Factors influencing sales call frequency of industrial salespersons

Industrial sales representatives face a problem of allocating their time in deciding which customers or prospects to call on and how frequently to make those calls. These decisions directly influence the firm's costs and revenues, yet research in this area has been sparse. This article reports an empirical study of the relationship between the call frequency of salespersons and select characteristics of the market, the customer, and the salesperson-customer interaction. Data for the study were collected by a self-administered questionnaire which was completed by 83 salespersons representing 34 different firms. Respondents provided data concerning their call frequency on a particular customer, time in the sales territory, and responses to a series of Likert statements. Eight summative scales were developed from the statements. Multiple regression analysis was used to examine the relationship between call frequency and the independent variables. Several predictors (Role Consensus, Important Purchase Decision, Important Customer, and Customer Disposition) were salient variables in the model. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of the research findings to marketing managers and researchers.     

Learning unit prices in a new currency

In the European Union, some citizens adapt to the Euro transition by converting the new currency to the old familiar one (‘re‐scaling’), whereas some adapt by learning the product prices in the Euro (‘re‐learning’). Employing a total of 65 undergraduates in two laboratory experiments, factors that may make such price learning difficult were identified. In Experiment 1, learning of unit prices for cellular phone calls from sequences of duration–price examples was more difficult when a fixed connection fee is added to the price of each call. Witnessing the adverse impact of price variation, Experiment 2 showed that simultaneous learning of several unit prices was less accurate than learning of single unit price.     

如何设计企业财务收支审批制度

各单位建立并实施内部会计监督制度,这是会计法的基本要求.财务收支审批制度作为内部会计监督制度的重要内容之一,应该得到各单位的重视.然而,我国目前许多企业的财务收支审批制度还很不完善,实际工作中暴露的财务收支审批方面的问题也较为严重.如何设计企业财务收支审批制度,是一个值得探讨的问题.     

Foreign competition and quality sorting: Overlaps in US and Chinese exports

The paper studies the performance of US exports conditional on presence and magnitude of Chinese exports in the same foreign markets. Outcomes within product—destination markets are analysed in a panel covering 4,219 products, 67 destinations and 11 years (1996–2006). Generally, an increasing exposure to Chinese export competition is related with lower US export revenues, quantity and market shares. Robustness checks support existence and direction of a causal relationship. Other outcomes, such as product switching, market exit and export unit value adjustments are less clear‐cut. Detailed analyses of responses in individual destinations and product categories suggest that this is, partly, because Chinese and US exports compete only in some markets. In product markets where lower US export quantity coincides with adjustments of export unit value, quality sorting appears to be prevalent. In some cases, however, lower export unit values appear to help export quantities remain unchanged. Overall, the average estimated displacement effects obtained from a pooled sample mask substantial panel‐unit heterogeneity.     

Clustering at the Movies

Weekly box office revenues for approximately 100 successful motion pictures are analyzed by use of a finite mixture regression technique to determine if regular sales patterns emerge. Based on an exponential decay model applied to market share data, four clusters of movies, varying in opening strength and decay rate, are found. Characteristics of the clusters and implications for future research are discussed.     

Mass incarceration and consumer financial harm: Critique of rent-seeking by the carceral state

Mass incarceration is an approach to managing public safety that emphasizes detention over other means. It is also neoliberalism's quintessential political and economic project because it mobilizes a prison industrial complex to generate revenue. We highlight rent-seeking, the pursuit of extra-budgetary revenues by carceral agencies, because it inflicts financial harm on incarcerated consumers and their supporters. Carceral agencies leverage government's authority to set the conditions of detention. However, when they also leverage government's market-making authority to seek rents from incarcerated persons we characterize that as a government failure. To understand it, we depart from a focus on corruption by specific actors to highlight features of institutions that enable unethical behavior. We join activists and elected officials who call for an end to mass incarceration, but we also highlight more immediate reforms that can help restrain rent-seeking and enable greater public scrutiny of the carceral state.     

What the eye does not see,the mind cannot reject: Can call center location explain differences in customer evaluations?

Moving call centers offshore may be an effective way to increase service productivity by lowering costs, yet recent research suggests that customers associate offshore call centers with lower service quality. This study clarifies customer evaluations of call centers with a field study that examines how customer perceptions of a foreign accent, call center location, and the agent's customer orientation relate to nonmonetary performance outcomes. Multivariate analysis of data collected from more than 800 customers using call centers located in three countries suggests that neither accent detection nor call center location relates to customer satisfaction, trust, or word-of-mouth communication; only perceived customer orientation has an effect on these outcomes. These findings suggest offshore call center locations are not necessarily associated with lower performance outcomes and that service firms should place a higher priority on ensuring call center agents have a strong customer orientation, rather than on avoiding the use of call centers abroad.     

