Salesperson Work Research Articles

How Ethical Leadership and Ethical Self-Leadership Enhance the Effects of Idiosyncratic Deals on Salesperson Work Engagement and Performance

How Ethical Leadership and Ethical Self-Leadership Enhance the Effects of Idiosyncratic Deals on Salesperson Work Engagement and Performance

Managerial latitude and adaptive selling: Important roles of salesperson perceived control and work centrality

Based on the Conservation of Resources theory, we propose a positive relationship between managerial latitude and salespeople’s adaptive-selling behavior. We also propose salesperson perceived control as a relevant mediator and salesperson work centrality as an important boundary condition. Using time-lagged (three rounds, two months apart) data from 321 sales manager-employee dyads, the present work shows that managerial latitude positively influences adaptive selling, both directly and indirectly, via salesperson perceived control. Furthermore, our findings demonstrate that salesperson work centrality functions as a moderator of the direct association between managerial latitude and perceived control, as well as in the indirect link between managerial latitude and adaptive selling. The present study carries several important practical implications for organizations operating in different service and manufacturing sectors.

Adaptive selling in business-to-business markets: Contextual boundary of a selling strategy from retailing

A recent study of a selling strategy adapted by some retail salespeople recommended that salespeople should expeditiously disengage from a customer interaction when they believe that a customer with whom they are interacting is unlikely to make a purchase (Cron et al. 2021). The question addressed in this study is whether this sales strategy is similarly effective for salespeople in a B2B context. The B2B context for this study is a low purchasing complexity environment where the majority of sales revenue stems from customers’ reordering current supplies and equipment. Similar to the outcomes observed in a retail environment, the results suggest that B2B salespeople’s use of an NC2 strategy (short for No Conversion, No Conversation) increases sales revenues if salespeople work in an environment characterized by time scarcity and if they are relationship building oriented. Critically, if B2B salespeople apply the NC2 sales strategy with a low relationship building orientation, results show detrimental effects of the strategy over time. This potentially harmful effect did not emerge in retail settings. Moreover, unlike the results in a retail setting the effectiveness of the NC2 sales strategy does not depend on salespeople’s experience. For practitioners in B2B settings these findings are meaningful and actionable.

Salesperson’s perceived personal identification with supervisor and the relationship with turnover intention and performance: a mediated motivation model

This study integrates identification and motivation theory to show the relationship between a salesperson’s perceived personal identification with his/her supervisor, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, and three sales outcomes (turnover intention, outcome performance, and behavioral performance). The study results find support in nine of ten hypotheses including the notion that both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation are important mediators of the linkage between a salesperson’s perceived personal identification with their supervisor and turnover intention as well as performance. This study serves to bridge a gap in the identification literature by focusing on perceived personal identification in the salesforce domain, as well as answering the call for more research on influences of salesperson work engagement (motivation) and drivers of sales performance.

Valuations, marketing and uncertainty: a field study of financial analysts and salespeople

PurposeThis paper aims to explore how sell-side analysts and salespeople make sense of uncertainty on their market knowledge, valuation and marketing outputs.Design/methodology/approachData is collected by direct observations of and interviews with analysts and salespeople in the Turkish stock exchange, an emerging market with considerable global fund management activity.FindingsAnalysts face considerable uncertainty on their market value forecasts but dismiss it as local dynamics not incorporable to valuation practices in global sell-side business. Salespeople, despite paying more attention to such dynamics owing to their sales tasks, limit themselves to analyst output in marketing. Both actors recognise the importance of analyst work to be able to have “a right to speak” in global sell-side business.Research limitations/implicationsChanging market conditions and regulations since the time of study have been shaping analysts and salespeople work in global sell-side business, for example, the way sell-side is compensated by buy-side, buy-side’s move to receiving sell-side services from fewer brokers and hence shrinking sell-side teams. The paper does not address these. Nonetheless, it shows how valuation and marketing can be two distinct lines of work in sell-side business irrespective of market conditions and raises the question for future research as to how sell-side professionals manage this distinction, and how they make sense of and cope with broad market dynamics beyond sell-side and buy-side relations (e.g. automated trading machines, online retail trading).Originality/valueThe paper provides rare observation-based insights into analyst and salespeople work, including their sensemaking of uncertainty. It shows the importance of market identities and associated knowledge in valuation and marketing work in sell-side business.

Salespeople's work toward the institutionalization of social selling practices

While the use of social media has become widespread among business-to-business 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 depth of social media usage, and encourages firms to support salespeople's social selling initiatives instead of controlling them.

Work–family conflict in the sales force redux: A compendium of influencers

Selling is a primary function of channels of distribution with sales managers and salespeople markedly influencing channel success. Recently, salesperson work–family conflict has become a major concern, owing to its potential for adversely affecting sales force performance and thus impairing associated channel success. It has been extensively investigated in industrial-organizational (I/O) psychology, but sales scholars’ interest in it remains in the incipient stage. Whether findings from non-sales contexts are portable to a selling milieu remains an empirical question. This article presents an array of organizational- and managerial-related, individual job-related, individual person-related, technology-related, and contemporary selling environment-related factors that have been found to be or are logically associated with salesperson work–family conflict. The article thus seeks to facilitate sales researchers’ and practitioners’ efforts in undertaking empirical work and assisting salespeople to manage such conflict. To date, no previously published work has engaged in this charge.

