Driving organizational citizenship behaviors and salesperson in-role behavior performance: The role of management control and perceived organizational support

Interest in management control approaches and organizational factors associated with higher levels of salesperson performance is reflected in research streams concerned with behavior-based control strategies and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). This study makes two distinct additions to the literature relating to control, organizational citizenship behaviors and salesperson performance. First, the study distinguishes between salesperson in-role behavior performance and outcome performance to model in-role behavior performance as a mediator between OCB and outcome performance. Second, the work supports sales manager control as an antecedent to OCB. A second model introduces perceived organizational support (POS) as an additional antecedent to salesperson OCB, and more important, as a consequence of sales manager control. This construct has not been included in prior salesperson OCB studies. Results show sales manage control has a stronger impact on OCB through POS, than directly, and POS has a strong impact on salesperson OCB. Nigel F. Piercy (Nigel.Piercy@wbs.ac.uk) is a professor of marketing in the Warwick Business School at the University of Warwick, United Kingdom. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Wales and a higher doctorate (D.Litt) from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh. His current research interests focus on strategic sales and account management. His work has been published in many journals including theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of International Marketing, and theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science. He is coauthor to David Cravens onStrategic Marketing (8th ed., Irwin/McGraw-Hill, 2006). David W. Cravens (D.Cravens@tcu.edu) holds the Eunice and James L. West Chair of American Enterprise Studies and is a professor of marketing in the M. J. Neeley School of Business at Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, Texas. He has a doctorate in business administration from Indiana University. His areas of specialization include marketing strategy and planning, sales management, and new product planning. His research has been published in a wide range of journals including theJournal of Marketing, theJournal of Marketing Research, the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, and theInternational Journal of Marketing. Nikala Lane (Nikala.Lane@wbs.ac.uk) is a senior lecturer in marketing in the Warwick Business School at the University of Warwick, United Kingdom. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Wales and was previously a senior research associate at Cardiff University. Her research interests are focused on gender and ethics issues in sales and marketing management. Her work has been published widely in the international literature and includes articles in theJournal of Management Studies, theBritish Journal of Management, the Journal of Business Ethics, and theJournal of Personal Selling & Sales Management. Douglas W. Vorhies (dvorhies@bus.olemiss.edu) is an assistant professor of marketing in the School of Business Administration at the University of Mississippi. His primary research interests are in the areas of marketing strategy, marketing resources and capabilities, the links between innovation, strategic market management and performance, and professional selling and sales management. His other work has been published in many journals including theJournal of Marketing, Decision Sciences, theJournal of Product Innovation Management, theEuropean Journal of Marketing, and theJournal of Personal Selling and Sales Management.     

Impact of Stressful Situations on Salespersons' Gestures

Interest: This research analyses the influence of situations on salespersons’ gestures and behaviors. This research contributes to this underresearched field by exploring the impact of stressful versus nonstressful situations on salespersons’ personal behavior.

Methods: This research is based on 1,205 gestures observed during 382 sales calls that averaged 11 minutes with 382 salespersons. Half were in stressful situations, and half were in nonstressful situations. This study focuses on pharmaceutical products (drugs) in the medical field, with 95 doctors, 6 judges, 304 average performing salespersons, 39 high performers, and 39 low performers. This study shows how salespersons’ behaviors vary depending on stressful and nonstressful situations. This research also articulates a new field of sales research that is understudied by researchers and suggests new training trends in sales management.

Objective: The objective is to answer questions such as “Does stress influence salespersons’ behavior, and what are the gestures most affected by such situations?” To examine the effects of training on gestures, an experiment with 97 salespersons was conducted during a sales training session. This experiment measured whether salespersons trained on gestures behaved differently than those who were untrained.

Results: In general, stressful or nonstressful situations caused real differences in gestural behavior. In particular, the best salespersons performed the largest number of gestures during stressful situations. For example, stressful situations increased the mechanical or emotional gestures in leg movements or the number of glances.     

基于委托代理模型的销售人员报酬激励机制分析

以委托代理理论为基础,建立了销售人员激励的委托代理模型,通过推导,得出销售人员努力程度可以观测和不可观测下的最优激励合同,分析了销售人员激励程度的影响因素,具体探讨了企业外部环境不确定性、企业的销售管理水平和品牌影响力、销售人员的经验、能力和风险规避程度等因素对销售人员报酬激励机制设计的影响.     

销售人员沟通焦虑心理对业绩影响的机理研究

沟通能力对于销售人员而言至关重要。研究表明:沟通焦虑会通过互动介入程度以及柔性销售两个中介变量对销售业绩产生反向影响。此外,不同性别的销售人员沟通焦虑程度不存在显著差异,而不同行业、不同工作年限的销售人员沟通焦虑程度会表现出显著的不同。     

Buyer Loyalty in Business Markets: Can the Firm and Salesperson Get What They Truly Desire?

