The Role of Environmental Turbulence, Readiness for Change, and Salesperson Learning in the Success of Sales Force Change

Abstract

Today's sales forces are under pressure to change or risk becoming extinct. Changes in the business marketplace have accelerated the need for salespeople to learn continuously. The purpose of this paper is to examine readiness for change in a sales force context. Change is presumed to be initiated in response to some galvanizing event in the business environment. Business turbulence requires recognition of the need for change by members of the sales organization. We discuss the sales force's perceptions of a sales organization's readiness for change and propose that these perceptions impact the organization's change success. Furthermore, an organization's culture, climate, and policies are proposed as key drivers of an organization's readiness for change. Sales force perceptions of organizational readiness for change are then posited to be related to several measures of change success. The paper concludes with a call for more research on salesperson's learning orientation and sales organizational readiness for change as keys to sales performance.