Managerial perceptions of sales training and performance

This study examines managerial perceptions of the impact sales training has on sales force performance among 46 multinational and 59 national firms in Malaysia. The results demonstrate that, unlike their national counterparts, multinational firm sales managers perceived greater improvement in all five hypothesized measures of performance: company information and policies, sales presentation and communications skills, sales objectives, product information and technical skills, and customer relation skills, as a result of their sales force completing initial sales training. The study concludes with managerial implications of the findings and suggestions for future research.     

Towards a pre-service technology teacher education resource for New Zealand

The Pre-service Technology Teacher Education Resource (PTTER) was developed as a cross-institutional resource to support the development of initial technology teacher education programmes in New Zealand. The PTTER was developed through collaboration involving representatives from each of the six New Zealand university teacher education providers, Massey University, University of Auckland, University of Canterbury, University of Otago, Victoria University and University of Waikato, working with the National Technology Professional Development Manager. The framework for PTTER is built on four key elements considered to be essential to the education of technology teachers. The four elements are: philosophy of technology, rationale for technology education, technology in the New Zealand curriculum, and teaching technology. The PTTER is a web-based resource aimed at assisting technology teacher educators in the development of their teacher education programmes. The framework is a statement of shared philosophy, purpose and intent and is located on the Techlink website (www.techlink.org.nz). PTTER contains a range of teaching resources and strategies located within an overall framework for initial technology teacher education programmes. This paper describes the rationale for the PTTER framework, the process through which it was developed, explanation of each of the framework’s elements, and concludes with discussion of the framework’s implementation and future development.     

The investment opportunity set and disclosure policy choice: Some Malaysian evidence

Recently researchers have shown that certain corporate and accounting policy decisions are related to the firm's portfolio of growth opportunities or its investment opportunity set (ios). This paper augments the research by examining whether the firm's ios is also predictably related to disclosure policy decisions made by the firm. We hypothesize that because agency costs between managers and shareholders are an increasing function of the firm's growth opportunities, managers in high growth firms will be motivated to disclose information about the firm's future prospects in order to commit themselves to particular courses of action and thereby limit their future managerial discretion. Our empirical results indicate that for a sample of 67 Malaysian firms, this is supported only amongst a sample of lower growth firms.The authors are Associate Professor and lecturer, respectively, at the Department of Accountancy, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand. Correspondence should be addressed to S F Cahan at the above address, e-mail: S.F.Cahan@massey.ac.nz.     

The effects of perceived market and learning orientation on assessed organizational capabilities

This study extends prior research by exploring the effects of managerial representations of market and learning orientation on perceived industrial firm capabilities. Cognitions that managers use to make sense of their environment impact competitive strategy decisions. Extant research has found market and learning orientation concepts to be empirically distinct and to have independent and synergistic effects on organizational performance. The present study generally supports hypotheses relating to independent effects of market and learning orientation viewpoints on perceptions of specific capability domains. Findings hold implications for managing the development of organizational capability portfolios as well as for future research aimed at understanding cognitions related to competitive advantage dynamics.     

Disrupted work: home‐based teleworking (HbTW) in the aftermath of a natural disaster

Natural disasters disrupt the nature of work, promoting an urgent review of where work is performed. Home‐based telework (HbTW), a common form of telework, is increasingly promoted as a means to ensure continuity of operations in an emergency situation. While widely advocated, little is known of the challenges and outcomes of HbTW when employed in disaster situations. This article explores the organisational and employee experiences of HbTW in the aftermath of a disaster, drawing on data from over 240 public sector workers and their managers who worked from home following a series of earthquakes in Christchurch, New Zealand. Findings point to critical factors shaping the experiences and outcomes of HbTW in disaster situations. Significant variation in the experiences and perceptions of HbTW for team leaders highlights their pivotal role and heightened pressures to maintain control in complex disaster situations.     

