Sales Reps Research Articles

Chasing the moon's shadow.

Chasing the moon's shadow.

Improvisational choreography in teleservice work.

This naturalistic study of the ordinary work practice of sales representatives employed by the call centre of a large office-equipment company focuses on the actions of those sales reps during their calls with customers. We show how this work performance is organized through an improvisational choreography of action involving not only the turn-by-turn interchange with customers on the telephone but also the concurrent utilization of a variety of tools and artefacts. While 'improvise' and 'choreograph' may appear to be conceptually incongruent, our analysis demonstrates that even though these teleservice workers recurrently fabricate their actions out of materials and means that are conveniently on hand, the convenience is often carefully arranged to afford such extemporaneous composition. Finally, we conclude from this analysis that the traditional topics of 'work routines' and 'routinization' need to be respecified in order to take into account how any 'routine' is a contingently produced result (and in this centre, a craft-like performance).

Capture and transfer: improving the performance of the pharmaceutical sales rep

This article presents research findings from a case study of a company's pharmaceutical sales force working in the UK and Ireland. We explore how changes in the nature of the customer and the competitive environment are impacting on the way management are structuring the work process and the nature of skills required. A central focus is whether these changes are pushing management to increase the skills and knowledge of sales reps or are encouraging the use of a more rigid and less autonomous form of work organization. Can we identify a shift of this occupational group either towards the 'knowledge' worker end or towards the routinized service worker end of the skill/control spectrum? By analysing the relationships between customer, employer and employee, we evaluate how changes in the pharmaceutical industry and the reorganization of the UK's national health service (NHS) have led management to re-evaluate the balance between control and autonomy in managing sales reps' work. We argue that management's desire to empower and upskill reps, through the 'capture and transfer' of knowledge and the recruitment of higher qualified individuals, was being undermined by the use of forms of control which reduced autonomy and routinized the work process. The routinization approach was more pervasive, despite the beliefs by many reps that it was inappropriate for successful selling within the particular customer environment and its negative impact on job satisfaction and labour turnover. Our evidence would refute any assertion of a general trend towards more skilled and autonomous work, showing that there remain considerable pressures on management to control and downskill their workforce, despite the benefits of autonomous working.

Capture and transfer: improving the performance of the pharmaceutical sales rep

Capture and transfer: improving the performance of the pharmaceutical sales rep

Capture and transfer: improving the performance of the pharmaceutical sales rep

This article presents research findings from a case study of a company's pharmaceutical sales force working in the UK and Ireland. We explore how changes in the nature of the customer and the competitive environment are impacting on the way management are structuring the work process and the nature of skills required. A central focus is whether these changes are pushing management to increase the skills and knowledge of sales reps or are encouraging the use of a more rigid and less autonomous form of work organization. Can we identify a shift of this occupational group either towards the 'knowledge' worker end or towards the routinized service worker end of the skill/control spectrum? By analysing the relationships between customer, employer and employee, we evaluate how changes in the pharmaceutical industry and the reorganization of the UK's national health service (NHS) have led management to re-evaluate the balance between control and autonomy in managing sales reps' work. We argue that management's desire to empower and upskill reps, through the 'capture and transfer' of knowledge and the recruitment of higher qualified individuals, was being undermined by the use of forms of control which reduced autonomy and routinized the work process. The routinization approach was more pervasive, despite the beliefs by many reps that it was inappropriate for successful selling within the particular customer environment and its negative impact on job satisfaction and labour turnover. Our evidence would refute any assertion of a general trend towards more skilled and autonomous work, showing that there remain considerable pressures on management to control and downskill their workforce, despite the benefits of autonomous working.

