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The article focuses on the relationship among sets of sales job characteristics and worker performance and satisfaction. The major emphasis of the job characteristics approach is that motivation, satisfaction, and job performance are hypothesized to be primarily a function of task design. The central idea of the expectancy model is that the strength of a tendency for a sales, representative to act in a certain way is a function of the strength of the sales representative's expectancy that the act will be followed by a specific consequence. An instrument to measure job characteristics carries five core dimensions of skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback. Skill variety is the extent to which a job requires a variety of different activities or skills in carrying out the work assignment. Task identity is the extent to which a job requires the completion of a whole and identifiable piece of work. Task significance is the degree to which the job has a substantial impact on the lives or activities of others.

Customer orientation is considered to be an essential element for small firm success despite relatively little empirical evidence to support such a claim. This research examines the customer orientation-performance relationship among 180 small firms, and the moderating influence of risk-taking, innovativeness, and opportunity focus on that relationship. Results support the overall positive influence of customer orientation on performance and indicate that the influence is stronger as risk-taking, innovativeness, and opportunity focus increase. Interestingly, customer orientation does not positively influence small firm performance under low levels of risk-taking, innovativeness, and opportunity focus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY The impact of person and situation on the influence of informal reference groups on consumer behavior is discussed The social psychological construct of self-monitoring was utilized to examine the person factor, while the social-nonsocial nature of products represented the situation factor. The study employed 141 male and female undergraduates who responded to two measures of co-orientation with informal reference groups and three measures of consumer behavior: information seeking, information source credibility, and group influence on product choice. Results indicate that informal group influence on consumer behavior was significantly greater for high self-monitors as compared with low self-monitors. Situational variations were minimal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a sample of 215 small company presidents, this study examined the relationship of the president's proactivity disposition to his/her entrepreneurial behavior. Entrepreneurial behavior was measured in terms of starting versus not starting the business, the number of startups, and the types of ownership (start, purchase, inherit). The relationships of proactivity to the firm's entrepreneurial posture, its performance, and the extent of the president's delegation of authority were also examined. The president's level of proactivity was related to each of three types of entrepreneurial behavior. Proactivity was directly and significantly related to the entrepreneurial posture of the firm and to change in sales of the firm. No relationship was found between proactivity and change in profits or delegation-of-authority style. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]