A permaculture primer: Using eco-theory to promote knowledge acquisition,dissemination and use in the sales organization

Responding to evidence in Dixon and Adamson's (2011) “Challenger Sale” that the sales management system employed by most of today's sales organizations failed to detect and respond to significant changes in the sales environment years ago, this research examines the concept of sales system sustainability. Borrowing from the field of eco-science where the concept of sustainability has been largely developed, this theoretical research introduces Holmgren's (2002) permaculture principles to the sales literature and offers a conceptual application of these principles in the context of industrial selling. It posits that application of these principles will aid the sales organization's acquisition, dissemination and application of knowledge, effectively positioning the organization for greater endurance and sustainability going forward. In addition to offering managerial implications throughout, this paper concludes by providing a road map for future research inquiry.     

Marketing channel management and the sales manager

For years, the channel manager remained an organizational position found mainly in textbooks and the literature and seldom on company organization charts. Recently, however, persuasive evidence has revealed that marketing channel management comes chiefly under the purview of the sales manager. Accepting this new reality, sales management training will need to be dramatically expanded to include these new channel management responsibilities. But, are all levels of sales managers involved or equally involved in channel management? If not, channel manager training must be tailored for specific levels of sales management in order to achieve desired channel effectiveness and efficiency. To date, no published research has explored whether channel management involvement varies at different levels in the sales manager hierarchy. In this age of channel dynamism, successful companies must determine the specific involvement of each sales management level in channel management so that appropriate training and support can be provided to optimize performance in this critical area of market competition. To address the foregoing issues, data were drawn from a random national sample of sales managers. Results indicate that sales managers at all hierarchical levels participate in administering various aspects of marketing channel management. The degree of involvement, however, varies significantly by sales manager level. Sales management implications are discussed, and areas for future research are suggested.     

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.     

Sales team formation: The right team member helps performance

This research uses quasi-experimental, control group design to examine the performance and behavioral impact of team design on sales performance. We assess team versus individual performance and team composition. Drawing on motivation gain literature, we evaluate the impact of team composition based on the relative ability of the team members. The research is in a field sales setting in collaboration with a major insurance provider, providing the first example of assessing Group Motivation Gain (GMG) in a sales setting through a field experiment. Our paper extends previous research in this domain by considering outcome interdependence, not merely task interdependence, evaluating the performance of both team members, assessing motivation gain in the context of a task over a longer duration, and building the related nomological network. The findings demonstrate improved overall performance for the team and the individual members of the team, the gains were particularly pronounced when members have moderate levels of difference in ability, rather than small or large differences in ability. We discuss managerial implications of our findings and suggest further research directions.     

Explaining servitization failure and deservitization: A knowledge-based perspective

The literature on servitization suggests that manufacturers benefit from moving towards solution provision and closer integration with customers. Yet, empirical evidence indicates two notable deviations from this accepted wisdom: servitization failure and deservitization. This conceptual article seeks to explain these observed deviations by developing a knowledge-based perspective on servitization. Drawing on literature on knowledge-based theory, organizational search, organizational learning, and organizational capabilities, the article analyses the interorganizational structure of production between the solution provider and its customer. Reconceptualizing the integrated solution offering as a bundle of knowledge components, a coherent theoretical framework is developed for understanding servitization. This framework provides insight into the antecedents and consequences of servitization and offers multiple explanations for servitization failure and deservitization. The knowledge-based perspective also points towards several new avenues for future research on servitization.     

The Effects of Brand Metaphors as Design Innovation: A Test of Congruency Hypotheses

Metaphors are a common tool in brand design, from the original, enticing Apple logo to the classic animalistic hood ornament of a Jaguar automobile. Metaphors are a powerful marketing tool as an efficient way to convey a great deal of meaning to consumers, including expressing product benefits, points of differentiation (e.g., “Iron Mountain's” name and logo, intended to express its superiority in data and document safekeeping), and even brand personality. The perspective taken here is that when applied to products, metaphors also serve as a form of design innovation. This study examines the interactions and effects of various applications of brand metaphor (linguistic, visual, and symbolic) and the forms those metaphors can take (human, animal, or nonmetaphoric) in influencing important outcomes including brand vividness, brand differentiation, and consumer preference. Based on two experiments across multiple product categories with 424 subjects, we find that the consistency of brand metaphor application and the use of animal‐based metaphors in particular have significant influence on key outcomes. Implications for brand management and design innovation through the more effective use of design metaphors are considered, as are implications for theory and future research in the area.     