Emerging Assessment Practices in an Emergent Curriculum: Implications for Technology

This paper reports on detailed case studies into emerging assessment practices in technology in two New Zealand primary schools (Years 1–6) with nine teachers. This research is part of the two year Research in Assessment of Primary Technology (RAPT) project and formed the basis for the one year New Zealand Ministry of Education funded Learning in Technology Education (Assessment) project.Emerging classroom assessment practices in technology, a new subject area in the national curriculum, are discussed. It was found that the existing subcultures in schools, teachers' subject expertise and the school wide policies impacted on the teachers' assessment practices. Assessment was often seen in terms of social and managerial aspects such as team work, turn taking and information skills, rather than procedural and conceptual aspects. Therefore teachers' formative interactions with students distorted the learning away from procedural and conceptual aspects of the subject, and the learning and the formative assessment interactions focused on generic skills rather than student technological understanding.The importance of developing teacher expertise in three dimensions of knowledge about the subject, knowledge in the subject and general pedagogical knowledge is highlighted. Thus the findings from this research have implications for thinking about teaching, learning and assessment in technology.     

New Zealand secondary technology teachers’ perceptions: “technological” or “technical” thinking?

Technology education in the New Zealand context has seen significant change since it’s inception as a technical subject. The changing nature of the subject in New Zealand secondary schools is influenced by some teachers’ preoccupation with the making of quality product outcomes, rather than their enactment of the curriculum, which conceptualises a wider remit. Research into the perceptions of technology teachers’ interpretation and enactment of the curriculum suggests that to enable change, teachers need to adopt a form of “technological thinking”, in support of their “technical thinking”. Technological thinking is a notion presented to support teachers to explore a range of differing pedagogical approaches and learning outcomes, reflective of the intent of the New Zealand curriculum, which aims to foster learning environments that are innovative and responsive to students’ social and academic needs.     

The motivation and need satisfaction of the thai managerial elite

Conclusions Broadly speaking, the need importance of Thai managers was similar to that of managers from the developing countries category sampled in the Haireet al. study. That their need satisfaction was rather dissimilar (more closely resembling those of the Nordic-European, Anglo-American and Japanese clusters in the Haireet al. study) is a reflection of the fact that the Thai sample comprised more senior managers than did the Haireet al. study. These results serve to caution researchers against generalizing their findings across managerial levels. Beyond that, the study has provided some interesting data on the need structure of the Thai managerial elite.The authors are in the Faculty of Management Sciences of the Prince of Songkla University, Thailand.     

PERCEIVED MANAGERIAL DISCRETION: A STUDY OF CAUSE AND EFFECT

The notion that managers encounter differing levels of discretion across industries and organizations is becoming central to discussions of strategy formulation and implementation. However, discretion can be exercised or created only to the extent it is perceived, and theories of cognition and decision making suggest that managers’ perceptions of discretion may vary significantly. Despite the importance of perceptions to Hambrick and Finkelstein’s (1987) theoretical model of managerial discretion, no empirical tests examining perceived discretion have been published to date. Drawing on theories of issue interpretation and impression management, we find that managers differ systematically in the amount of discretion they perceive. Specifically, we find support for the predicted relationship between locus of control, a stable personality difference, and perceptions of managerial discretion. We also find that perceived discretion predicts managerial power, but only in situations in which the manager actually has little discretion. The dynamic model presented and tested here suggests that managers, in part through impression management activities and their ability to attend to critical contingencies, may both increase their power and enlarge their latitude for action. Implications for strategy formulation and implementation are discussed. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Boundary Role Spanning Behavior, Conflicts and Performance of Industrial Product Managers

While researchers have probed predictors of product managers' performance in consumer goods firms, few have looked at the performance of the industrial product manager. In this article, Steven Lysonski and Arch Woodside use path analysis to examine causal models of industrial product managers' performance during periods of rapid technological change. Key variables are analyzed, including the effects of environmental uncertainty, boundary spanning behavior, role pressures, role outcomes and two performance measures. A total of 69 industrial product managers from New Zealand Telecom completed a questionnaire that included both operational measures of the key variables and their overall job performance. The results suggest that most of the hypothesized relationships are supportable empirically. Performance was hindered by environmental uncertainty, role conflict, role ambiguity, tension and dissatisfaction. The authors discuss their study's implications for improving the effectiveness of product management practices.     

