汽车销售人员人格特质对工作绩效影响的实证研究

本文在阐述国内外人格特质和绩效相关理论的基础上,并引入环境变量工作年限,针对汽车4s店对汽车销售员人格特质和绩效作了比较深入的探讨。本次研究的主要问题有:(1)工作年限与汽车销售人员工作绩效的相关程度问题;(2)高工作绩效销售人员和一般工作绩效销售人员的人格特质差异问题;(3)人格特质各个维度与工作绩效之间的关系问题,即如何利用人格特质各个维度上的得分来预测汽车销售人员的工作绩效。     

销售员绩效提成率的动力学研究

本文分析了传统方法在确定销售员绩效提成率的不足,从复杂系统理论的角度,探索研究销售员最优化的绩效提成率,通过分析确定销售系统的边界及其关键变量,利用系统动力学的建模方法建立了销售员绩效提成率模型,对模型进行敏感性和现实一致性测试,并使用Vensim软件进行模拟仿真,最后根据仿真结果分析得出动态较优的销售员绩效提成率。     

知识员工创造力人格、工作特征与个人创新绩效

本文基于个体-组织交互视角,通过对233名企业知识员工的问卷调查,探讨员工创造力人格、工作特征与个人创新绩效的关系,并考察了工作特征在员工创造力人格与个人创新绩效关系中的调节作用。研究结果表明:员工创造力人格对个人创新绩效发挥显著正向影响;工作特征各维度均对个人创新绩效发挥显著正向影响;工作特征中的技能多样性、工作自主性分别对员工创造力人格与个人创新绩效之间的关系发挥显著的正向调节作用。     

销售能力测试

在台湾哈佛企业管理顾问公司培训销售员时，我设计了一套销售能力自我测试题，藉以使销售员了解自己的销售能力，希望您在3分钟时间内，从A、B、C、D四个答案中选择一个。     

软件销售人员自我职业生涯管理与三维绩效的实证研究

为探究自我职业生涯管理对员工绩效的影响,本研究以中关村15家IT企业的211位软件销售人员为实证对象,运用因子分析法和结构方程建模法探讨了自我职业生涯管理的结构及效果。研究指出自我职业生涯管理对任务绩效具有较强影响,而对适应绩效和关系绩效的影响力较弱。三维结构的自我职业生涯管理中,制订职业目标及胜任本职的策略会导致员工的高绩效。文末提供了企业选聘员工的相关建议。     

正式控制对销售绩效的影响机制研究--一个被中介的调节作用模型

基于目标设定理论，构建了一个被中介的调节作用模型，探讨正式控制(包括结果控制和行为控制)对销售人员绩效的影响。实证结果表明：结果控制、行为控制分别与销售绩效显著正相关；结果控制与行为控制对销售绩效有交互的影响效应，结果控制与行为控制较强时，销售绩效更高；销售人员的顾客导向行为对上述交互效应与销售绩效的关系起部分中介作用。本研究的结论说明销售管理者需要通过结果控制为下属设置目标，配合使用行为控制提供反馈，从而激发销售人员迎合顾客需求的销售行为，提升其销售绩效。     

从销售员转型到销售经理

“二十一世纪最缺的是什么？”“人才”人才向来都是最重要的，销售员和销售经理是最主要的销售力量，销售经理几乎都是由销售员晋升而来，但有相当一部分销售员由于准备和认知不够，在成为销售经理后并不适应和胜任这一职位，最终不得不放弃。     

书讯

<正>1《超级销售口才训练方法》作者:王宝玲著中国纺织出版社版次:2009年6月第1版定价:26.00元[内容简介]培养优秀口才不仅是销售员完善自我人生职业生涯必须兑现的一个承诺,也是优化销售市场必须肩负的一项责任。一个销售员拥有一副好口才,就是为自己步入辉煌的职业人生加上了一个优质砝码。本书从八个方面为读者阐述了培养销售口才的实用方法和提升技巧,对销售员提升销售业绩有重要的指导意义。     