Pengaruh Moral Kognitif Pada Kinerja Keperilakuan Dan Kinerja Hasil Tenaga Penjualan

Ethical decision making has become a critical issue as the pressure to improve the behavior of successful salespeople in all the current economic conditions. The values contained in the employees will affect the decision making of individuals or employees that will have an impact on organizational performance. Moral or cognitive moral is at the core of the most ethical decision-making models in the marketing and management. This study examined the effect of cognitive moral behavioral performance and outcome performance of the sales force and influence behavioral performance in sales force outcome performance. By using simple linear regression method obtained results that the hypothesis that cognitive moral effect on behavioral performance of salespeople, singnifikan effect (b = -0.296; sig 0.000) supported. Hypothesis 2 is not supported, which suggests that moral considerations affect the outcome performance in this study were not significant (b = -0.122; sig .148). The next hypothesis states that behavioral performance positive influence on the outcome performance of the support (b = 0.217; sig 0.009). To obtain the results of an individual's performance is good and responsible, it must enhance or improve the behavior of decision-making is based on cognitive moral salespeople. Performance results of the sales force increased when the behavior of salespeople work better and responsible.

Salesperson work engagement and flow

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to provide an interpretation of the lived experiences of salespersons’ work engagement and work-related flow and how these states are related.Design/methodology/approach– A mixed-methods qualitative investigation on a sample of 14 salespeople from a large Australian-based consumer goods enterprise was conducted. Using interpretative phenomenological analyses and ethnographic content analyses the antecedents and conditions for salesperson work engagement and work-related flow were investigated.Findings– The data showed that affective, cognitive and conative dimensions underpinned the experience of work engagement and work-related flow. Work engagement was interpreted as an aroused and self-regulated psychological state of energy, focus and striving aimed to address the situational and task relevant opportunities and demands encountered. Work-related flow was characterized by passion, absorption, eudaimonia and automatic self-regulation of goal pursuit.Research limitations/implications– The sample was from a single manufacturing organization with sales roles focussed primarily on business-to-business selling, and as such the generalizability of results to salespeople working in different contexts (e.g. retail sales, telesales) needs to be established.Practical implications– The research helps sales managers to take more account of the conditions that foster salesperson engagement and flow.Originality/value– This study represents one of the first attempts to interpret, compare and contrast the lived experience of salesperson work engagement with that of work-related flow. The study also adds to the relative paucity of research published on work engagement using qualitative methods.

Motivate to Improve Salesforce Performance: The Sales Training Perspective

Motivation drives human performance improvement. This is especially true in the field of salesforce management, since salespeople work with more job autonomy and frequently face customer rejection. In this article, I review classic sales motivation theories developed in the past decades and highlight how they have influenced contemporary sales management practices. Based on empirical research findings, I provide suggestions on how sales training may add value to improving sales performance and enhancing organizational effectiveness.

Relationships among perceptions of organizational politics (POPs), work motivation and salesperson performance

AbstractSalespersons differ from office workers in office time, work pressure and salary structure, thus their perceptions of organizational politics (POPs) and work motivations may also differ. Based on literature review and the expectancy theory of motivation, this study proposes three hypotheses: (1) POPs is positively related to salesperson performance, (2) POPs is positively related to salesperson work motivation and (3) there is mediator effect for work motivation in the relationship between POPs and salesperson performance. A questionnaire survey was conducted on four representative companies from the list of product manufacturers and service providers in Taiwan. The POPs and work motivation questions were answered by the salespersons, whereas the salespersons’ performance questions were assessed by the sales managers. A total of 850 questionnaires were distributed with 510 valid responses returned for hypotheses testing. The results support the three hypotheses, suggesting POPs can lead to improved salesperson performance, and this effect is mediated through work motivation. This new finding disagrees with the orthodox finding within the literature, which states that POPs and job performance for office workers are negatively correlated. The inconsistency may be ascribed to different work motivations between two groups of organizational members.

Leadership style, salesperson's work effort and job performance: the influence of power distance

As multinational organizations increase operations in emerging economies, firms need to understand how cultural values prevailing in a host country can influence leadership practices developed and practiced in Western economies. This study explores the relationships among leadership styles and salespeople's attitudes and behaviours with data from salespeople in India with power distance measured at the individual level. Results suggest that for employees' instrumental leadership is more effective in promoting employee effort and increasing job performance. In addition, the relationship between satisfaction with supervisor and turnover intentions is weaker or insignificant, while the relationship between satisfaction with supervisor and effort is stronger for employees in higher power distance organizations. The study highlights cultural sensitivities that need to be considered in formulating an effective leadership style in emerging market contexts.