Choice of organizational form in the life insurance industry: New Zealand evidence

Two forms of ownership structure characterize the insurance industry—the stock company owned by shareholders and the mutual form which is owned by its policyholders. The academic literature suggests that ownership structure is dependent upon the efficiency of the endogenous contracting mechanisms and governance structures in firms. Mutuals are predicted to exist and successfully compete with stock companies in insurance markets because they merge the ownership-customer functions and introduceex-ante contracting mechanisms andex-post modes of governance which restrict managerial discretion. Drawing a framework from transaction cost theory, this study tests empirically the proposition that choice of ownership structure in the life insurance industry is related to contracting mechanisms and governance structures in the firm. Individual cross-sectional logistic regression models are estimated using 1991–1993 data gathered from New Zealand's life insurance industry. Consistent with expectations our results suggest that mutuals are more likely to have higher asset specificity than stock companies. By contrast, stocks appear to be more reinsured and incur higher governance expenditures than mutual companies. Furthermore, contrary to what was hypothesized, our findings indicate that mutuals may be bigger than stock companies. Therefore, overall the empirical evidence does not support the predictions drawn from transaction cost theory.The authors are lecturers, Department of Accounting and Finance, University of Glasgow, and Department of Accountancy, Massey University, New Zealand, respectively.The authors thank Lars Hassel, Leung Hing-Man, Bill Maughan, Mike Pickford, Kulwant Singh and two anonymous reviewers for their comments on original drafts of this paper. However, they are solely responsible for any errors or omissions that remain. They also appreciate the cooperation of members of New Zealand's life insurance industry for supplying information. Finally, the financial support of Price Waterhouse (Wellington, New Zealand) is gratefully acknowledged.     

Increase in takeover protection and firm knowledge accumulation strategy

Research summary : We argue that the extent to which a firm faces takeover threats affects its knowledge structure. In particular, takeover threats may lead to managers' reluctance to adopt a strategy toward firm‐specific knowledge accumulation because implementing this strategy requires them to acquire specialized skills, which are at risk under takeover threats. Conversely, takeover protection leads to an increase in firm‐specific knowledge. Further, the relationship between takeover protection and firm‐specific knowledge is positively moderated by managerial ownership, which helps align managerial interests with those of shareholders. But the relationship is negatively moderated by managerial tenure, as long‐tenured managers have already committed to their firms. Using a differences‐in‐differences method with Delaware antitakeover rulings in the mid‐1990s as an exogenous shock, we found results supporting these arguments. Managerial summary : We examined how changes in the Delaware antitakeover rulings in mid‐1990s affected the knowledge structure of firms incorporated in Delaware. We reasoned that with a greater level of takeover protection, top managers of those firms incorporated in Delaware felt higher job security, thus providing them stronger incentives to make strategic decisions toward the development of firm‐specific knowledge and to make corresponding human capital investments in specialized skills. Empirically, firms incorporated in Delaware were found to have an increase in the level of firm‐specific knowledge in their knowledge structure after the mid‐1990s. Furthermore, our analysis suggests that the role of takeover protection on top manager incentives is particularly salient when the managers are awarded with more company shares and when the managers have shorter organizational tenure. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Nurturing the designerly thinking and design capabilities of five-year-olds: technology in the new entrant classroom

