et al. 2022;Mai & Liao 2021;Ohiomah, Benyoucef & Andreev 2020). Furthermore, the important role played by sellers in a B2B relationship has been broadly acknowledged in sales management literature (Ohiomah et al. 2020;St Clair et al. 2018). ...
... Sales management literature has published broadly from a buyer's perspective (Bolman Pullins et al. 2000;Good et al. 2022a;Kalra, Briggs & Schrock 2023), and numerous researchers have called for further studies in B2B sales from a seller's perspective (Høgevold et al. 2022;Mai & Liao 2021;Ohiomah, Benyoucef & Andreev 2020). Furthermore, the important role played by sellers in a B2B relationship has been broadly acknowledged in sales management literature (Ohiomah et al. 2020;St Clair et al. 2018). Such acknowledgement relates specifically to sellers' engagement role as B2B salespeople with B2B customers, emphasising their critical role in the B2B sales process (Guesalaga 2016). ...
Background: Whether internal or external, motivational factors serve as stimulants influencing individual ability to execute sales tasks. A meta-analysis was conducted highlighting three broad categories of individual motivations that are imperative within the context of sales performance, namely cognitive choice, goal orientation, and work engagement. However, marketing and sales management scholars argue that there is a need for further research exploring the influence of intrinsic and extrinsic motivational factors on overall sales performance in multiple business settings. Aim: The aim of the study is to test a six-dimensional framework of business-to-business (B2B) sellers’ motivations in sales performance. Setting: The application of a six-dimensional framework on sales performance within a Norwegian context. Different companies from multiple industries operating in the product-orientated sector of Norway were selected to measure the relevance of the six-dimensional framework to sales performance in these companies. Method: In total, 236 usable questionnaires representing multiple industries of different sizes across Norway were used. Data were collected using self-administered questionnaires. Results: The findings indicate that the dimensions of B2B sellers’ motivations are relevant in a B2B sales setting. Therefore, sales businesses operating in a B2B environment need to become increasingly aware that motivations drive sellers to achieve their goals. Conclusion: The study offers an increased understanding on how to structure B2B sellers’ motivations in a six-dimensional framework, including cognitive choice, goal orientation, and work engagement. Contribution: The study develops an improved understanding of the intrinsic and extrinsic motivational factors that influence the sales performance of B2B sellers. Furthermore, it contributes to an increased understanding of how to structure B2B sellers’ motivations in a six-dimensional framework.
... Our partner company gave us specific interaction rates for different departments to understand whether there are generalizable differences in phishing susceptibility within each organization over the whole dataset. Since the departments varied greatly across the organizations and some organizations have different names for similar departmental functions, e.g., "Sales" or "Business Development" [41], or regarding the detailed allocation level, we decided on a simple categorization into three fundamental groups: (i) Finance & Administration (F&A), (ii) Production & Operations (P&O), (iii) Sales & Marketing (S&M). Combining, for example, Finance (accounting and paying bills) with different forms of Administration (which includes back office and HR) is reasonable, as their tasks overlap and sometimes even produce increases in efficiency [42]. ...
Phishing is an increasing threat to the security of end-users, networks , and organizations. Phishing simulations via email are a widespread tool used to measure user awareness, especially in workplace settings. However, current studies focusing on large-scale analysis of phishing simulations often have issues: The phishing simulations were conducted using a small sample size (mostly one or two organizations), or while many emails are sent, the analysis focuses only on specific companies. This study analyzes phishing simulations conducted over three years at 36 organizations with over 68 000 delivered emails. We compare different dimensions of the organizations where these simulations were conducted, such as the economic sector and departments. Furthermore, we evaluate various dimensions of phishing simulation campaigns, such as detection difficulty and the scenario under which the simulation occurs. Our findings indicate significant disparities in the results, such as the industry sector in which the company operates. Moreover , we find substantial differences between the success rates of varying scenarios used for phishing emails. CCS Concepts • Security and privacy → Human and societal aspects of security and privacy.
... This section outlines the research design and methodology used to evaluate the proposed models and hypotheses. A meta-analysis approach was employed to systematically synthesize and interpret coefficients reported in existing empirical studies (Ohiomah et al. 2020;Saeed et al. 2014). Meta-analysis is a robust technique that integrates findings from prior empirical research, whether significant or nonsignificant, to estimate true effect sizes in relationships (Hunter and Schmidt 2015;Mishra and Maity 2021;Rana et al. 2015;Wu et al. 2018). ...
This review paper explores the comparative impact of traditional information technology (IT) and digital technologies (DTs) on firm performance (FPER) through the theoretical lens of the resource-based view. Employing a two-study approach, the research synthesizes evidence from 245 empirical papers published between 2010 and 2024. The first study, based on 95 papers, examines the relationship between IT, organizational resources (OR), and FPER, while the second study, drawing from 150 papers, focuses on the influence of DTs and OR on FPER. Both studies utilize Meta-analytic Structural Equation Modeling (MASEM) to analyze direct and indirect effect models. The findings of the first study reveal that the direct effects of technological resources (TR) and OR on market value (MV) are more substantial than their indirect effects mediated by organizational capabilities. In contrast, the second study highlights a transformative shift: digital technological resources and OR directly and significantly impact both financial performance (FP) and MV, bypassing the mediating role of capabilities. These insights underscore the distinct value-generation mechanisms of IT and DTs, with DTs demonstrating more immediate and profound effects on firm performance. They also highlight research opportunities for future studies and implications for practitioners and policymakers.
... double-difference (Cadario and Chandon 2020) Study context Offline vs. online (Van Vaerenbergh et al. 2018); hypothetical vs. actual (Zlatevska et al. 2018); actual vs. fictitious (Roschk et al. 2017); retailing vs. nonretailing (Otto et al. 2020); tourism vs. hospitality (Lin et al. 2022) Study analysis Analysis level: firm vs. customer Data collection method Self-administered vs. interviewer administered (Eisend 2017b); offline vs. online (J. Schmidt and Bijmolt 2020) Data collection year Edeling and Fischer (2016) Data interval Daily (1) to yearly (365) (Köhler et al. 2017); 1 = weekly, 4 = yearly (Yang et al. 2018); date duration (Belli (Continues) (Cadario and Chandon 2020); year vs. not (Claro et al. 2024) Data type Panel vs. nonpanel (Blut et al. 2015); time-series vs. crosssectional (Edeling and Fischer 2016); longitudinal vs. panel (Köhler et al. 2017); secondary vs. survey (Blut et al. 2018); dyadic vs. one-sided data (Eshghi and Ray 2021); quasi experiment vs. other ; monthly/daily vs. yearly/biyearly/quarterly data (Yang et al. 2022); primary data vs. other (Zhang et al. 2023) Data source Senior vs. project manager ); Amazon vs. other (Babić Rosario et al. 2016); managers vs. general (Johnston et al. 2018); self vs. manager (Ohiomah et al. 2020); seller vs. other (Eshghi and Ray 2021); Amazon Mechanical Turk vs. other (Weingarten and Goodman 2021) Data coding Reverse vs. no reverse (Hornik et al. 2017) Effect size type Zero-order correlation vs. partial correlation (Carrillat et al. 2018); correlation vs. converted regression coefficient Publication factors ...
Although meta‐analytic papers have frequently appeared in the leading marketing journals in recent years, these papers focus on introducing the step‐by‐step guidelines of using the meta‐analysis method. To the best of our knowledge, no research systematically elaborates on how researchers select different types of variables in their conceptual framework. In addition, limited research analyzes which research themes are studied and deserve more attention. The lack of these analyses inhibits marketing scholars from conducting interesting and impactful meta‐analyses. Thus, this paper systematically reviews 180 meta‐analytic articles published in 36 leading marketing‐related journals (i.e., ranking ABS Grade 3 or above) between 2015 and 2024. Based on this review, this paper (1) elaborates on which themes and topics are suitable for meta‐analyses through analyzing the research themes and theme evolution trends of the existing meta‐analytic papers; (2) offers suggestions for study numbers and effect‐ size extraction of a meta‐analysis in marketing; (3) offers guidelines for variable selection; and (4) proposes future directions of meta‐analyses in marketing. This paper has the potential to stimulate more marketing researchers to conduct interesting and influential meta‐analyses.
... The measure of success can also be seen from the point of view of whether it lives up to expectations or not, where if the company can achieve what is expected, it is considered successful. Success is also measured by traditional financial factors such as revenue growth, profitability, and personal wealth formation (Ohiomah et al., 2020). According to Hadjielias et al. (2022), the general measurement of an entrepreneur's success is the level of business profit obtained, i.e., whether it is lower than the industry average, equal to the industry average, or higher than the industry average. ...
Economic growth promotes entrepreneurial activity that provides job opportunities, reduces unemployment and social problems, and improves the standard of living. This positive contribution can also reduce dependence on imported goods. Business incubators have proven to be effective in accelerating the growth of new businesses. This chapter aims to investigate and identify the factors of business incubators as a catalyst to facilitate female entrepreneurs' success and bankability. This study adapted the survey method using a questionnaire as a research instrument. This study examines 180 samples through structural equation modeling (SEM). Testing the structured model shows business incubator training has significant relationships with bankability and business success. On the other hand, networking significantly influences business success and does not affect bankability. This study is expected to contribute to generating ideas, programs, and entrepreneurial activities to increase the effectiveness of female entrepreneurship.