A process model of tacit knowledge transfer between sales and marketing

Although an ability to generate and transfer tacit knowledge provides the basis for competitive differentiation, organizations face two primary issues when attempting to achieve this task. First, tacit knowledge, which differs from explicit knowledge in that it can only be gained through experiences, deep interactions, and learning by doing, is highly complex and therefore difficult to transfer. Second, as challenging as tacit knowledge transfer may be under the most ideal circumstances, the issue is exacerbated by the fact that sales and marketing professionals oftentimes have a dysfunctional relationship. Addressing these issues, we present and examine a theoretical model which captures the process through which tacit knowledge transfer occurs across the two functions. Study results, derived from a sample of 215 salespeople, highlight the important role interfunctional communication quality and the development of a mutual understanding play in this process. We discuss the theoretical and managerial implications arising from the study, and present opportunities for further research in the area.     

Effective implementation of relationship orientation in new product launches

The critical role of relationships in business performance is widely recognized in the business marketing literature. However, to date, the prevailing new product launch research has concentrated on firms' general customer and competitor focus on predicting launch performance, and mainly applied a product centered or marketing mix perspective on considering effective strategic and tactical launch activities. Consequently, there is only scant knowledge on the relevance of a relational perspective when launching new products. The study contributes to this gap by examining the impact of firms' relationship orientation on launch performance and the key activities through which it is transformed into performance in the new product launch context. A set of hypotheses is developed and tested with data collected from 109 new product launches in pharmaceutical companies. The results show that sales force management and relationship leveraging mediate relationship orientation's impact on launch performance through complexly intertwined relationships. From a theoretical perspective, this study highlights the role of the relational perspective in new product launch and fosters our understanding on how relationship-focused culture is effectively implemented in practice. From a managerial perspective, the results offer insights on how firms can effectively enhance the successful commercialization of new products through relationship-oriented sales and marketing activities.     

Assessing the evolution of sales knowledge: A 20-year content analysis

1012 articles appearing in 15 prominent journals over the period 1983-2002 were content analyzed in order to assess the state of published research in the domain of selling and sales management. The results provide a comprehensive, two-decade look at the key topical, theoretical, and methodological patterns prevalent at the aggregate level as well as within selected journals. Without question, the sales field has generated a considerable body of knowledge representing a range of issues, empirical approaches, and conceptual foundations. However, this review reveals several longer term trends that may challenge the sales community to consider new approaches to designing and executing sales research. Implications of these findings for researchers and industrial marketing practitioners are discussed.     

Managing salespeople strategically when promoting new products—Incorporating market orientation into a sales management control framework

Salespeople play a pivotal role in promoting new products. Therefore, managers need to know what control mechanism (i.e., output-based control, behavior-based control, or knowledge-based control) can improve their salespeople's new product sales performance. Furthermore, managers may be able to assist salespeople in performing better by having a strong market orientation. The literature has been inconsistent regarding the effects of sales management control mechanisms and has not yet incorporated market orientation into a sales management control framework. The current study surveyed 315 Taiwanese salespeople from publicly traded electronics companies with the aim of contributing to the sales management literature. The results show that sales management controls can directly affect salespeople's innovativeness, which, in turn, affects new product sales performance. However, sales management controls cannot affect performance directly. Furthermore, market orientation can positively moderate the relationship between salespeople's innovativeness and new product sales performance.     

Asian Management Research: Frontiers and Challenges

It is an appropriate time to examine the current achievements and the potential of Asian management research in shaping the body of management knowledge. The papers in this Special Issue examine the theoretical development and conceptualization of Asian management research and identify promising areas for future research. The papers summarize key research trends in several management areas and provide a critical analysis of what has been achieved, what is lacking, and what can be done in future studies. They argue, collectively, that it is fruitful to address some Asian phenomenon and generate theory for global-relevant issues. It is also meaningful to use Asian-developed constructs to study local and global issues. However, there are urgent needs for the development and validation of new constructs, designing measures and innovative methodology for conducting empirical studies, and linking the Asian-based issues and concepts to current scholarly conversations.     