不同年龄推销对象心理特点研究

推销是以人为核心的运营活动,推销活动中销售员与客户均会出现多元化的心理,对销售活动中销售员与客户间的距离、客户的逆反情绪与购置习惯等心理问题实施讨论并解析,能够让销售员提升销售艺术,更高效地进行销售。     

个体绩效研究和对组织人力资源管理实践的启示

本文比较系统地回顾了国外在个体绩效研究方面的进展，包括个体绩效的含义，个体绩效的结构，造成个体绩效差异的影响因素和个体绩效与组织的奖励决策关系。通过对这些理论的介绍，主张在我国的组织人力资源管理实践中，可以借鉴这些研究成果应用于员工绩效评估中的考核指标设立、人员选拔中的预测指标建立、员工培训中的培训项目开发和员工奖励体系的建立等实践活劝。     

The End of Corporate Social Responsibility: Crisis & Critique,by Peter Fleming and Marc T. Jones

ABSTRACT

Purpose: Given the ever-increasing pressure put on sales organizations to improve performance, behave ethically and establish long-term customer relationships, this study seeks to better comprehend ethical leadership’s part in doing so. It proposes that perceived ethical leadership indirectly influences salesperson performance through trust in manager and ethical ambiguity.

Methodology/Approach: A survey of business-to-business salespeople was taken. Hypotheses are tested using structural equation modeling.

Findings: The results show that perceived ethical leadership influences salesperson performance through the mediating roles of trust in manager and ethical ambiguity. Salespeople’s perceptions of their supervisor’s ethical leadership behaviors positively impact their trust in manager and negatively influences their ethical ambiguity. In turn, trust in manager positively influences sales performance while ethical ambiguity negatively influences sales performance.

Research Implications: The results from testing the hypothesized model support mechanisms by which ethical leadership behavior may affect business-to-business salesperson job performance. It appears that ethical leadership works through ethical ambiguity and trust in manager to impact salesperson behavior performance, rather than directly impacting salesperson performance. Importantly the findings add to the literature an important consequence of ethical leadership, ethical ambiguity. This research likewise adds to the literature on role, and more specifically ethical, ambiguity by finding that reducing salesperson ethical ambiguity has a positive impact on salesperson behavior performance.

Practical Implications: This study finds that one important mechanism for reducing ethical ambiguity is for sales supervisors to practice ethical leadership. By reducing ethical ambiguity, sales managers can improve business-to-business salesperson performance. In addition, use of ethical leadership by sales managers can positively influence the business-to-business salesperson’s trust in manager, which subsequently leads to greater sales performance.

Originality/Value/Contribution: The results of this study add to our knowledge of ethical leadership by further developing its consequences. It also sheds light on a vastly under-researched construct, ethical ambiguity. Finally, it further validates the important role that trust in manager plays in the organization.     

Salesperson implementation of sales strategy and its impact on sales performance

ABSTRACT

It has been observed in the academic and practitioner literature, a disconnect between the activities of salespeople and the sales strategy espoused by sales organizations. This study examines organizational and individual factors that can influence salespersons’ willingness and ability to implement sales strategy. This paper also seeks to examine the performance implications of sales strategy implementation by salespeople. Data were collected from a sample of 190 business-to-business salespeople in different industries. The study’s hypotheses were tested using partial least squares (PLS). The results of the study show that the different types of sales force control (behavior control and outcome control) has contrasting effects on salesperson market and technical knowledge and salesperson implementation of sales strategy. The results also demonstrate that when salespeople implement sales strategy as part of their sales process, it has a positive effect on their sales performance.     

Impact of Personality on Sales Manager Leadership Style

ABSTRACT

Much research in sales management has examined the impact sales manager leadership styles have on salesperson work outcomes. What has not been investigated is what factors may lead an individual to adopt one leadership approach over an alternate. Theorists in organizational behavior posit that personality characteristics may be predictive of the leadership style an individual employs. This paper reports the results of a study that explored whether two key personality variables-extraversion and neuroticism-are related to three prominent leadership styles-laissez-faire, transaction-al, and charismatic. The findings support the overriding hypothesis that the two personality variables are strongly related to and account for a substantial portion of the variance in the three leadership styles. Implications for sales management practice and research are provided.     