... The author also states that the concept of a business model has no established theoretical basis in both economics and business studies. In articles [24,25] the authors discuss four types of business models: Business-To-Business Models (B2B), Business-To-Consumer Models (B2C), Subscription-Based Models, and On-Demand Business Model. In the article [26], the authors introduced a division of business models into four types (creators, distributors, owners, and brokers) based on the rights to assets and depending on the assets involved (financial, physical, human, and intangible). ...
The management staff of software companies are constantly looking for ways to build market advantage and win business strategies. Introducing changes in companies is a costly process and carries the risk of poor allocation of resources. This article provides decision-makers with a tool that increases the chance of making the right business decisions and can also be a guide in the transformation of business models. The scientific aim of this article was to simultaneously cover three areas, innovation, business models, and sustainable development, to develop a scheme enabling the construction of rankings of the elements of these areas in a version dedicated to software producing companies. Rankings, which are built using the hybrid Multiple-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) method, indicate to decision-makers the need for building strategic development plans, which aspects are the most important, and what the order of possible implementations should be. Based on a multi-criteria analysis, it was found that (i) in terms of innovation, companies should focus their attention first on implementing product, process, and technological innovations; (ii) within innovative business models, attempts should be made to produce IT systems using virtualization and dockerization, as well as efforts should be made to closely bind customers with the offered products and services and offer temporary rental of IT systems instead of classic licenses; and (iii) in the context of the classic three levels of sustainable development, companies should focus primarily on economic and financial issues.
... The type of industry existing in primary study samples is a factor that can interfere with the effect sizes of a meta-analysis (Crosno & Dahlstrom, 2008). Research demonstrates that amplifying data from different industries brings heterogeneous information due to the different contexts in which companies are inserted (Ohiomah et al., 2020). Understanding the effects across different types of industries can improve external validity and provide a reliable representative sample (Crosno & Dahlstrom, 2008). ...
Big data analytics have impacted nearly every service industry in the last decade. Furthermore, using artificial intelligence in big data analytics has introduced a new trend, resulting in different performance types, e.g., sales, marketing, innovation, organizational, financial, and operational. A systematic review of the empirical results from publications addressing big data analytics in the services industry becomes necessary to understand these performances better. Based on this rationale, this study conducted a meta-analysis to identify the relevant dimensions of big data analytics and evaluate artificial intelligence as a potential moderator of its effects on service performance. The results demonstrate that environmental dynamism, resources and capabilities, and competitive pressure drive big data analytics adoption. Environmental dynamism, followed by resources and capabilities, has greater effects on adopting big data analytics. The findings suggest that adopting big data analytics powered by artificial intelligence enhances service performance more than adopting big data analytics without using artificial intelligence.
... role conflict, role ambiguity; Liu et al., 2014;McFarland et al., 2016), social media usage (Bowen et al., 2021), and organizational variables (e.g. organizational support, teamwork, leadership; Høgevold et al., 2022;Ohiomah et al., 2020). Sales management scholars have also begun paying attention to the effect of employee well-being on sales performance (Dugan et al., 2023). ...
... NPM is taken as the proxy of profitability (Nariswari and Nugraha 2020; Panjaitan 2018). Three variables (lsales (Ohiomah et al. 2020;Blal et al. 2018), lpbit (Adelopo et al. 2018;Nariswari and Nugraha 2020), and ROA (Adelopo et al. 2018; Husna and Satria 2019)) which seem to affect the firm's value are kept controlled to obtain a good-fit model to determine the effect of DR on a firm's value, reasonably. Table 1 demonstrates detailed notes on the variables incorporated in the study. ...
The firm’s valuation (FV) is the key element for all stakeholders, particularly the investors, for their investment decisions. The main impetus of this research is to estimate the effects of the debt ratio (DR, i.e., leverage) on the FV (i.e., assets and market capitalisation) of the non-financial firms listed in India. The quantile panel data regression (QPDR) on the secondary data of 76 non-financial BSE-100 listed firms in India is employed. This study also checks the effect of the net profit margin (NPM) as profitability on the association between DR and FV. The QPDR estimates result in multiple quantiles and provide evidence in scenarios. The findings reveal a positive relationship of DR to assets only in higher quantiles, i.e., 90%ile), and a negative association of DR is found with a market capitalisation in all quantiles. Under the interaction effect, profitability (NPM) does not affect the association of DR with assets but negatively affects the association of debt ratio with market capitalisation in the middle (50%) quantile. The findings indicate that leverage (DR) affects a firm’s value. The study’s outcomes are helpful to all stakeholders, particularly investors, to realise the leverage (DR) as a critical indicator of FV before making any investment decisions. Managers should also consider lower debt ratios for better firm value. The present analysis is original and holds novelty in the form of the moderating role of the net profit margin, i.e., the profitability of the firm between DR and FV in the non-financial firm in India. To the best of our knowledge, no such studies have been performed to look for the association of the debt ratio with a firm’s value under the effect of profitability in different quantiles using quantile regression.
... Furthermore, relational capital was found to moderate the relationship between sales agents' perceived cannibalization and job performance (D. Sharma et al., 2018 (Ohiomah et al., 2020). Rangarajan, Hochstein, et al. (2021) aimed to introduce the concept of sales enablement to a broader academic audience and outline a research agenda for sales researchers. ...
Purpose: The aim of this study is to examine despite Covid-19 pandemic, several companies managed to grow their sales. This leads us to our research questions: what selling competencies make best salespeople post Covid-19 disruption? And, which of the sales competencies make to be most important toward their job performance? Theoretical framework: The B2B selling abilities post Covid-19 as the subject of this study has been little research by the academy and without a dominant theoretical framework, but rather a partial vision. This article contributes to integrating the scarce academic literature, which, as we demonstrate, is mainly empirical, with a theoretical domain. Design/methodology/approach: The use of established generic scales capturing each of the constructs of interest by surveying Key Account Managers in a B2B industry setting. Descriptive statistics, psychometric properties, pairwise correlations, and partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) where deployed. Findings: The results suggests that there is a positive direct effect of salesperson bricolage, adaptive selling, resiliency, salesperson' self-efficacy, and psychological flexibility with salesperson post-disruption performance. Lastly, a negative indirect effect is found between learning orientation, salesperson creativity, and salesperson grit. Research, Practical & Social implications: The study has focused on the proposal of what are the new sales competencies that B2B key account managers must develop to achieve a better sales performance, so managers must train and coach their B2B Key Account Managers (KAM) considering the new abilities needed (salesperson bricolage, adaptive selling, resiliency, salesperson' self-efficacy, and psychological flexibility) for sales success. Originality/value: The value of this study is a novel effort to understand what skills are needed to succeed in the post Covid-19 B2B selling environment.
... We believe this trend will continue. This topic is especially timely, as transformational changes in the sales environment (e.g., outbreak of COVID-19, increasing reliance on sales technology, increasing needs for sales-service ambidexterity) have substantively increased salesperson job demands (Epler et al., 2023;Hartmann & Lussier, 2020;Marshall et al., 2012;Ohiomah et al., 2020;Shiue et al., 2021). Future research might usefully explore whether these modern dynamics engender or exacerbate ethical conflicts and how they reshape salespeople's ethical decision-making. ...
Using a combination of co-citation and co-word analysis, this paper reviewed the intellectual structure of the sales ethics research domain and its development over time. This multi-method bibliometric analysis included 183 sales ethics articles published between 1990 and 2020. Using co-citation analysis, we identified intellectual clusters within the research domain and explored the evolution of these clusters across three decades. We further leveraged co-word analysis to identify core themes (keywords) and delineated the field’s changing landscape. The evolutionary trends and keyword network disconnections (i.e., structural holes) suggest promising areas for future research. In particular, our analyses identified potentially fruitful opportunities related to topics such as compensation, relationship marketing outcomes, salesperson job attitudes and well-being, training, sales force control, and sales technology.
... The concept of rapport in the sales literature Rapport building has long been recognized as a crucial skill of a professional salesperson (Spiro, Perreault, and Reynolds 1976), and its pivotal role is acknowledged at the microlevel of B2B sales interactions between the salesperson and the customer (Kaski, Niemi, and Pullins 2018;Ohiomah, Benyoucef, and Andreev 2020). However, rapport is typically studied in the early introductory phases of the selling process (Campbell, Davis, and Skinner 2006;Comer and Drollinger 1999). ...