Technology is one of eight learning areas of the New Zealand national curriculum. It aims to develop a broad technological literacy through students participating in programmes in which the practice of technological development is experienced, as is knowledge informing practice, and students gain an understanding of technology as a domain in its own right. In New Zealand children begin school at 5 years of age and this paper describes a classroom research project during which these students design and then construct a photo frame. The inducement for this development arose from students needing to safely transport home and then display a class photograph. This provided the opportunity for developing technological knowledge and skills within a real and relevant context—two key drivers when working with young students (Ministry of Education 2007) [MoE]. The results of this project suggest that teaching technology to five-year-old students is achievable and a valuable addition to other learning opportunities provided in the new entrant classroom. Strategies are suggested that will enable students to successfully achieve their goals whilst gaining a simple understanding of the technological process. By making good use of these it is possible to create a worthwhile and imaginatively challenging activity that reflects the essence of the technology education curriculum.     

Hotspots and trends of technology education in the International Journal of Technology and Design Education: 2000–2018

Using visualized bibliographic data and a range of quantitative research methods, the analysis of the International Journal of Technology and Design Education (IJTDE), which is included in the core collection of Social Science Citation Index, reached a number of conclusions. Firstly, IJTDE is an important platform for the exchange of research results in the field of technology education, and has a significant influence. Secondly, De Vries, Williams, Ankiewicz and a number of others are influential and prolific authors in the IJTDE. Authors from the USA, England, New Zealand, Taiwan and Australia make most contributions to the IJTDE, Delft University of Technology, University of Auckland and the University of Waikato are the more prolific institutions in the IJTDE. Thirdly, technology education, education, design, science, creativity, technology, design education, knowledge, student, technological literacy and problem solving are the most frequency keywords in the IJTDE. Creativity, design education, problem solving, curriculum development, design and critical thinking, practice, engineering education, and STEM education are research trends in the IJTDE between 2000 and 2018. Fourthly, the discipline knowledge base mainly focuses on teaching and design methods in the technological environment, and the definitions of technology-related concepts. The results enable a deeper understanding and consideration of the content and influence of IJTDE, and the research hotspots in the field of technology education.

     

Supporting conceptual understandings of and pedagogical practice in technology through a website in New Zealand

This article reports on the up-date and development of an on-line resource to support of teachers’ conceptual understandings and pedagogical practice in New Zealand. Techlink is a website dedicated to supporting technology teachers, students and those with an interest in technology education. This research documents part of a Ministry of Education initiative to develop materials to support teaching and learning in technology education. The research was conducted by educational researchers contracted through Technology Education New Zealand the professional subject association. This research was a component of a larger contract with an overall aim of improving student achievement particularly at Years 12 and 13, the final 2 years of schooling in New Zealand. The aims of the initiative reported in this article were to provide ongoing evaluation of the effectiveness of the materials developed by the writing team, to support teacher shifts in understanding and pedagogical practice. This article gives an overview of the 3 year research study, focussing on teachers and teacher educators perceptions of Techlink as a professional development resource. An iterative process was used to critique and give feedback on existing and developed materials. The article also discusses enhancements made to ensure that the resource reflected the needs of technology teachers and The New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education 2007).     

The outcome of company and account manager relationship quality on loyalty, relationship value and performance

This study explores the effects of perceived relationship quality of the company and account managers with customers. It examines the effects of both types of relationship quality on relationship outcomes including: loyalty, relationship value, and performance. Consistency and relationship-specific investments are tested as mediating constructs between relationship quality and relationship outcomes. The model was tested in the automotive parts industry in Brazil. Findings indicate that relationship quality with account managers is directly related to loyalty and perceptions of relationship value. However, relationship quality with the firm is related to loyalty indirectly, through relationship-specific investment. Further, perceptions of consistency do not mediate the linkage between relationship quality with the company and account managers and specific investments. Theoretical and managerial implications of the findings are presented.     