A review of the internationalization of Chinese enterprises

This article reviews the scholarly research on the internationalization of Chinese enterprises (ICE) through bibliometric citation analysis. We do so through a data visualization technique and analysis of 206 articles which are authored by 382 scholars in 72 different journals published between 2003 and 2016. The results reveal four research streams in the context of ICE: (1) testing traditional FDI theory, (2) location choice, (3) entry mode choice, and (4) drivers and motivations of internationalization. While international business (IB) journals, such as the Journal of World Business, the Journal of International Business Studies, and International Business Review, have taken a lead role in pushing the ICE literature stream forward, geographically focused general management journals, such as the Asia Pacific Journal of Management and Management & Organization Review, have also made a singular contribution. The impact of perspective, in terms of author and institution affiliation, on the literature set is also examined. Finally, issues related to data, methodological rigor and theoretical underpinnings are highlighted. To advance the ICE literature, we proposed a holistic framework of drivers and motivations of Chinese outward FDI and present some promising future research areas.     

The effects of buyer-supplier's collaboration on knowledge and product innovation

Drawing on marketing and management literature, this study investigates integration mechanisms between channel members. Specifically, the research framework is built upon the buyer-supplier gray-box integration approach, knowledge-based view, and agency theory. This study identifies and compares the effects of two gray-box integration mechanisms, namely supplier task involvement and joint planning, on two kinds of knowledge acquisition. I find that both supplier task involvement and joint planning positively influence manufacturers' product knowledge acquisition and end customer knowledge acquisition. Supplier task involvement has a stronger effect on knowledge acquisition than joint planning. The relationships between integration mechanisms and knowledge acquisition are contingent upon supplier incentives. Furthermore, this study also extends the literature by comparing the effects of two different kinds of knowledge on product innovation performance. Even though both product and end customer knowledge lead to better product innovation performance, end customer knowledge has a stronger effect than product knowledge on product innovation performance. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed at the end.     

Commitment to technological change,sales force intelligence norms,and salesperson key outcomes

Despite increasing interest in sales technology investments, companies continue to struggle with getting their salespeople to use these expensive technologies. In this context, two under-researched issues warrant attention. First, although sales technology represents a continuous source of change, little is known about why salespeople commit to technology-induced changes. Second, knowledge on whether sales force intelligence norms play a role into translating use of sales technology to performance gains is remarkably sparse. To address these gaps, this study develops a conceptual framework that explores the linear and non-linear effects of commitment to technological change (i.e., affective, normative, and continuance) on sales technology infusion, and, in turn, on two key outcomes (i.e., customer-oriented selling and sales performance). Our framework also advances knowledge on how sales force intelligence norms (i.e., analytical sales processes and knowledge sharing with customers) moderate the relationships between sales technology infusion and key outcomes. Analysis is done using multilevel structural equation modeling on a sample of 303 salespeople nested within 22 firms. Findings support the view that the three components of commitment are distinct, with some counter-intuitive results. Specifically, affective commitment does not exert a significant positive influence as expected; yet, normative commitment does. In contrast, while lower levels of continuance commitment reduce infusion, higher levels have positive effects, thus depicting a U-shaped effect. Finally, sales technology infusion influences both key outcomes — and findings support the importance of fostering sales force intelligence norms. Implications of the study are discussed.     

Adoption of digital sales force automation tools in supply chain: Customers' acceptance of sales configurators

Digitalization changes both buying processes and sales processes and, consequently, the dynamics and division of work between buyers and suppliers in the supply chain. This has major implications for industrial marketing and supply chain management. In this study, we analyze the impact of sales configurators, which are used to create valid configurations of market offerings that fulfill customer requirements. The usefulness of sales configurators can be investigated from both the sellers' and buyers' perspectives. In this research, we focus on the latter, and we specifically investigate the antecedents of customers' acceptance of sales configurators in a supply chain. In our analysis, we concentrate on system-level antecedents, which have been neglected by the existing literature. Our research yields better knowledge of how digital sales technologies can be used by customers for improved effectiveness and perceived value. The results demonstrate that ease of use and system adaptability contribute strongly to the perceived effectiveness, and eventually to the perceived usefulness, of sales configurators. Yet, surprisingly, perceived enjoyment is identified as having the most significant effect on perceived usefulness.     