ABSTRACT
Despite the expansion of digital transformation, interpersonal interactions remain the foundation
for successful business-to-business (B2B) sales meetings in complex exchanges. This study focuses
on rapport building and examines it as an explicitly and implicitly manifested ongoing process
covering the entire duration of a B2B sales meeting. Based on empirical findings from a qualitative
study of Japanese business professionals, the study develops a process conceptualization of rapport
building. It draws on the rapport management model from sociolinguistics, showing how rapport
building is based on meeting individuals’ fundamental needs for appreciation, approval, fair
consideration, and social inclusion, besides fulfilling business-related rapport needs. Based on the
data, we identified three phases in rapport building (establishing, developing, and leveraging) and
various overt and covert rapport-building activities the salesperson can adopt to create and nurture
rapport with a customer by relying on verbal, nonverbal, and intuitive cues. Our findings indicate
that only the final phase, leveraging rapport, offers an optimal setting for discussions on future
business opportunities. The study challenges the stereotypical notion of rapport as mere small
talk at the beginning of a sales meeting and provides valuable managerial implications related to
successful rapport building.
... Situational demands, in this study, relate to managing customers and customer relationships. The role of employees' efficacy perceptions in creating customer outcomes has received significant attention in the service, marketing and sales literatures (Ohiomah et al., 2020;Secchi et al., 2019;Delcourt et al., 2017;Bonney et al., 2014;Liozu, 2015). These studies detail how general, as well as specific facets of efficacy, drive outcomes. ...
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the effect of top management’s customer interactions (TMCI) on customer satisfaction. This study argues that TMCI’s overall relationship with customer satisfaction follows an inverted-U shape due to its positive and disruptive effects on the customer relationship efforts of frontline service/sales employees (FSEs). This paper further investigates the frontline competence of both FSEs and the top management team (TMT) as moderators of the impact of TMCI on customer satisfaction.
Design/methodology/approach
The conceptual model was tested empirically using data from managers, frontline employees and customers of microfinance firms. A multilevel structural equation modeling approach was used to test the hypothesized model.
Findings
The results show that TMCI has a curvilinear relationship with customer satisfaction. The results also show that frontline employees’ collective efficacy attenuates this relationship by shifting the turning point of the curvilinear effect to the right. Furthermore, TMT frontline competence amplifies both the positive and negative effects of TMCI on customer satisfaction.
Research limitations/implications
This study advances knowledge on the effects of TMCI on customer satisfaction and highlights the nuanced relationship between top management involvement and indicators of firm performance.
Practical implications
The findings show the importance of considering the frontline competence of both top management and frontline employees when encouraging TMCI in organizations.
Originality/value
To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study is one of the first to examine TMCI’s direct impact on customer satisfaction and propose the frontline competence of both top management and frontline employees as boundary conditions on this relationship.
... Fully discussing the historic developments and changes in this field and related fields of research is beyond the scope of this article and are discussed more comprehensively in Ledinger and Attila (2022, in print). Further comprehensive reviews on the relationship between customer orientation and sales success have been published by Ohiomah, Benyoucef and Andreev (2020), as well as by Goad and Jaramillo (2014). A meta-analysis by Jaramillo et al. (2007) has confirmed SOCO as a significant predictor of sales performance. ...
The association between selling orientation and customer orientation and sales success has been a matter of intensive research since the publication of the selling orientation-customer orientation (SOCO) score in the early 1980’s. However, which attitudes predispose salespeople for high perfor-mance remains elusive. In addition, the association between customer orientation may be curvilinear and depend on the selling situation – and little research has been devoted to business-to-business (B2B) sales. This paper aims at starting to close those knowledge gaps through the development of a self-assessment tool for attitudes of salespeople. An extension of the 10-item SOCO score is developed through literature research in sales/business development and on service orientation in other settings. The score was subsequently validated through feedback by sales scholars. The extended score adds a dimension that tests whether professional salespeople consider the sales process as a service (SPAS) that should provide value beyond the identification of the best offering. Response rates by sales scholars was low, resulting in the need for further validation of the candidate SOCO-SPAS score. Business-to-business (B2B) relationships are an essential but understudied area of economics. The current paper provides a means to assess the relationship between attitudes and sales performance in modern B2B sales, by extending a scoring system that has originally been developed for B2C sales and many years in the past when market conditions were different than today.
... Among interviewees, sales managers think of sales enablement as the foundation for their team members to be successful. While sales success can be conceptualized in very different ways (Ohiomah, Benyoucef, & Andreev, 2020), managers view sales enablement as an internal vehicle for providing their teams with concrete tools to achieve an impact at their daily jobs. ...
As the sales function continuous to evolve, organizations are increasingly investing in sales enablement, which entails aligning resources across different organizational functions and hierarchical levels to support salespeople in their jobs. Extant literature on sales enablement has been either conceptual or based on general empirical assessments. For a more nuanced understanding, we examine how sales enablement is defined and deployed in a single firm. We report the findings from a single company case study that involved 25 in-depth interviews with cross-functional respondents from sales enablement, marketing, sales operations, sales professionals, and sales managers. Our study shows that the impact of sales enablement on the organization's success is perceived as crucial; however, all stakeholders have different understandings about sales enablement. Findings indicate that different organizational hierarchy levels and functions exhibit substantially different perspectives on and understandings of sales enablement. This ambiguity may have an impact on the effective deployment of sales enablement initiatives within a firm and could result in suboptimal outcomes. We conclude with ideas for future research and provide managerial implications.
... A list of the finally qualified 147 15 primary studies is provided in Table 3; each study is representative of an independent sample. Consequently, we obtained a solid empirical base (N= 280806) with which to conduct a meta-analysis (Ohiomah, Benyoucef and Andreev, 2020;Saeed, Yousafzai and Engelen, 2014). Sample sizes ranged from 8 (Devaraj and Kohli, 2000) to 100,000 (Hagsten and Kotnik, 2017), and effect sizes ranged from r = -0.81 ...
Although there is a stream of literature that considers the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to be an advantage-seeking entrepreneurial activity resulting in superior business performance, the findings regarding the impact of ICT use on business performance are heterogeneous in the existing literature. Consequently, a meta-analysis is required in order to comprehend the direction and scope of this relationship, taking into account the national ICT development status across countries. Hence, with a theoretical grounding in the Resource-Based View (RBV), this meta-analysis combines research studies spanning a twenty-two year period (147 studies) on how a country’s national ICT development status impacts the relationship between the use of different ICT tools, categorized as either General Purpose Technology or Enabling Technology, and firm performance by applying both bivariate and meta-regression analyses.
... In this respect, we argue for salespeople's empowerment. Moreover, this study enriches research on salespeople's social competence (see Ohiomah, Benyoucef, & Andreev, 2020) by adding the competency of social selling diffusion to more traditional competencies, such as adaptive selling or interpersonal skills. Researchers should verify whether this competency is related to sales performance. ...
While the use of social media has become widespread among business-to-business (B2B) organizations, the diversity of the social selling practices undertaken by salespeople and the extent to which they rely on them for their sales approach remain limited. Contrary to previous studies that emphasize the benefits of top-down approaches, we adopt a salesperson-centric approach, with the belief that the salesperson’s agency is a key factor in the development of new sales practices related to social media. Using the concept of practice work and building upon institutional theory, we argue that social selling practices emerge in a bottom-up way, depending on the work initiated by salespeople. Based on a qualitative study of 32 B2B sales professionals, we show that salespeople perform three kinds of practice work: promotion, reconciliation, and disruption. These efforts can diffuse but also thwart social selling practices in sales organizations. This article offers new insights into how organizations can develop salespeople’s extent of social media usage, and encourages firms to support salespeople’s social selling initiatives instead of controlling them.
... The negotiator's personality is one of the fundamental factors in the negotiation and decisionmaking process (Agndal, Åge, and Eklinder Frick 2017;Brinke et al. 2015;Dugan, Rouziou, and Bolander 2020;Elfenbein 2015;Ohiomah, Benyoucef, and Andreev 2020). It is widely recognized as a key component in determining strategic choices and outcomes of negotiation (Ahmed et al. 2010). ...
Purpose ; The study aims to examine the impact of a negotiator’s profile (personality, gender, age and experience) on his perception of unethical negotiation tactics.
Design/methodology/approach; A survey has been conducted among 220 middle manager employees and chief executive officers (CEOs) who are directly involved in the negotiation processes and activities for their organizations. A component factor analysis (CFA) was first performed. Then, a multiple regression analysis and ANOVA analysis were conducted to test the study hypotheses.
Findings; The study suggests that negotiators with a high level of ‘openness to experience’ perceive
the use of ‘traditional competitive bargaining’ and ‘inappropriate information gathering’ as ethical. However, ‘conscientious’ negotiators perceive the use of ‘misrepresentation of information’ and ‘inappropriate information gathering’ as unethical. In addition, negotiators with a high level of ‘agreeableness’ perceive the use of ‘misrepresentation of information’ as inappropriate. ‘Misrepresentation of information’ was perceived as more inappropriate for women than for men. Finally, older and highly experienced negotiators perceive ‘inappropriate information gathering’ as unethical more than younger and less experienced ones.
Research limitations/implications The study measures perceptions rather than actual behavior.
Practical implications The study findings could help firms to identify the more suitable profiles in terms of socio-demographic variables and also personality traits for positions related to negotiation with their stakeholders, especially for those with more long-term orientations.