Does transparency influence the ethical behavior of salespeople?

This study introduces the concept of perceived salesperson transparency to the sales literature. It addresses how recent technological developments impact traditional agency theory concerns, while simultaneously creating a conceptual definition of perceived transparency for application on an individual level. Salesperson perceptions regarding managerial use of behavioral information obtained through technological means are empirically found to have a mediating effect on the relationship between managerial access to such information and the likelihood of unethical salesperson behavior. It concludes that salesperson ethical behavior is not influenced by management's ability to obtain behaviorally relevant information, but rather by the use of this information. Further, it is found that the mediating influence of use of information accessed via technology is itself moderated by the salesperson's job performance.     

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)'s Impact on B to B Sales Professionals' Collaboration and Sales Performance

Purpose: Sales literature has traditionally considered technology adoption from acceptance and diffusion perspectives. This article examines the impact of customer relationship management (CRM) technology on business-to-business (B2B) sales professionals' ability to collaborate with internal stakeholders and also assesses the relationship between CRM utilization and sales performance. The study moves from assuming that CRM utilization positively impacts salesperson effectiveness and performance to assessing this outcome from the perspective of the salesperson.

Methodology: A survey that was comprised of four scales was sent to 115 B2B sales professionals and usable surveys were received from 70 respondents. The data were analyzed using partial least squares regression to test the hypothesized paths. Partial least squares regression has been shown to work for small sample sizes.

Findings: There is empirical evidence that CRM adoption and utilization positively impacts sales performance, sales effectiveness, and collaboration. As a partial mediator, collaboration positively influenced CRM utilization's effect on sales performance. However, collaboration did not positively influence sales process effectiveness. Explanations of the findings are offered.

Managerial Implications: Sales managers can use CRM technology to make their sales team more effective and efficient. Second, increased collaboration across the firm positively mediates sales performance. Lastly, to increase collaboration, sales managers should stress that CRM leads to higher performance for both the sales team and the entire firm.     

Power-Base Effects on Salesperson Motivation and Performance: A Contingency View

Purpose: The sales literature shows that motivation is a key determinant of salesperson performance. The literature also suggests that how managers use social power will have an effect on important organizational outcomes, including salesperson performance. This study examines the five bases of social power that sales managers use (reward, coercive, legitimate, referent, and expert) as moderating influences in the salesperson motivation (extrinsic and intrinsic)—salesperson performance linkage.

Methodology/approach: Data was collected from 128 salespeople using a cross industry survey. Eight hypotheses were developed and tested using SmartPLS (partial least squares).

Findings: The authors found support for five of eight hypotheses. Results and significant findings suggest that sales managers can impact sales performance in extrinsically motivated salespeople by using coercive and legitimate power. For intrinsically motivated salespeople, sales managers can impact sales performance by using coercive, legitimate, and referent power.

Research implications: Related to social power theory, the study suggests that salesperson performance is dependent upon a salesperson’s combined motivation orientation and the base of power used by the sales manager. The study also sets the stage for subsequent research on how managerial power can be studied as a moderator for other personal salesperson characteristics (e.g., self-esteem, self-efficacy, locus of control) and salesperson performance. In addition, understanding how these other personal characteristics interact with managerial bases of power to produce other organizational outcomes (e.g., job satisfaction, organizational commitment) are questions that sales researchers may wish to pursue via further study.

Practical implications: For practicing sales managers, the research study can provide guidance as to how they may tailor their use of power to best impact salesperson performance. For a manager to understand the motivational makeup of each salesperson, open communication and dialogue must occur at the onset of their relationship. Having the knowledge of what drives each salesperson, a manager can modify their leadership style (and choice of power base) to suit the situation. Customizing these sales management approaches may also have long-term benefits for the organization as studies show that doing so can lead to reduced levels of turnover as well as increased levels of performance.

Contribution of the article: This study is important to sales research, theory, and practice. The authors contribute to the selling and sales management literature by extending motivation and social power theories into the sales domain by showing that managerial power may be a key moderating determinant between a salesperson’s motivation and his/her sales performance. For practicing sales managers, we provide some insight and guidance for understanding how to throttle or moderate their use of various social power bases when dealing with individual salespeople who may differ in their motivation orientation, age, and degree of selling experience.     