Managing salespeople strategically when promoting new products – incorporating market orientation into a sales management control framework

Salespeople play a pivotal role in promoting new products. Therefore, managers need to know what control mechanism (i.e., output-based control, behavior-based control, or knowledge-based control) can improve their salespeople’s new product sales performance. Furthermore, managers may be able to assist salespeople in performing better by having a strong market orientation. The literature has been inconsistent regarding the effects of sales management control mechanisms and has not yet incorporated market orientation into a sales management control framework. The current study surveyed 315 Taiwanese salespeople from publicly traded electronics companies with the aim of contributing to the sales management literature. The results show that sales management controls can directly affect salespeople’s innovativeness, which, in turn, affects new product sales performance. However, sales management controls cannot affect performance directly. Furthermore, market orientation can positively moderate the relationship between salespeople’s innovativeness and new product sales performance.     

Customer involvement in new product development in B2B: The role of sales

Developing new products, and customer involvement in the process, have been frequent topics in the management literature. Focusing on the benefits and risks of customer involvement, prior research mostly black-boxed the process through which customers are involved. Little has been reported on the activities and timing related to customer involvement in new product development (NPD), and the literature provides limited guidance for how to orchestrate customers' involvement. Building on a longitudinal case study of the development of a new product over five years, we offer a comprehensive model of customer involvement in the NPD process, and elaborate on the role of sales in customer involvement. The contribution of this paper is threefold: first, we develop the concept of customer involvement as a pattern of interactions at the interface of the customer and supplier organizations. Second, we posit that NPD in a B2B context is an iterative process consisting of various parallel sub-processes. Third, we demonstrate that in a B2B context, sales function plays a central part in interfacing the supplier and customer organizations. Based on our findings we identify organizational capabilities critical for developing an effective customer-supplier interface.     

Innovation Roadmapping: Building Concepts from Practitioners’ Insights

Cartographic roadmaps used for navigating from A to B provide a strong metaphor for innovation roadmaps used at firms for navigating from the present to the future. Now ready to move beyond this metaphor—the pace and proliferation of knowledge on innovation roadmapping have reached a point at which it would be useful to lay out some groundwork for extended theorizing and research in this area. This paper contributes here by reporting on a qualitative inductive research based on documented practitioners’ insights. To better understand the phenomenon of innovation roadmapping (what it is and what it is not) and its impact on innovation performance, this study builds concepts in the context of strategic innovation management theory. Through a systematic analysis of the qualitative data extracted from 12 cases selected from the extant literature, this research found five concepts with common ground in these cases and built a framework in which innovation roadmapping is established by (1) a strategy of time pacing, (2) synchronizing dialogues, and (3) mapping innovation elements to a timeline. Furthermore, the systematic analysis of the documented practitioners’ insights indicates that roadmapping affects either the innovation performance of (4) competitive timing or (5) industry synergy. Overall, this leads to an initial formulation of theory with this conceptual framework and six related propositions. The key insights for innovation managers in industrial firms are that, in striving for competitive timing or industry synergy, roadmapping provides a means to achieve these objectives and, in deploying roadmapping in the organization, dialogue and pacing are critically important.     

Issues of Learning and Knowledge in Technology Education

This article examines issues that arise from learning and knowledge in technology education. The issues examined are, first, the definition of technological knowledge and what the nature of that knowledge should be, where the concern is with how we define and think about that knowledge, especially in the context of how students learn and use knowledge in technology education. Second, the relationship between learning and knowledge in particular the inter-relationship between learning and knowledge, focusing on a situated view of learning. The third issue sees learning related to the context within which the learning takes place.This paper will explore these three inter-related issues in four sections. First, an outline of a view of learning that privileges context. Second, there will be a consideration of types of knowledge, namely, procedural and conceptual knowledge. These two types will be elaborated upon through research done at the Open University, particularly on problem solving and design. In discussing conceptual knowledge empirical work in mathematics and science education will be drawn on, along with work on the use of mathematics and science in technology education. Third, it will be argued that qualitative knowledge should become a part of teaching and learning in technology education because it both reflects a view of knowledge stemming from situated learning, and the tasks of technology. The article will end with a research agenda for what we have yet to understand, drawing on the earlier arguments.