Social implications; Recognizing the potential of businesses to provide an important contribution to society and the large influence of business ethics in people’s everyday lives, including business managers’, trigger a better grasp of the factors that help alleviate unethical practices and that nurture a business culture embedded in an increasing demand for business ethics worldwide. Negotiators are not the exception. Hence, identifying which personality traits are likely to predispose negotiators to endorse unethical negotiation tactics may help shape training programs suitable to produce favorable inclinations to comply with ethical negotiations’ principles. This seems to be possible, on the face of the recent findings suggesting the likelihood of personality traits changes, following the implementation of some particular actions.
Originality/value; To the best of our knowledge, this study is among the few that examine the impact of the negotiator’s personality traits and his socio-demographic variables on his perception of the appropriateness of negotiation tactics. This study is in line with calls to reconsider the role that personality plays in negotiation processes, ethical/unethical behavior and outcomes, after a long period of skepticism among scholars as to its significant impact.
... The JD-R theory views capability control as a critical resource "because it enables salespeople to achieve work goals and to cope with job demands with appropriate selling skills and knowledge" (Miao & Evans, 2013, p. 74). Ohiomah, Benyoucef, and Andreev (2020) provide meta-analytic evidence of this assertion with findings that capability control is associated with of sales success in business-to-business. However, as discussed below, the effects of capability control on turnover intention are complex and not well understood. ...
Drawing on the Job Demand-Resources (JD-R) theory, the present study investigates the underlying mechanisms through which capability control, a type of behavior-based control, influences salesperson turnover. Using a sample of 145 industrial salesperson–supervisor dyads from different industries, this study’s findings reveal that capability control contributes to decreasing salesperson turnover intentions, both directly and indirectly. Specifically, management capability control reduces work overload and increases work meaning, thus lowering salesperson turnover intention. The findings also confirm that these effects are contingent on the complexity of a product. When product complexity is low, capability control increases work overload and decreases work meaning, which has a positive effect on salesperson turnover intention. This study discusses these findings’ theoretical and managerial implications.
Adaptive selling represents a notable and influential concept in the marketing literature. Despite being discussed in scholarly research and managerial practice for over forty years and mixed findings about its impact, a comprehensive understanding of the construct of adaptive selling remains missing. To remedy this critical knowledge gap, we conduct a comprehensive review of 188 articles across twenty-seven journals. We combine three approaches in our survey of the literature, including a systematic review, a main path analysis, and a bibliographic analysis. Together, this three-prong review offers profound insights into the state of adaptive selling research by (1) mapping the key stages of evolution of research in this domain over the last four decades, (2) delineating various conceptualizations and operational measures of the construct of adaptive selling, and (3) advancing an integrated framework of the nomological network of adaptive selling. Based on these insights, we outline five major opportunities for future theoretical development and empirical research to move the domain forward.
Sales education has evolved significantly due to trends such as sales transformation, hybrid sales, and the growing relevance of sales in complex digital markets. However, there is a lack of comprehensive educational research that can propose curriculum designs based on the most relevant competencies for the industry and help respond to recent challenges in competitive and technological terms. This study adopts a competence-based and multi-stakeholder perspective to investigate emerging competencies in complex selling and implement a curriculum design model for sales. It examines the literature and gathers insights from both sales scholars and business stakeholders to put forward a comprehensive set of competencies and a curriculum content proposal for universities. The results reveal that sales professionals should have strategic value creation, advanced business negotiation, and advanced interpersonal and intrapersonal competencies. The findings of our study and the proposed curriculum content provide a basis for future research on sales education and applications in universities.
Purpose – This paper comprehensively reviews research on buying centers using a multi-method approach that
combines bibliometric analysis and content-based review. The study evaluates over 50 years of buying center
literature and identifies critical trends, influential contributors and research gaps. Based on the findings, the paper
advocates for a multi-stage, multi-method review process as a benchmark for future literature reviews in marketing.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper includes a multi-method approach that combines bibliometric
analysis and content-based review employing state-of-the-art tools such as Biblioshiny.
Findings – The analysis reveals patterns in the intellectual structure of the research on buying centers as well as
patterns of influence. While there has been periodic interest in reviewing and summarizing the literature on
buying centers, we find that a multi-method, journal-agnostic review of the literature utilizing multiple
databases yields a more comprehensive view of the field.
Originality/value – This paper provides a comprehensive and systematic literature review on the topic of
buying centers, utilizing multiple databases and increasing inclusiveness of global research.
Keywords Buying center, Bibliometrics, Literature review
Paper type Research paper.
Sales research has long established that salesperson individual and team drivers are key for executing effective selling strategies. Yet radical changes in the sales context in the past decade also require today’s salespeople to adapt their selling strategies. Moreover, considering the current international selling environment, many firms pursue a wide range of attractive country markets too, which increases the complexity and challenges of managing country-specific selling strategies. The authors undertake an elasticity meta-analysis of 48 studies, conducted in seven countries and one region (Study 1), to determine the effectiveness of individual and team drivers from a dynamic and global perspective. They also perform a correlation-based meta-analysis of 328 studies conducted in 32 countries (Study 2) to assess the correlations between specific salesperson drivers and performance, and how such correlations might be conditioned by country development and cultural characteristics. The results reveal a positive elasticity of individual and team drivers on performance that decreases over time, providing managers with key empirical insights on sales management; selling skill and aptitude show greater correlation with performance than intrafirm relationship and coordination activity. The country and cultural contingency analysis further indicates a stronger correlation between salesperson drivers and performance outcomes in country markets with high unbranded competition, low resource availability, and high long-term orientation.
Organizational marketing, sometimes referred to as business-to-business (B2B) marketing, typically deals with a limited clientele, resulting in a close relationship between customers and salespeople. The link must be managed carefully for the salesmen to employ entrepreneurial strategies to increase clients’ readiness to repurchase products and ultimately meet the company’s sales target, especially for those working in international markets. However, no well-validated model has been developed to demonstrate that salespeople who engage in corporate entrepreneurship and client-focused sales of the company do better in cross-border sales. The goal of the study is to test and validate a conceptual model that claims salespeople who engage in corporate entrepreneurship and client-centered selling perform better in cross-border sales when the company has a high capacity for absorption. Data analysis was done as part of the quantitative research method utilized in this study.
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate the drivers of business-to-business (B2B) sales success and the role of digitalization, in a selling and sales management landscape being disrupted by COVID-19.
Design/methodology/approach
The methodology follows a discovery-oriented grounded theory approach, which consists of a two-stage qualitative study with sales professionals in Chile, and a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA).
Findings
This research shows that interfunctional coordination, agility in the selling process and business customer engagement are critical determinants of B2B sales success, whereas digitalization moderates these relationships.
Originality/value
This research responds to a call for more research on the impact of digitalization on business relationships in different contexts and perspectives. The authors study the Chilean context, through a two-stage qualitative study, and a fsQCA analysis, which constitutes a novel combination in this stream of research.
The sales management literature suggests that control-based management systems drive sales effectiveness. However, despite prior research on salesforce management systems, inquiry from an experimental perspective is lacking. Previous studies examining salesforce control and capability control have been primarily conducted utilizing cross-sectional data and methodologies that limit assessment of causality. Thus, the objective of our research is to establish causal links of control-based management systems. Specifically, our first study utilizes video-based scenarios to experimentally manipulate the use of an outcome versus activity control system and the use versus non-use of a capability control approach. Four-hundred and ten business-to-business salespeople provide responses for our experiment that demonstrates 1) outcome control systems enhance salesperson selling orientation, 2) activity-based control systems enhance salesperson customer orientation, as well as perceived organizational and supervisor support, and 3) capability control systems enhance adaptive selling and salesperson creativity. To support our experimental findings, a follow-up qualitative study of fourteen sales managers highlights the crucial importance of sales managers as a part of control system effectiveness. Overall, our research contributes by establishing causal links between control-based management systems and salesperson intentions to utilize selling behaviors that improve sales performance.
This study identifies and tests how the competencies of live streamers affect the B2B livestreaming sales per- formance, with a particular focus on the moderating role of product type and product competitiveness. By analyzing a fine-grained livestreaming event dataset consisting of 915 brand firms from a B2B livestreaming platform and matching them with actual sales transactions, the results show that the cognitive and social competencies of live streamers have a positive effect on the sales performance, while emotional competence has a negative effect. More importantly, this study provides strong evidence that the effects of live streamers’ com- petencies on online sales are contingent on product type and competitiveness. Specifically, live streamers’ cognitive and emotional competencies have a more salient impact on experience product sales than search products. On the other hand, product competitiveness moderates the interaction effect between product type and live streamer competencies.