Understanding salespeople's learning experiences through blogging: A social learning approach

Social media has changed the way many salespeople work and interact with their customers and coworkers. We examined 200 salespeople's blogs using netnography method. Drawing on social learning theory and real salespeople's blogs, we illustrate how and why salespeople can learn by reading and writing blogs. Our findings show that writing and reading blogs can be a helpful learning tool for many salespeople and the findings also suggest that companies should consider using blogging as a sales training tool. Our research contributes to marketing and sales literature two ways. First, our study provides a theoretical foundation for future work on social learning theory and online learning in areas of marketing, sales, and business education. Second, our study confirms the importance and usefulness of netnography method beyond its current usage in marketing and sales management. We conclude our paper with avenues for future research.

The Use of Social Bases of Power in Retail Sales

AbstractSocial power theory has been used to explain how a sales manager may influence sales personnel in an industrial sales setting. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between retail sales managers' power bases and retail salespeople's job satisfaction, role conflict, role ambiguity, work motivation, organizational commitment, and job performance. Results of the study suggest that noncoercive sources of power have greater influence on these variables than does coercive power.

Perceptions of Motivational Components: Salesmen and Saleswomen Revisited

Although empirical work has examined differences between salesmen and saleswomen on various aspects, no comprehensive study has examined gender-based distinctions in salespeople's work motivation. The paucity of research attention on this topic is surprising given the plethora of literature in organizational behavior. This paper reports the results of an investigation that explored male and female salespeople's perceptions of expectancies, instrumentalities, and valence for rewards. Findings reveal minimal contrast between the two groups. Implications for practitioners and researchers are provided.

Leadership behavior, satisfaction, and the balanced scorecard approach

PurposeA literature review has revealed that a sales manager's transformational leadership has a positive impact on the job satisfaction of salespeople, while job satisfaction has significant influence on salespeople's work behaviors. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between the transformational leadership of sales managers and the job satisfaction of salespeople.Design/methodology/approachThe research was designed as a quantitative study, and the population was identified as salespeople in the consumer product industry in Taiwan, resulting in 123 individual surveys for analysis.FindingsThe findings supported the hypothesis that there is a positive and statistically significant relationship between sales managers' transformational leadership and sales associates' job satisfaction. The result identified the predictors of sales managers' transformational leadership on the sales associates' job satisfaction through regression analysis.Originality/valueThe balanced scorecard (BSC) was originally intended to solve problems related to the historical nature of financial measures in accounting approaches. The purpose of this paper is to make a contribution to this literature by focusing on a major issue that has been less investigated, namely, the linking of the BSC perspective to the empirical investigation of leadership behaviors using statistical and technical tools and to predict employee satisfaction. The paper suggests applying Kaplan and Norton's BSC, which includes the perspectives of financial, customer, internal business, and innovation and learning measures to consider the effects of leadership behaviors on employee job satisfaction.

The Effect of Self-Efficacy on Salesperson Work Overload and Pay Satisfaction

As the lines blur between when work ends and home life begins, employees, working longer hours and multitasking, increasingly report feeling overwhelmed by their work. This research note investigates the effect of work overload and self-effcacy on important job outcomes—capability rewards and pay satisfaction. Utilizing social cognitive theory, the job demands control model, and the psychological contract notion, this paper provides evidence that role stress and work overload mediate the effect of self-effcacy on capability rewards and pay satisfaction. An empirical study is presented that includes 138 responses from boat and marine products salespeople. Study results and future research are discussed.

Relationship-Building and Sales Success: Are Climate and Leadership Key?

The article explores the relative importance of a salesperson's work environment, in comparison with the salesperson's own interpersonal skills, in establishing successful client relationships. The author cites a study by Craig A. Martin at Western Kentucky University and Alan J. Bush at the University of Memphis. The researchers looked at the leadership styles of sales managers and the psychological climate of the workplace. Martin and Bush found that transformational leadership approaches and employees' feelings of empowerment and cohesiveness shaped selling behaviors.

Organizational Justice in the Sales Force: A Literature Review with Propositions

ABSTRACT Many factors have been identified as having an impact on salespeople's work outcomes. Although a plethora of empirical research has determined that organizational justice influences employees' job-related responses, minimal attention has been given to the effects of organizational justice in a selling context. The nature of the sales position, as well as the fact that organizational justice is managerially controllable, suggests that this variable warrants research attention. The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the concept of organizational justice and develop propositions regarding linkages among components of this variable and salespeople's performance, job satisfaction, extra-role behavior, organizational commitment, and intention to quit. Implications for sales managers and researchers are also offered.

Exploring the conditions under which salesperson work satisfaction can lead to customer satisfaction

A number of recent research studies have demonstrated the presence of a positive link between customer-contact employees’ work satisfaction and customer satisfaction. However, existing studies have largely neglected describing conditions under which the link between these two constructs is stronger or weaker. The authors of this study argue that certain customer characteristics (such as customer trust, customer price consciousness, and the importance of product/service to the customer) and salesperson characteristics (such as empathy, expertise, and reliability) moderate the relationship between salespeople’s work satisfaction and customer satisfaction. Balance theory is used to justify the hypotheses of the study. Tests of the hypotheses are based on a dyadic data set collected across manufacturing and services industries in a business-to-business context. Results reveal that the link between work satisfaction and customer satisfaction is systematically moderated by the salesperson and customer characteristics under consideration. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.