Fostering creative selling through ethics. An emotion-based approach

Research on salesperson creativity remains as one of the most under-researched topics in the sales literature despite the evidence that encouraging creativity in the sales domain is a source of competitive advantage. This paper aims to fill this research gap by exploring the influence of perceived ethical climate on salesperson creative performance, paying special attention to the role that emotions play in this process. Data provided by 176 supervisor–salesperson dyads confirm that the trust/responsibility dimension of an ethical climate is positively related to salesperson creative selling by increasing salespeople's organizational pride. Similarly, the perception of unethical selling practices negatively affects salesperson organizational pride, reducing the expression of creative behaviors. Moreover, the negative effect of unethical selling practices on creative performance is stronger (more negative) when salespeople's identification with an organization increases. Managerial implications and future research directions are also addressed.     

Servant Leadership,Proactive Work Behavior,and Performance Overall Rating: Testing a Multilevel Model of Moderated Mediation

ABSTRACT

Purpose: The goal of this paper is to investigate whether salesperson proactive behavior mediates the relationship between sales manager servant leadership and salesperson overall performance rating by the sales manager. Moreover, it examines whether salesperson customer orientation and political skill moderate the sales manager servant leadership ? salesperson proactive behavior ─ salesperson overall performance. Design/methodology/approach: Empirical analysis is based on dyadic data from 181 industrial salespeople and their sales managers in a range of different industries (including both manufacturing and service industries). To analyze the multilevel moderated mediation process, this investigation uses Multilevel Structural Equation Modeling (MSEM). Findings: Sales manager servant leadership was positively related to salespeople overall performance rating through their proactive behavior except when their customer orientation was low. Moreover, this relationship between sales manager servant leadership and overall performance rating through proactive work behavior was stronger the greater the salespeople consumer orientation and political skill. Research implications: The study suggests that sales manager servant leadership is indirectly related to salesperson overall performance rating through salesperson proactive behavior. The findings also support subsequent research on salesperson values, skills, and behaviors as moderators in the servant leadership – proactive behavior – overall performance rating relationship. Understanding how these salesperson factors interact with sales management leadership to produce organizational outcomes (e.g., stress, engagement, organizational commitment) are questions that sales researchers may wish to pursue via further study. Practical implications: Sales managers should employ servant leadership to stimulate salespeople proactive work behavior. This study clearly indicates the salespeople need to adopt customer orientation and to have political skill. Hence, sales managers need to try to improve the customer orientation and the political skill of their salespeople through selection procedures or training programs. Originality/value: The relationship between sales manager servant leadership and salesperson overall performance through proactive work behavior has not been addressed and tested in the literature to date.     

The impact of sales encounters on brand loyalty

Gaining and sustaining brand loyalty is a key challenge in increasingly competitive markets. Many marketing researchers as well as practitioners emphasize the critical role of the interpersonal interaction between the customer and the salesperson in influencing customer satisfaction, generating favorable brand attitudes and strengthening the bond between the customers and the brand. So far, empirical research that investigates how sales encounters impact brand loyalty by enhancing customer satisfaction with the sales encounter is lacking. Using data from 154 dyads of customers and salespersons of a large automobile brand, this study shows the perceptions of both the customer and the salesperson regarding the impact of sales encounter performance on satisfaction. Sales encounter satisfaction, in turn, leads to brand loyalty by enhancing brand attitude and salesperson loyalty.     

Consequences of sales management control in field sales organizations: a cross-national perspective

In this study we explore the effects of behavior-based sales management control on salesperson characteristics, salesperson performance and sales organization effectiveness with data collected from field sales managers in Australia and Austria. Considering this cross-national perspective, knowledge should be added to the limited international sales management literature. The study findings provide strong support for positive relationships between behavior-based control and salesperson characteristics, salesperson outcome performance, and sales organization effectiveness. The results offer encouraging support of the cross-national relevance of the sales management behavior-based control model.