Although lead scoring is an essential component of lead management, there is a lack of a comprehensive literature review and a classification framework dedicated to it. Lead scoring is an effective and efficient way of measuring the quality of leads. In addition, as a critical Information Technology tool, a proper lead scoring model acts as an alleviator to weaken the conflicts between sales and marketing functions. Yet, little is known regarding lead scoring models and their impact on sales performance. Lead scoring models are commonly categorized into two classes: traditional and predictive. While the former primarily relies on the experience and knowledge of salespeople and marketers, the latter utilizes data mining models and machine learning algorithms to support the scoring process. This study aims to review and analyze the existing literature on lead scoring models and their impact on sales performance. A systematic literature review was conducted to examine lead scoring models. A total of 44 studies have met the criteria and were included for analysis. Fourteen metrics were identified to measure the impact of lead scoring models on sales performance. With the increased use of data mining and machine learning techniques in the fourth industrial revolution, predictive lead scoring models are expected to replace traditional lead scoring models as they positively impact sales performance. Despite the relative cost of implementing and maintaining predictive lead scoring models, it is still beneficial to supersede traditional lead scoring models, given the higher effectiveness and efficiency of predictive lead scoring models. This study reveals that classification is the most popular data mining model, while decision tree and logistic regression are the most applied algorithms among all the predictive lead scoring models. This study contributes by systematizing and recommending which machine learning method (i.e., supervised and/or unsupervised) shall be used to build predictive lead scoring models based on the integrity of different types of data sources. Additionally, this study offers both theoretical and practical research directions in the lead scoring field.
As the importance of servitization and service-augmented solution delivery grows into a mainstream phenom-
enon for manufacturers, offering theoretically founded avenues to solve their specific internationalization
challenges is necessary. The study addresses the internationalization paradox faced by servitized manufacturers
generated by the specific hybrid nature of their product-service offering. As such, this research is meant to
understand the entry mode diversity for the internationalization of advanced servitization providers. Our pri-
mary research deal-level data follows 1885 potential sales negotiations for servitized products closed in 2018 by
a Poland-based multinational high-tech optics firm offering product-service systems. The results of the study
support the idea that manufacturers of advanced servitization could benefit from the implementation of entry
mode diversity. It is found that the sales deal success when entry mode diversity is implemented in a foreign
market is positively moderated when knowledge-intensive advanced servitization is included in the negotiation.
It has long been assumed that empathy and ego-drive are two fundamental characteristics of effective salespeople. Taking a wholistic view of sales effectiveness to include job satisfaction in sales positions, this research assesses the relationship between salesperson empathy and ego-drive and sales job satisfaction. While evidence suggests that high empathy and high ego-drive are predictors of sales performance, this does not always translate to job satisfaction based on our findings. Using the automated text analysis tool, Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) to analyze company reviews written by B2B salespeople, our results show that B2B salespeople who are most satisfied with their jobs possess high levels of empathy but low levels of ego-drive.
La publicidad es una parte de la mercadotecnia que ha demostrado, durante décadas y tal vez siglos, ser efectiva para la productividad de los negocios. En México, la pandemia de COVID-19, desde el mes de abril de 2020 y al menos a mayo de 2021, ha dejado estragos comerciales y empresariales diversos, que se pueden apreciar en la quiebra de algunos negocios y en el nacimiento o desarrollo de otros. La resiliencia de las empresas, capacidad de sobreponerse a las adversidades del entorno, ha sido un tema importante durante la pandemia. El objetivo de este trabajo fue determinar en qué medida impacta la publicidad, tanto tradicional como digital, en la resiliencia de las empresas. Se realizó una investigación empírica cuantitativa en el mes de mayo de 2021, en la que se aplicó un cuestionario en línea de 30 ítems a una muestra de 302 micro, pequeñas y medianas empresas de la zona sur del estado de Tamaulipas, México. Los resultados mostraron que las empresas encuestadas manifestaron utilizar casi en la misma proporción la publicidad tradicional y digital. Se encontró además una correlación significativa y positiva entre los dos tipos de publicidad y la resiliencia de las empresas, por lo que se puede recomendar a los empresarios definir estrategias encaminadas a utilizar todos los medios publicitarios para anunciarse y así incrementar la posibilidad de tener sostenibilidad empresarial, en particular en tiempos adversos.
The selling practice is facing an unprecedented process of change that is redefining the logic of value co-creation and disrupting the nature of B2B relationships across several industries. This phenomenon is well-known in managerial practice but under-investigated at a theoretical level. Sales literature aligns on acknowledging that selling and value co-creation unfold within broader service ecosystems. However, the changes occurring in sales have been predominantly studied by focusing on the single elements affecting them. Based on a qualitative study of 48 sales experts, this research draws on the service ecosystem theory to offer a holistic perspective of the factors driving the transformation of selling for value co-creation. The proposal from the study is that value co-creation through selling is a systemic and multi-actor phenomenon, including two antecedents: Hybridization of salespeople and Digital ecosystem empowerment, two boundary conditions: Multi-actor integration and Acceleration, and 23 sub-dimensions driving change in selling. The study also provides guidance for managerial practices, which is crucial due to the high failure rate of attempts at transforming sales.
Advertising, which has traditionally played an ancillary role in B2B firms' marketing efforts, gains momentum, with firms' spending levels steadily increasing and recent research showing positive effects on firms' sales revenues. However, the sales effect generated through a firm's B2B advertising is likely to critically depend on competitors' advertising investments. While B2C research suggests that competitive advertising reduces the effectiveness of own advertising, this study applies the dynamic NEST (nested business environment) framework to propose the opposite effect, considering the emerging nature of advertising in business markets and the impact of competitor advertising in establishing this form of communication. This opposite, synergistic effect means that advertising competition increases, instead of decreases, the effectiveness of own advertising in B2B contexts. Using a large panel dataset of 2723 B2B firms, this study finds evidence for the synergistic effect and also shows that it reduces the sales effect of sales force spending, i.e. an established communication form in business markets. However, the results also show that the effect's presence or absence critically depends on the business context. This research provides important insights for researchers and managers concerning competitive advertising effects in different B2B contexts.
COVID-19 has proven to be a disruptive and world-altering event often forcing professional salespeople to rapidly change the manner in which they do business. Thereby, this pandemic illuminates the importance of understanding salesperson characteristics and behaviors that enable sales success in disruptive environments. This study identifies COVID-19 as a Critical Sales Event and introduces the concept of “bricolage” to the larger body of sales literature. Bricolage is a combination of “making do” under environmental conditions of resource constraint. Bricolage characterizes a salesperson's ability to utilize available resources effectively by assessing available resources and working to reconfigure them in order to meet new challenges and create opportunities. Drawing on qualitative and quantitative research from professional salespeople, this study identifies a salesperson's creativity, learning-orientation, and grit as three important antecedents to salesperson bricolage. Moreover, this study shows that salesperson bricolage relates positively to sales performance under conditions shaped by the COVID-19 disruption; with salesperson bricolage becoming more strongly related to sales performance when sales environments are more highly disrupted by the pandemic.
Business and consumer buying behaviour has changed dramatically in recent time; a fact that is not lost on selling organisations when considering how best to recalibrate salesperson performance measures in response. However, a contemporary, systematic review of the academic literature concerning those most effective salesperson performance factors is markedly absent. This study joins a long line of investigatory efforts regarding the characteristics and habits of successful salesperson performance by adopting meta-analysis techniques to investigate the salesperson performance literature, content-analysing over 250 published articles from 1986 to 2017 and synthesising the findings into a new salesperson performance typology. The study finds that personal, organisational, co-worker, buyer and situational dimensions are responsible for increasing salespersons’ performance. Additionally, this work offers a parsimonious overview of current key salesperson performance research as well as a clear agenda for future salesperson performance research.
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to explore the linkages among emotional intelligence, relational selling behavior and salesperson performance. Although existing research acknowledges the importance of emotional facets in business relationships, the role of emotional intelligence is poorly understood in the literature on salesperson performance.
Design/methodology/approach
Two data sets from business-to-business salespeople in various industrial and service sectors were analyzed with structural equation modeling. Mediation hypotheses were cross validated through a bootstrapping approach with bias-corrected confidence estimates.
Findings
The results suggest that two focal types of selling behaviors – namely, adaptive selling and customer-oriented selling – fully mediate the positive relationship between emotional intelligence and salesperson performance.
Practical implications
The study offers new insights to sales and marketing managers on how individual capabilities (such as emotional intelligence) can be transformed into high sales performance.
Originality/value
Drawing on the ability view of emotional intelligence and highlighting its conative facet, the current research posits that emotional intelligence affects salesperson performance through relational selling behaviors.
Systematic reviews should build on a protocol that describes the rationale, hypothesis, and planned methods of the review; few reviews report whether a protocol exists. Detailed, well-described protocols can facilitate the understanding and appraisal of the review methods, as well as the detection of modifications to methods and selective reporting in completed reviews. We describe the development of a reporting guideline, the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses for Protocols 2015 (PRISMA-P 2015). PRISMA-P consists of a 17-item checklist intended to facilitate the preparation and reporting of a robust protocol for the systematic review. Funders and those commissioning reviews might consider mandating the use of the checklist to facilitate the submission of relevant protocol information in funding applications. Similarly, peer reviewers and editors can use the guidance to gauge the completeness and transparency of a systematic review protocol submitted for publication in a journal or other medium.
