Heeding a missing link between field managers’ monitoring styles and salespersons’ performance in pharmaceutical selling context

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to reveal important insights by examining the relationships of two different field managers’ monitoring styles with performance through salespersons’ engagement.Design/methodology/approachData was collected from 318 salespersons’ from 20 pharmaceutical firms. Given the performance-driven nature of the pharmaceutical sales profession, field managers seek to adopt the best monitoring style, which can optimize individual’s performance while providing a healthy work environment.FindingsThe results from multivariate analysis show the evidence of positive relationship between interactional monitoring and salespersons’ engagement. The results also confirm that engagement partially mediates the proposed relationships.Originality/valueAuthors assimilate and extend research and theory on field managers’ monitoring, salespersons’ performance and salespersons’ engagement to advance a model of salespersons’ reactions to different monitoring styles based on self-determination theory. Perhaps in no other field, the salespersons-field managers’ relationship is as important as in the field of pharmaceutical selling. The study offers insights about the important consequence of two different monitoring styles; also the study is one of the exceptional efforts to provide evidence regarding the role of engagement in the relationship between two different monitoring styles and salespersons’ performance.