Sales technology: Help or hindrance to ethical behaviors and productivity?

Abstract

Sales technology has had a major impact on the efficiency, effectiveness, and relationship building processes between the organization, manager, salesperson, and ultimately, the customer. However, this technology may generate ethical issues for these stakeholders. While the importance of sales force ethics and information technology are undeniable, there is a dearth of research that has examined these two topics together. Thus, we attempt to do so by conducting a qualitative investigation of sales experts in the field. Based on in-depth interviews with key sales executives from a variety of business-to-business and business-to-consumer industries, our results show that, indeed, there are many ethical issues surrounding the use of sales technology. These ethical issues comprise two major themes: Exploitation and Control. These themes are discussed from a productivity perspective with implications for business researchers and managers.