Many scholars are not well trained in conducting a standalone literature review, a scholarly paper that in its entirety summarizes and synthesizes knowledge from a prior body of research. Numerous guides that exist for information systems (IS) research mainly concentrate on only certain parts of the process; few span the entire process. This paper introduces the rigorous, standardized methodology for the systematic literature review (also called systematic review) to IS scholars. This comprehensive guide extends the base methodology from the health sciences and other fields with numerous adaptations to meet the needs of methodologically diverse fields such as IS research, especially those that involve including and synthesizing both quantitative and qualitative studies. Moreover, this guide provides many examples from IS research and provides references to guides with further helpful details for conducting a rigorous and valuable literature review. Although tailored to IS research, it is sufficiently broad to be applicable and valuable to scholars from any social science field.
Full text available from http://chitu.okoli.org/pub/okoli-2015-a-guide-to-conducting-a-standalone-systematic-literature-review/
Purpose
– This paper aims to examine whether and how sales technology (ST) use helps salespeople perform better through the modification of their customer-qualification skills and customer-oriented selling behaviors. Also, the moderating role of salespeople’s technology self-efficacy is analyzed. Technological advancements have become an integral part of the personal selling process, yet the relationship between salesperson’s technology use and salesperson performance remains primarily unsubstantiated.
Design/methodology/approach
– Data are collected from a diverse sample of 265 salespeople across different industries. Hypotheses are tested with structural equation modeling.
Findings
– The results indicate that a salesperson’s customer-qualification skills and customer-oriented selling fully mediate the effect of technology use on outcome performance. In addition, salespeople high in technology self-efficacy seem to get the most out of their technology use. More specifically, the influence of technology use on customer-qualification skills and customer-oriented selling is stronger for salespeople with high rather than low self-efficacy. Interestingly, technology use only increases performance for salespeople with high self-efficacy.
Originality/value
– Prior evidence on the consequences of ST on performance is not conclusive. The study adds value to both managers and scholars providing new insights of the link between technology use and performance and its underlying mediating and moderating processes. Without an understanding of the ST-performance relationship, sales managers may increase ST costs but decrease potential returns.
This research examines the impact of the acquisition–retention resource allocation at the individual salesperson level – that is, the proportion of their time dedicated to acquisition versus retention activities – on their sales performance. We extend prior research that investigates the acquisition–retention trade-off below (i.e., customer value approach) or above (i.e., firm portfolio approach) the salesperson's perspective by also incorporating many ‘within-firm’ factors that are critical to capturing the contingent nature of the allocation decision. The results suggest that firms can double their sales gains by implementing a trade-off strategy that customizes the acquisition allocation at the salesperson level. Using matched triadic data gathered from 227 salespersons, 106 supervisors and the seller's database, the authors find an inverted U-shaped linkage between the proportion of time allocated to acquisition activities and sales performance. Moderation analyses show that salespeople's optimal acquisition allocation depends on their knowledge breadth and job commitment, their supervisor's experience and job commitment and the quantity and quality of the prospects in their relationship portfolio.
The link between organizational configurations and performance has become a central and somewhat controversial focus of research in the strategic management literature. We statistically aggregated results from 40 original tests of the configurations-performance relationship. In contrast to previous qualitative reviews, this meta-analysis demonstrated that an organization's performance is partially explained by its configuration. Tests of four potential moderators showed that organizations' configurations contributed more to performance explanation to the extent that studies used (1) broad definitions of configurations, (2) single-industry samples, and (3) longitudinal designs. Results highlight the need for programmatic research.
The role of selling has become increasingly analytical and it is a central topic on senior management's agenda in business markets. Still, sales strategy remains an under-researched topic in the business-to-business marketing domain. Very little is known about how to implement it effectively or about the mechanisms of how sales strategy affects performance, despite its apparent importance for firm success. Drawing on a large-scale sample of 816 salespeople and directors from 30 sales organizations, and employing multilevel structural equation modeling, this study sheds light on the chain of effects that transforms sales strategy as an organizational variable into selling performance captured on the individual salesperson level. The findings demonstrate that a firm's sales strategy is related to market performance and affects salesperson selling performance both directly and indirectly. Further, the results show that each sales strategy dimension affects salesperson performance in a unique way. Of the three dimensions of sales strategy studied, only segmentation directly impacts salesperson selling performance. Prioritization and selling models impact salesperson performance indirectly, via their impact on customer orientation and value-based selling. These results lead to actionable implications for the effective implementation of sales strategy in business markets.
Firms often utilize salesperson intelligence in marketing strategies to improve sales performance. However, this approach is problematic if the information is based on inaccurate perceptions. In light of this, the authors introduce a theoretical model to study the antecedents and profit impact of salesperson perceptions of customer relationship quality. Dyadic analyses using matched survey responses from salesperson–customer dyads and secondary performance data reveal several insightful findings. Results show that self-efficacious salespeople are upwardly biased, whereas customer-oriented salespeople are downwardly biased in their perceptions of customer relationship quality. However, managers can correct these inaccuracies using a behavior-based control system. Response surface analyses illustrate that the effects of salesperson accuracy and inaccuracy are distinct and curvilinear. During later relationship phases, salespeople profit more from salesperson accuracy in high-and low-quality relationships (i.e., a U-shaped effect). Yet the increasingly harmful impact of salesperson inaccuracy on profit is more severe during earlier relationship phases. Together, these findings highlight the benefits of measuring salesperson perceptions and how to manage them.
The application of influence is a key behaviour set at the heart of the sales role. But we know little about how or whether influence tactics affect salespeople's actual job performance. We extend existing research on salespeople's use of influence by: (1) showing that influence tactics can be used to predict objective sales performance (and delineating which tactics are most predictive); (2) demonstrating that the effect of tactics on performance varies across salespeople, and these patterns of influence effectiveness allow us to identify different influence ‘styles’ and (3) revealing that the influence styles our data uncover are not consistent with existing theoretical classifications of influence tactics. The article concludes with a discussion of theoretical and managerial implications, and directions for future work.
In today's age of relational selling, a key challenge for salespeople is to determine the degree to which their customer-oriented behaviors drive sales performance. Therefore, this study analyzes whether a salesperson's customer orientation in sales encounters has an optimum level with regard to sales performance and customer attitudes. Using triadic data from a cross-industry survey of 56 sales managers, 195 sales representatives, and 538 customers, the authors provide strong empirical support for a curvilinear, inverted U-shaped effect of a salesperson's customer orientation on sales performance, whereas the effect of customer orientation on customer attitudes is continuously positive. Moreover, the findings reveal that the optimum level of customer orientation with regard to sales performance is higher for salespeople selling individualized products, in firms pursuing a premium price strategy, and in markets with a high degree of competitive intensity.
Firms invest billions of dollars in sales technologies (STs; e.g., customer relationship management, sales automation tools) to improve sales force effectiveness and efficiency. However, the results expected from ST investments are often not achieved. This article proposes relationship-forging tasks that are critical to the link between ST use and key aspects of salesperson performance (i.e., a salesperson's relationship-building performance with customers and administrative performance). The authors evaluate relationship-forging tasks in the context of a model that considers the antecedents and consequences of three different uses of ST: accessing, analyzing, and communicating information. In general, the results of a field study, which is analyzed using block-recursive structural equation modeling, support the relationship-forging theory and show that relationship-forging tasks predict 57% of the variance in a salesperson's relationship-building performance with customers. The findings also support hypotheses that using ST either to analyze or to communicate information has mediated positive effects on a salesperson's relationship-building performance with customers. However, a salesperson's use of ST to analyze information has negative influences on administrative performance, creating an unexpected trade-off for sales and marketing managers.
This research examines how sales professionals use emotions in marketing exchanges to facilitate positive outcomes for their firms, themselves, and their customers. The authors conduct three field studies to examine the impact of emotional intelligence (EI) in marketing exchanges on sales performance and customer relationships. They find that EI is positively related to performance of real estate and insurance agents, even when controlling for the effects of domain-general EI, self-report EI, cognitive ability, and several control variables. Sales professionals with higher EI are not only superior revenue generators but also better at retaining customers. In addition, the authors demonstrate that EI interacts with key marketing exchange variables—customer orientation and manifest influence—to heighten performance such that high-EI salespeople more effectively employ customer-oriented selling and influence customer decisions. Finally, the results indicate a complementary relationship between EI and cognitive ability in that EI positively influences performance at higher levels of cognitive ability. These findings have implications for improving interactions between buyers and sellers and for employee selection and training.
Understanding how the use of IT influences the performance of inside sales is imperative, yet there is a lack of research in this area. This study empirically validates a conceptual model based on the Technology-Task-Fit theory, capturing the impact of lead management systems (LMS) on inside sales performance through the following mediators: task characteristics (call quantity and lead follow-up intensity), selling behavior (adaptive selling), and salesperson characteristics (technical and salesmanship skills). Using PLS-SEM on 108 responses collected from sales professionals, our analysis shows that the use of LMS in inside sales affects performance via improving salespeople's adaptive selling and lead follow-up intensity, technical and salesmanship skills; together these variables explain over a half (55%) of the variance of sales performance. Our findings aim to inform academics and practitioners on the key enablers of inside sales performance and IT usage approaches that can optimize marketing output in the inside sales industry.