The Role of Interpersonal Liking in Building Trust in Long-Term Channel Relationships

This article explores the important role of liking in the development of the buyer’s trust in the sales rep. The authors argue that liking’s role is richer and qualitatively different from that of the more cognitive antecedents of trust. They posit that many cognitive antecedents of trust operate mainly through liking. They argue that as the buyer-sales rep relationship matures, liking plays an even more important role in influencing trust. The authors empirically test a model delineating the mediating role of liking in developing trust. They find that when the relationship between the buyer and the sales rep is young, liking partially mediates the effect of similarity of business values and fully mediates the influence of frequency of personal interaction on trust. Moreover, as the buyer’s relationship with the rep ages, liking takes the foreground in trust development, while more cognitive antecedents recede into the background.

Practice nurses are no'soft touch' for sales reps

Practice nurses are no'soft touch' for sales reps

Does Relational Demography Matter in a Personal Selling Context?

The impact of demographic differences between sales reps and their managers is explored using data gathered from 340 manager-rep dyads. Education and gender differences between sales reps and managers, but not age differences, are shown to affect sales reps' role stress, organizational attachment, and perceptions of opportunities for advancement, as well as managers' ratings of the reps' performance. Study results support findings of previous research addressing relational demography and the similarity-attraction paradigm. The chief divergence of this study is that it depicts the role of frequency of contact between sales rep and manager in the link between demographic similarity and several outcome variables.

Critical sales events and salesforce attitudes

A new family of explanatory variables — critical sales events (CSEs) — is described. The impact of CSEs and past performance on the satisfaction and loyalty of industrial sales reps is explored. Controlling for sales experience and gender, performance, and two types of recent events (loss of a major customer and success at making a big sale) were generally significantly linked to salesforce satisfaction (with pay, advancement, the work itself corporate performance, and the sales manager) and to loyalty (affective organizational commitment and intentions to stay). The results suggest the value of understanding the effect of critical sales events for both sales management theory and practice.

The roles of outside and inside sales representatives: Conflict or cooperation?

Telemarketing emerged as a major force in business-to-business selling during the past decade and fundamentally changed industrial selling practices. The majority of writers suggest that alliances between inside and outside salespeople will result in increased profits, but a few have also noted the propensity for the development of tensions between the two groups. In investigating the effect that the introduction of telemarketing has on the jobs of outside sales representatives, the researchers found that the use of telemarketing changes the work roles of outside sales reps and that success in telemarketing was associated with even greater changes in the work of the outside sales-forces. The research found also that support of sales management and the outside salesforce are important in achieving success in telemarketing. Implications for management and theory are drawn.

Penetrating Canada's industrial markets

AbstractFor many U.S. manufacturers, the Canadian marketplace can have a delightful incremental impact on the bottom line. And for low‐cost, fast penetration of the Canadian market, independent sales reps may be the best approach.

Psychometric assessment of a reduced version of INDSALES

INDSALES is the most comprehensive scale available to measure the job satisfaction of industrial sales representatives (reps); however, the scale has not found widespread use in the literature. This limited use could be due to the lenght of the scale. With the use of a split sample of 295 sales reps, qualitative techniques were combined with the LISREL procedure to reduce INDSALES to a balanced 28-item scale. The reliabilities of the reduced scale dimensions continued to exceed .75. Cross-validation using LISREL produced goodness of fit indices in excess of .80. Finally, nomological validity was successfully confirmed through comparison with variablr relationships established in the existing sales literature.

EE at work wanted: Sales reps with EE degrees: A walk on the commercial side of engineering reveals opportunity, diversity, and perks to match the challenge of the job

They were once known as masters of the “glad hand and the glib tongue,” and their plaid jackets and loud ties caused many to exclaim in mockery, “Would you buy a used car from this man?” Today, however, used-car salesman jokes are going out of style as a new corps of sophisticated sales representatives in gray flannels, pin-striped blues, and highly paid jobs is quickly descending on corporate America. The change in image is so dramatic that today 75 percent of the people in top management positions have come up through the ranks in sales and marketing. In technology-intensive fields, particularly in the “high-tech” area, being a sales rep is becoming even more prestigious, for these reps need to have successful salesmanship attributes as well as technical competence. This technical fluency often means an engineering degree, since sales engineers are often involved in the specs and design of a product. They also must feel comfortable with high technology and be able to communicate with prospective customers in the same language.