Purpose: Prior literature has acknowledged multi-foci customer loyalties (loyalty to the selling firm and salesperson-owned loyalty) and argued that both entities (selling firms and salespersons) foster customer loyalty through respective loyalty-capturing efforts (relationship investments). However, scholars have not investigated the influences of different types of interfirm relationship-specific investment (RSI) activities and salesperson behaviors (brand-building and guanxi behavior) on customer loyalty to the selling firm and salesperson-owned loyalty, especially their simultaneous (interaction) effects. The current research attempts to address this issue and examines the impacts that RSIs and salesperson behaviors have on customer loyalties.

Methodology/approach: A survey of seller–buyer dyads was conducted to test the proposed theoretical model and hypotheses. Using 192 dyadic data from customers and salespersons in the Chinese business-to-business contexts, this study specifies the direct and interactive effects of sellers’ RSIs and salespersons’ behaviors on customer loyalties.

Findings: Results indicate that selling firms’ loyalty-capturing efforts—property-based and knowledge-based RSIs—have different influences on two types of customer loyalty. Salespersons’ relationship investments—brand-building and guanxi behaviors—also have asymmetric impacts on customer loyalty. Counterintuitively, salespersons’ loyalty-capturing efforts weaken the relationships between firms’ RSIs and customer loyalties.

Originality/value/contribution: This study specifies different types of relationship investments and examines their respective and interactive impacts on two types of customer loyalty—loyalty to the selling firm and salesperson-owned loyalty. The findings indicate that firms’ and salespersons’ efforts may lead to unexpected and unintended effects on multi-foci loyalties. Therefore, the current study enriches our knowledge about multi-foci loyalty management and relationship marketing.

Practical implications: Because firms’ and salespersons’ loyalty-capturing strategies exert positive direct influences on loyalty to the selling firm and salesperson-owned loyalty, both entities may actively leverage relationship investments’ impact on customer loyalty. However, as the interactive effects derived from concurrent loyalty-enhancing activities are negative, firms need to clearly assess the nature and

characteristics of their relationship with buyers and properly design relationship investments and guide salesperson behaviors. Managers should use property-based RSIs as a primary safeguard of customer loyalty to the selling firm. Meanwhile, internal branding and training programs can help salespersons develop brand building behaviors and better understand the potential unintended outcomes that different behaviors may induce. Aligning a branding goal between the firm and salespersons can benefit both parties while avoiding counter-productive outcomes.     

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.     

The Impact of Salesperson Perception of Firm Market Orientation on Behaviors and Consulting Effectiveness

The purpose of this study was to study market orientation as an antecedent of salespersons' behaviors that should, in turn, influence the ability of the salesperson to add value to the product or service. There have been many studies of personal antecedents of salespersons behaviors and performance, with little predictive success. But there are few studies of firm-level influences on salesperson behaviors and their outcomes. A survey was sent to non-retail salespeople utilizing previously validated scales for all constructs of interest. The survey responses were analyzed using structural equation modeling to test hypotheses. Results suggest that market orientation has an indirect influence on salesperson consulting through adaptive selling and active listening behaviors. Active listening fully mediates the relationship between customer orientation and salesperson consulting, while salesperson consulting fully mediates the relationship between active listening and consulting effectiveness. Half of the influence of market orientation on salesperson consulting effectiveness is direct, while the other half of its influence is indirect through those salesperson behaviors. The author provides explanations for these results and implications for managers and researchers.     

Effects of Chinese consumers' relationship benefits and satisfaction on attitudes toward foreign fashion brands:The moderating role of country of salesperson

The paper examines the various responses of consumers depending on the country of salesperson (COS) and to look into the effects that consumer–salesperson relationship benefits have on consumer satisfaction and brand attitude. The results suggest that consumers' perceived social benefit and functional benefit positively influenced their satisfaction with salesperson, and a significant positive effect of consumers' satisfaction with salesperson on consumers' brand attitude is found. This positive relationship was moderated by COS. These findings suggest that COS will serve as an important retail mix for global marketers. Other results and management implications are also discussed.     

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.     

销售人员学习的前因及其与销售绩效的关系研究

随着环境日益复杂多变,销售人员的学习对于个人的销售绩效的提升乃至组织的成功都起着至关重要的作用。销售人员学习包括学习努力与系统知识两个不同的维度。其前因变量包括个人层面的主动性、经验开放性和学习导向;任务层面的工作自主度和任务难度;组织层面的学习氛围和管理支持。销售人员学习对销售绩效的影响则是通过减少角色模糊、提升自我效能感和工作满意度来实现的。