Consultants and pundits assert that the business-to-business (B2B)buying process has changed markedly in recent years due to the emergence of online, digital applications and software. Recognizing that impactful, and truly innovative future research is perhaps best created when built on the foundation of past science, we review the arc of B2B buying process modeling from 1956 to the present. Our goals with this research are to: 1. capture the genealogy and evolution of thinking across the years in terms of foundation theories, reasoning approach, types of models, factors researched, and journals in which articles were published, 2. identify the thematic inflection points in the research stream that have led to the current conceptualizations, and 3. suggest a research agenda for the future. We discovered that academic understanding of the B2B buying process has progressed in waves featuring seven themes – transactions, situations, influences, responses, relationships, networks and journeys. Looking to the future, we recommend that scholars examine five areas of research: the impact of technology, modes of customer and supplier interaction, decision-making approaches, tensions between internal and external communities, and B2B marketing analytics.
The concept of customer orientation in salespeople is defined, a scale is developed to measure the degree to which salespeople engage in customer-oriented selling, and the properties of the scale are reported. A test of the nomological validity indicates the use of customer-oriented selling is related to the ability of the salespeople to help their customers and the quality of the customer-salesperson relationship.
Research perspectives from role theory are examined with a large sample of purchasing professionals in an effort to increase understanding of industrial buyer behavior and the buying environment. An integrative model of the antecedents and consequences of role stress fits the data well. The results suggest that an awareness of the nature and influence of role stress in the buying context can be of value to marketing professionals, especially sales representatives and marketing/product managers.
This position paper argues that current knowledge of the determinants of motivation and performance in industrial selling is woefully inadequate. As a first step toward improving this situation, the authors offer a conceptual model which identifies a set of individual, interpersonal, organizational, and environmental variables that may influence a salesman's motivation and job performance. The model incorporates many constructs and research findings from industrial psychology and other disciplines, but its primary purpose is to provide a conceptual framework and some specific hypotheses to help guide future empirical research in sales management.
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.
This research addresses three questions: (1) Why are some organizations more market-oriented than others? (2) What effect does a market orientation have on employees and business performance? (3) Does the linkage between a market orientation and business performance depend on the environmental context? The findings from two national samples suggest that a market orientation is related to top management emphasis on the orientation, risk aversion of top managers, interdepartmental conflict and connectedness, centralization, and reward system orientation. Furthermore, the findings suggest that a market orientation is related to overall (judgmental) business performance (but not market share), employees’ organizational commitment, and esprit de corps. Finally, the linkage between a market orientation and performance appears to be robust across environmental contexts that are characterized by varying degrees of market turbulence, competitive intensity, and technological turbulence.
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, salespeople's confidence in their overall selling abilities, is found to moderate some of the relationships with the goal orientations.
The authors extend the conceptual work of Anderson and Oliver (1987) and Jaworski (1988) on control in three ways. First, they account for the independent effects of the reinforcement dimension of control, in addition to the information dimension traditionally studied. Second, to reflect the varied behaviors that supervisors attempt to control, they disaggregate behavior control into activity control and capability control. Third, they delineate the direct and mediated effects of control on salespeople. Their proposed framework was tested with data collected from 270 salespeople in five industrial product divisions of two Fortune 500 companies. The findings suggest that managers must carefully match controls-in-use with desired results. Overall, the results show that information and reinforcement effects vary, which suggests the need to distinguish between the information provided and the actual reinforcements administered to salespeople. They also show that activity and capability control have different effects and draw a sharp distinction between two types of behavior control. Finally, the results suggest that supervisory controls primarily have indirect effects on salesperson performance, but both direct and indirect effects on satisfaction
Several theories of relationship marketing propose that customers vary in their relationships with a firm on a continuum from transactional to highly relational bonds. Few empirical studies have segmented the customer base of an organization into low and high relational groups to assess how evaluations vary for these groups. Using structural equation analysis, the authors analyze the relationships of satisfaction, trust, and commitment to component satisfaction attitudes and future intentions for the customers of a New York off-Broadway repertory theater company. For the low relational customers (individual ticket buyers and occasional subscribers), overall satisfaction is the primary mediating construct between the component attitudes and future intentions. For the high relational customers (consistent subscribers), trust and commitment, rather than satisfaction, are the mediators between component attitudes and future intentions.
While the unique characteristics of the industrial salesman's role has stimulated much recent research, this uniqueness requires the development and use of occupation-specific measurement instruments. A job satisfaction measure specifically designed for industrial salesmen is presented together with norms, a detailed description of the methodology employed, and techniques to evaluate the new instrument's factor structure, reliability, and construct validity.
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.
The authors propose that adaptive selling is influenced by salespeople's knowledge of customer types and sales strategies as well as their motivation to alter the direction of their behavior. Pertinent research in psychology and personal selling is reviewed and specific propositions relating to knowledge, motivation, and adaptive behavior are advanced. On the basis of these propositions, suggestions are made for selecting, training, managing, and compensating salespeople.
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.
Sales organizations continue to exhibit meaningful changes in their structures during the e-commerce era. This article examines the impact of Internet technology on the evolution of sales organizations and identifies key components underpinning a successful hybrid sales structure. A comprehensive review of sales organization studies leads to the derivation of a hybrid sales structure model, as well as a series of key recommendations pertaining to the organization and sales performance. These findings establish a platform for further research into the hybrid sales structure. The transition from a reliance on traditional, outside sales forces to a concomitant use of inside sales personnel produces hybrid sales structures that can accommodate online buyer–seller interactions and also leverage technological advances in sales automation and business intelligence to boost sales performance.
The purpose of this study is to develop and empirically test the mediating role of salesperson brand identification in the relationship between intrinsic and extrinsic motivational dispositions and three salesforce outcomes–sales performance, organizational commitment, and job satisfaction. We find salesperson brand identification mediates salesperson motivation’s impact on outcomes for extrinsically motivated salespeople. We combine motivational and social identification theories to provide a better understanding of the relationship between salesperson innate motivational dispositions and salesforce management outcomes. We provide additional insight as to how salesperson identification with the brand can boost performance, gain commitment, and increase job satisfaction among salespeople.
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 article considers the theory-practice gap in professional sales. Scholars note a discrepancy between scholarly knowledge and the practice of selling. We study three exemplar gaps using an extensive qualitative dataset, mainly in-depth interviews, in order to better understand why these gaps exist. Theory-practice gaps in listening, follow-up, and adaptability have not been empirically confirmed in light of rapid change in the sales field. After confirming these gaps, we explore antecedents, uncovering several underlying reasons for gap formation. We consider theoretical and managerial implications. In particular, we elaborate on the need for theory to be more relevant and contextualized.
Purpose
Previous studies that examined the role of empathy and nonverbal immediacy on business-to-business (B2B) salesperson performance is limited in scope and yielded inconclusive evidence. Grounded in Plank and Greene’s (1996) framework of salesperson effectiveness, this paper aims to empirically investigate the mediating role of adaptive selling behavior through which empathy and nonverbal immediacy influence sales force performance and the form of empathy (cognitive or affective) that has the most beneficial role in improving relationship (versus outcome) salesperson performance.
Design/methodology/approach
Using cross-sectional data that were collected from 422 pharmaceutical sales representatives, this study used structural equation modeling to test the hypothesized relationships.
Findings
Adaptive selling behavior mediates the effect of perspective taking empathy and empathic concern on relationship performance. However, the impact of empathy on outcome performance is not significant through adaptive selling behavior, but perspective taking empathy has a direct influence on outcome performance. Contrary to expectations, nonverbal immediacy is not mediated by adaptive selling behavior but has a direct and positive impact on relationship performance.
Research limitations/implications
The results of this study have several implications for recruitment, training and assessment of salespeople in a B2B context. Based on the empirical evidence, it is highlighted that firms may use different forms of empathy and nonverbal cues to promote adaptive selling behavior that impact sales force performance (i.e. outcome or relationship).
Originality/value
To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study which simultaneously examines the mediating role of adaptive selling behavior in the relationship between three antecedent variables that relate to sales force empathy and nonverbal communication (i.e. perspective taking empathy, empathic concern and nonverbal immediacy) and two aspects of B2B sales performance (relationship and outcome).
Premised on the idea that not all salesperson behaviors can be pre-scripted and that, increasingly, salespersons must find ways to respond to unexpected but urgent market conditions, this study theorizes the drivers, outcomes and boundary conditions of salesperson improvisation. Using primary data from industrial salespersons, the study examines how perceptions of resource availability and customer demandingness drive salesperson improvisation and condition its sales performance effects. Findings show that higher levels of salesperson improvisation are associated with increased sales performance. Additionally, a heightened perception of resource availability and greater customer demandingness are associated with increases in salesperson improvisation. Furthermore, findings indicate that the salesperson improvisation–sales performance relationship is strengthened when resource availability is greater and when customer demandingness is lower.