The difficulties of evaluating sales training

Practitioners and researchers acknowledge the importance of sales training; however, limited attention is devoted to empirical sales training evaluation practices. This article addresses four major sources of sales training evaluation difficulties: (1) managerial perceptions; (2) evaluation restrictions; (3) methodological problems; and (4) lack of empirical evidence. After discussing each area, managers are provided with suggestions that can be implemented to minimize sales training evaluation problems.     

A future-focused approach to the technology education curriculum: the disparity between intent and practice

The recently revised New Zealand Curriculum in technology education [Ministry of Education (MoE) Digital technologies: Hangarau Matihiki, Wellington, 2017. https://education.govt.nz/assets/Documents/Ministry/consultations/DT-consultation/DTCP1701-Digital-Technologies-Hangarau-Matihiko-ENG.pdf] presents opportunities for teachers to provide a future-focused approach to learning. Teacher perceptions about the nature of their subject and the discourse within their school however, influence how the curriculum is interpreted, for enactment. This article reports findings from Ph.D. research that explored the disparity between the intent of the technology curriculum and the practice of five technology teachers, in two secondary school settings. There is a focus on the ways that teachers might be supported to navigate challenges and enable change in their practice, if they are motivated to enact technology education in a future-focused way. Teachers’ interpretation and enactment of the New Zealand curriculum are heavily influenced by others’ understanding of their subject, and the organisational structures in their school. A threshold concept is presented as a strategy to transform teachers’ thinking, when making meaning of the curriculum, and to develop their knowledge for practice. Recommendations are made regarding the necessary changes in thinking and practice in technology education in New Zealand, to address a further disparity between what school-based practitioners believe students need and what academic researchers assert is important in contemporary education. Initial Teacher Education Programmes are briefly discussed as a means of addressing this issue from another perspective, to ensure that student teachers are exposed to future-focused conceptions of the curriculum at University, to compensate when such practice is not observed during their school placements.     

Do business customers perceive what salespeople believe? Perceptions of salesperson adoption of innovations

A salesperson's commitment and effort toward an innovation can determine whether the customer agrees to buy it, such that customers' perceptions of such commitment and effort are critical. But these perceptions also might differ fundamentally from the salesperson's self-perceptions of commitment and effort. Therefore, this paper presents a theoretical framework of the relation between salesperson-perceived and customer-perceived commitment and effort, as exhibited by the salesperson while selling an innovation, which represents salesperson adoption. In the framework, job satisfaction factors also exert contingent, moderating effects. The authors gather unique, dyadic data from surveys of salespeople and their (potential) business customers during visits to sell a conventional, incremental innovation, complemented by objective purchase data gathered from company records. Three key insights emerge fromt this study. First, salespeople's own perceptions of their commitment and effort have only moderate influences on customers' perceptions of salespeople's commitment and effort. Second, customers seem to recognize salesperson effort more readily than salesperson commitment, although salesperson commitment has a higher sales performance impact than salesperson effort. Thus, sales managers should seek to encourage and support both the commitment of salespeople and also perceptions of that commitment among customers. Third, while a higher organizational support or job autonomy strengthens customers' perceptions of salesperson adoption, a higher pay satisfaction diminishes it. Thus, firms might need to find ways to increase the support for the salespeople and their autonomy and to reduce salespeople's satisfaction with their (direct) payments. In total, these findings suggest significant scientific and managerial implications.     

Enhancing mental models,analogical transfer,and performance in strategic decision making

Recent research suggests that managers often make strategic decisions in novel situations by utilizing past experiences to reason by analogy. However, there is substantial evidence that decision makers often fail to identify and apply knowledge about one situation to a similarly structured situation. Two experimental studies investigated the mechanisms impacting knowledge transfer from one managerial situation (the source) to an analogous situation. The results show that exposure to variation in the source situation improves transfer performance. Variation decreases performance in the short term but improves learning and increases analogical transfer. Higher performance on and systematic search of the source situation also increase transfer performance. These results yield important implications for enhancing analogical transfer in strategic decision making and for future research on reasoning by analogy. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.