House prices and immovable property tax: Evidence from OECD countries

This paper studies the impact of changes in immovable property tax revenues on the growth rate of house prices by analysing a panel of 34 OECD countries over the period 1970–2014. Starting from the annual series of immovable property tax revenues, we isolate years of significant shifts in the property tax regime and study their impact on house prices. We find a strong negative relationship between increases in immovable property tax revenues and house prices. This relationship is robust to the inclusion of cyclical determinants of house prices, country and year fixed effects, and country‐specific linear trends. We also propose an instrumental variable strategy based on countries’ legal origins that confirms a statistically significant negative impact of such taxes in the short run.     

Impact of Sales Call Adaptiveness and Customer Willingness on Sales Call Length: A Cross-Country Study of India,China, Korea,and Philippines

ABSTRACT

In this empirical study across four countries (India, China, Korea, and Philippines), we examine the impact of sales call adaptiveness and customer willingness on sales call length (duration) of salespersons in these four countries. Sales call length as well as sales call quality—although important constructs in sales—are still underresearched in the domain of sales management. Our study in these four emerging markets sheds new light on enhancing sales force effectiveness. Using survey data from 847 salespersons in four countries, we analyze using multivariate analysis, and our results suggest that sales force effectiveness can be enhanced by giving them the autonomy to decide the sales call length based on the prospect quality. We also demonstrate that salespeople indulging in sales-oriented behaviors may be detrimental to the long-term relationship with customers. Emphasis on relational sales approaches would reduce sales practices such as pitching products or services to unwilling customers. Our study also highlights the interactive role of customer willingness and sales adaptiveness. We found several inter-country differences across sales practices in four countries, which have several meaningful managerial implications.     

Steuermehreinnahmen er?ffnen budget?re Spielr?ume zum Abbau der kalten Progression

In May 2012 the Working Party on Tax Revenue Forecasting released a tax revenue estimate for the current year and the following four years based on key macroeconomic data supplied by the German Federal Government. The new official tax estimate forecasts additional revenues for central, state and local government. Tax revenues are expected to bring additional €24.9bn between 2012 and 2016. With the budgetary leeway, the fiscal drag, which has occurred since 2010, could be eliminated in 2013 and 2014. The Act to reduce fiscal drag would result in a revenue loss of €6bn a year.     

An empirical analysis of demand variations and markdown policies for fashion retailers

In this paper, using data from a leading specialty apparel retailer, we empirically examine the determinants of a retailer's dynamic pricing policy and investigate consumer response to price changes (markdowns) throughout a fashion product's selling season using a product diffusion setting. In order to do that, we first develop and estimate a markdown pricing model and a consumer demand model that capture the important characteristics of the fashion apparel market. Next, we use the estimates from these two models to design and simulate four alternative markdown pricing policies to investigate the impact of these different policies on consumer demand and retailer revenues. Our results, in line with the previous literature, show that markdowns implemented early in the season but small in magnitude generate the highest retailer revenues. Our paper not only provides a comprehensive empirical framework for fashion apparel retailers that is easy to implement, but also shows that using this framework will lead to timely decision making and will improve sale and revenue outcomes in the fast paced fashion world.     

A “Pure” long-term interest rate and the demand for money

This article presents the appropriate rate by which to discount a constant, certain, infinite stream of future payments: that is, the yield on a noncallable perpetuity or consol. The American consol series is a daily risk-free “pure” long term interest rate which is undistorted by tax effects, call premiums, and varying duration and reinvestment assumptions. If Hamburger had used the American consol series instead of the U.S. Government Long Term Bond Rate in his money demand function, he would have found more of the “missing money.” His average error (actual minus predicted money demand) as a percentage of actual money demand would have been reduced from 1.43% to 0.93% a 35% error reduction.     

Estimating Direct Gains in Consumer Welfare in Telecommunications Sector

This paper discusses the benefits of product and process innovation as well as deregulation in consumer telecommunication products markets. The twin trends of price reduction and new features have benefited consumers. These major changes have taken place alongside deregulation. Using the data from Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development telecommunication reports, the paper provides estimates of gains in consumer welfare over the years. These direct gains are significant (hundreds of billions of dollars) and thus justify the public investment that goes into the telecommunication infrastructure improvement.     