The purpose of this article is to examine the relations between important sales presentation skills and salesperson job performance. Data on each construct in the model was gathered and the relations analyzed using LISREL software. More sales skills need to be considered and salespeople in other industry and also in other than those in the business to business environment should be studied. Finding shows that one of the salesperson characteristics, sales experience, underlies all the sales presentation skills and that the other, training, is associated with all the sales presentation skills with the exception of active listening skills. Sales managers are urged to ensure their business to business salespeople develop their skills in adaptive communication and closing as one means to improve sales performance.
Salespeople face increasingly complex work environments, both externally with customers and internally with various departments in their own organizations. Because managing such customer and organizational complexity is crucial to performance, the authors conceptualize and develop measures of customer and organizational complexity and examine the effects on salesperson outcomes. In line with job demands-resources theory, salespeople leverage personal and supervisory resources to manage complexity. The test of the conceptual model uses matched salespeople-sales manager data gathered from a large business-to-business firm. The empirical findings reveal that personal resources (sales self-efficacy) help manage complexity in general but create greater role stress in the face of customer complexity. The effectiveness of supervisory resources (transactional leadership behavior) is contingent on the type of complexity and the personal resources available to a salesperson. These results indicate not only how salespeople manage different complexities but also how sales managers should adapt their leadership behaviors to enhance salesperson performance.
Purpose
– This study aims to address the need to study salesperson’s customer orientation and its effectiveness to explain the efficacy of predispositions and skills at individual level. This study is set in the Indian context and, therefore, offers a detailed insight from an Indian sales force perspective. Also, this study introduces self-leadership into sales literature.
Design/methodology/approach
– A model was tested using survey data collected from salespeople within a print media company located in India. A structural equation model was used to test the hypotheses.
Findings
– The results suggest an interesting interplay between salesperson’s customer orientation and his/her sales performance. The relationship between customer orientation is fully mediated by salesperson’s emotion regulation ability and his/her salesmanship skills. Results support the role of natural rewards strategies as driver of individual level customer orientation which will be of great interest in future research in this area.
Research limitations/implications
– The research suggests that a salesperson’s customer orientation relates positively with sales performance through two process variables – emotion regulation and salesmanship skills. Within an Indian sales force, individual salesperson’s customer orientation is significantly influenced by his/her natural rewards strategies which have important implication for sales force recruitment. Moreover, sales training and other interventions targeted toward building salesmanship skills and emotion regulation abilities may actually enhance effectiveness of customer-oriented sales force. Theoretical and managerial applications are also discussed.
Originality/value
– This study extends the literature through its examination of an Indian sales force, the incorporation of self-leadership construct (natural rewards strategies) and its argument for an alternative approach toward salesperson’s customer orientation effectiveness.
Market orientation (MO) lies at the very heart of modern marketing thinking and practice. Although research has shown that MO contributes to firm performance through innovation, an understanding is lacking on how the dimensions of MO (customer orientation, competitor orientation, and inter-functional coordination) may have differential effects on innovation, especially in the sales force context. Using data from business to business sales forces in the US manufacturing sector, this study identifies sales force outcome interdependence as a critical boundary condition that can strengthen the positive effect of competitor orientation but weaken the positive effect of customer orientation on sales force creativity. Moreover, results indicate that effect of sales force creativity on performance is fully mediated by innovation implementation, which can be bolstered by an innovative organizational culture.
We examine the relationships between bank branch employees' felt job stress, organizational commitment, job experience, and performance. Our findings are consistent with the attention view of stress. Employees with higher levels of affective commitment and higher levels of job experience channeled felt stress more effectively into sales performance. Felt stress had neutral to negative effects on performance for employees with lower levels of commitment and job experience. Commitment, like stress, was more strongly related to performance when employees had more job experience. The results suggest that consideration of moderators of the stress-performance relationship is important both theoretically and practically.
Within the domain of sales ethics, researchers are increasingly challenged to adopt a focus on the emotional elements of sales and ethics. However, previous research has primarily examined the more rational, deterministic element of sales, and ethics-based relationships. The current research addresses this issue. We develop a model based on the person–situation interaction viewpoint of ethics. Specifically, we explore the effects of a key social emotion, empathy, as well as an important situational aspect, trust in one's sales manager, on ethical behaviors. Further, we examine the moderating role of the salesperson's trust in his/her manager on the link between empathy and ethical behaviors. In addition, we examine the impact of the salesperson's ethical behaviors on his/her performance. Using dyadic data collected from salespeople and their respective managers, we test the model through SEM analysis. Results support the direct effects of empathy on ethical behaviors and also highlight the interactive effects of trust and empathy on ethical behaviors.
A random sample of independent insurance agents was surveyed to explore the relationships among learned behaviours, such as, adaptive selling and customer orientation and personal dispositions, such as, interpersonal mentalizing in predicting sales performance. The primary focus of this research was to reexamine salespeople's theory of mind in a broader theoretical base of human abilities. The results confirmed that the dimensions of interpersonal mentalizing, such as, taking a bird's-eye view, shaping the interaction by creating a positive ambience, detecting nonverbal cues and rapport building have different roles for the effectiveness of selling behaviours. While taking a bird's-eye view was a moderator, creating a positive ambience was a mediator of the relationship between selling behaviours and performance. Furthermore, salespeople's ability to build rapport improved sales performance only when they were able to detect nonverbal cues from customers. Taken together, these findings shed light on the complementary role of autonomous abilities of salespeople in improving the productivity of their learned selling behaviours. Several managerial implications were derived from the findings.
The concept of customer orientation (CO) is a focal construct in marketing and sales literature. Saxe and Weitz introduced CO to contrast the traditional high-pressure approach to sales (selling orientation). This study synthesizes empirical evidence from 1982 to 2013 to provide insight into the antecedents and consequences of both CO and selling orientation (SO). A conceptual meta-analytic model based on research into interpersonal motive models is proposed and tested using effect sizes from 126,790 salesperson survey responses to advance theory development on our understanding of how SO and CO behaviours affect organizations. Findings show that adaptive selling mediates the impact of both SO and CO which has important practical implications for hiring and training salespeople. Furthermore, this study shows that goal orientations are antecedents of SO and CO and that the impact of SO on job performance varies by customer type.
Environmental orientation has emerged as a noteworthy strategy for firms attempting to provide an authentic, unified image of environmental commitment to stakeholders. However, it is yet to be assessed from those employees most responsible for conveying an environmental image. This research examines the construct from the salesperson's point of view. Integrating social identity theory within a traditional Input-Process-Output framework, we demonstrate the importance of aligning firm ideals with individual boundary spanner identity in an environmental context. Our findings suggest that salespersons' perceptions of a firm's environmental orientation directly influence their effort and participation. Further, this relationship is amplified when the salesperson also has strong organizational identity. Finally, when salespeople put more into their work or actively engage in improving their company's environmental image, this increased effort and participation ultimately contributes to individual sales performance and job satisfaction.
The authors extend the conceptual work of Anderson and Oliver (1987) and Jaworski (1988) on control in three ways. First they account for the independent effects of the reinforcement dimension of control, in addition to the information dimension traditionally studied. Second, to reflect the varied behaviors that supervisors attempt to control, they disaggregate behavior control into activity control and capability control. Third, they delineate the direct and mediated effects of control on salespeople. Their proposed framework was tested with data collected from 270 salespeople in five industrial product divisions of two Fortune 500 companies. The findings suggest that managers must carefully match controls-in-use with desired results. Overall, the results show that information and reinforcement effects vary which suggests the need to distinguish between the information provided and the actual reinforcements administered to salespeople. They also show that activity and capability control have different effects and draw a sharp distinction between two types of behavior control. Finally, the results suggest that supervisory controls primarily have indirect effects on salesperson performance, but both direct and indirect effects on satisfaction.
In a longitudinal, randomized field experiment, we tested the impact of transformational leadership, enhanced by training, on follower development and performance. Experimental group leaders received transformational leadership training, and control group leaders, eclectic leadership training. The sample included 54 military leaders, their 90 direct followers, and 724 indirect followers. Results indicated the leaders in the experimental group had a more positive impact on direct followers' development and on indirect followers' performance than did the leaders in the control group.
Despite major changes in sales organizations and the sales environment over the last decade, no systematic updating of salesforce activities has been undertaken since 1986. This article reports the process and results of a sales activities update, including 49 new activities not previously reported in the 1986 study. The resulting list of new sales activities is presented and discussed, and the importance of the findings to sales organizations and sales researches is addressed. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science, Inc.
The purpose of this study was to examine the impact demographic variables of gender and sales experience have on the performance of business‐to‐business (B2B) sales professionals. If a deeper understanding can be established of how gender and sales experience variables relate to B2B sales performance, human resource development (HRD) and human performance improvement (HPI) professionals can use these indicators during the hiring and selection process. This article reports findings of the study and offers implications to the field of HRD and HPI.