A comparison of different pay-per-bid auction formats

Pay-per-bid auctions are a popular new type of Internet auction that is unique because a fee is charged for each bid that is placed. This paper uses a theoretical model and three large empirical data sets with 44,614 ascending and 1,460 descending pay-per-bid auctions to compare the economic effects of different pay-per-bid auction formats, such as different price increments and ascending versus descending auctions. The theoretical model suggests revenue equivalence between different price increments and descending and ascending auctions. The empirical results, however, refute the theoretical predictions: ascending auctions with smaller price increments yield, on average, higher revenues per auction than ascending auctions with higher price increments, but their revenues vary much more strongly. On average, ascending auctions yield higher revenues per auction than descending auctions, but results differ strongly across product categories. Additionally, revenues per ascending auction also vary much more strongly.     

An empirical study about the impacts of China's accession to the WTO on the telecommunications industry in China

Post‐China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), China's telecommunication industry now needs to face a much stronger competition in a relatively open market that has a number of diverse rivalries. There are specific benefits and risks associated with both domestic telecommunication (telecom) companies and foreign investors in the telecommunication or information technology area. To meet with these new challenges and take advantage of the competitive, strategic advantages to penetrate the market, both China's telecom industry and foreign investors must understand the impacts of China's accession to the WTO on its telecommunication industry and hence make the necessary adjustments and/or implementation improvements. In specific, we carefully examine the impacts such as prices, quality, and local protectionism in this article. We draw the findings based on the data collected from a survey and the resulting statistic analysis.     

Data Science,Predictive Analytics,and Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform Supply Chain Design and Management

We illuminate the myriad of opportunities for research where supply chain management (SCM) intersects with data science, predictive analytics, and big data, collectively referred to as DPB. We show that these terms are not only becoming popular but are also relevant to supply chain research and education. Data science requires both domain knowledge and a broad set of quantitative skills, but there is a dearth of literature on the topic and many questions. We call for research on skills that are needed by SCM data scientists and discuss how such skills and domain knowledge affect the effectiveness of an SCM data scientist. Such knowledge is crucial to develop future supply chain leaders. We propose definitions of data science and predictive analytics as applied to SCM. We examine possible applications of DPB in practice and provide examples of research questions from these applications, as well as examples of research questions employing DPB that stem from management theories. Finally, we propose specific steps interested researchers can take to respond to our call for research on the intersection of SCM and DPB.     

First-mover and incumbency advantages in mobile telecommunications

The present study analyzes data of 191 mobile network operators from 49 countries in order to identify the extent of first-mover and incumbency advantages. A large number of new market entry opportunities and involvement of many previous state-owned monopolists have characterized the mobile telecommunication services industry over the last 20 years. The results of this study show that both, first-movers and incumbents in the mobile telecommunication services industry are more successful regarding market share and operational financial results than later entrants. A pioneer position and incumbency are only loosely connected, with success originating both from first-mover and incumbency advantages. Moreover, the timing effect is stronger and more sustainable for market share compared to operating margin, indicating that followers successfully compensate part of their market share disadvantages with strategies like SIM-only tariffs, outsourcing and alternative distribution approaches. In addition, the typical rank-based measurement of timing position reveals somewhat stronger associations than a variable that is using the time elapsed between commercial launches of pioneers and followers.     

A Model of Organizational Antecedents to Franchise Revenues

Abstract

This study investigates antecedents to financial outcomes in franchised distribution channels. A model is developed which implicates authoritative and normative control as antecedents to franchise revenues. The model is tested with data from two hundred sixteen franchises in the Norwegian distribution system of a multinational oil refiner. The results indicate that authoritative control engenders normative control and control mechanisms are associated with franchise revenues. Implications for franchise management and channels research are outlined.     

金融创新对商业银行风险承担的影响--基于金融创新的分类研究

将银行金融创新分为降低项目监督成本和提高投资回报率两种类型,利用银行在融资市场的博弈均衡模型并结合数值模拟技术,研究两种类型金融创新对银行风险承担的影响。研究结果显示：相对于提高投资回报率的金融创新,降低项目监督成本的金融创新对银行风险承担影响更大,且当投资项目收益率较低时,降低监督成本的金融创新更有利于提高银行资金的使用效率,降低银行风险承担水平。实证结果支持理论模型的结论。