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This paper presents a Sales Force Effectiveness Framework that organizes the complexities of sales organizations, providing a holistic approach to defining and assessing sales force effectiveness. Sales practitioners can use the framework to diagnose sales force issues and develop multidimensional solutions, either when responding to external and internal events or when striving to improve. Sales researchers can use the framework to discover ways to expand their research focus to benefit practitioners. The framework is supported by an inventory of sales force effectiveness issues from sales leaders and recent academic publications.

The last major study of sales performance variance explained by salespeople attributes was by Churchill et al. (1985). They examined the effect of role, skills, motivation, personal factors, aptitude, and organizational/environmental factors on sales performance--factors that have dominated the sales performance area. About the same time, Weitz, Sujan, and Sujan (1986) introduced the concepts of salespeople's knowledge structures. Considerable work on the relationship of the dements of knowledge structures and performance can be found in the literature. In this research note, we determine the degree to which sales performance can be explained by knowledge structure variables, a heretofore unexplored area. If knowledge structure variables explain more variance than traditional variables, then this paper would be a call to further research in this area. In examining this research question in a retail context, we find that knowledge structure variables explain 50.2 percent of the variance in sales performance. We also find that variance explained by knowledge structures is significantly different based on gender. The impact of knowledge structures on performance was higher for men than for women. The models using education demonstrated smaller differences.

The study compares the role of self-reported causal attributions of past performance on self-generated expectations of future performance among salespeople from independent and interdependent national cultures. The results suggest that salespeople from independent cultures attribute successful past performance to internal factors (i.e., effort or ability), but not external factors (i.e., luck or organizational support). Salespeople from interdependent cultures, however, attribute successful performances to both internal and external factors. Furthermore, the relationship between past performance and future performance expectation is mediated by internal or external causal attributions depending upon whether the salespeople operate in independent or interdependent cultures, respectively.

This research focuses on the salesperson's ability to perceive emotions in the buyer-seller interaction. Drawing on the emotional ability literature, the authors develop hypotheses within a conceptual framework of salespeople's ability to perceive the emotions of customers, and examine how this ability influences the relationships between selling behaviors and performance. Findings indicated that the ability to accurately appraise the emotions of others moderated the practice of adaptive selling and customer-oriented selling on performance. Further analyses revealed that while high perceiving ability has beneficial effects on selling, low perceiving ability not only limits the use of customer-oriented selling but also has a negative impact on sales performance. Both self-reported and supervisor-reported measures of selling performance were used, along with a performance-based measure of emotional perceiving ability. Implications are discussed along with directions for future research.

This study develops and tests a model that examines the relationships among lone wolf tendencies, task performance, contextual performance, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions with a sample of 331 pharmaceutical salespeople. Results reveal that lone wolf tendencies lead to a lower contextual performance as represented by the dimensions of helping, courtesy, and sportsmanship. Task performance is subsequently reduced. Ultimately, turnover intentions are higher based on lower job satisfaction of salespeople with lone wolf tendencies. Managerial implications of working with lone wolf salespeople are provided.

This study builds on previous research to investigate the effects of ethical climate on salesperson's role stress, job attitudes, turnover intention, and job performance. Responses from 138 salespeople who work for a large retailer selling high-end consumer durables at 68 stores in 16 states were used to examine the process through which ethical climate affects organizational variables. This is the first study offering empirical evidence that both job stress and job attitudes are the mechanisms through which a high ethical climate leads to lower turnover intention and higher job performance. Results indicate that ethical climate results in lower role conflict and role ambiguity and higher satisfaction, which, in turn, leads to lower turnover intention and organizational commitment. Also, findings indicate that organizational commitment is a significant predictor of job performance.

This study investigates depictions of salespeople in movies and television between 1903 and 2005. Using a text analysis of 281 plot summaries, the study examines the descriptions and occupations of salesperson characters, the role of selling behaviors in plots, and salesperson character archetypes. Although the findings provide support for critics' concerns about the negativity among these portrayals, the results indicate that there have been a wider range of archetypes, descriptions, and roles than what may be held by popular belief. With a few exceptions, the results also suggest that depictions have had remarkable similarities over time.

Although a strong culture has been widely acknowledged as a defining characteristic of successful firms, past research has failed to examine the influence it exerts on the attitudes and behavior of salespeople. In a two-sample study, we measure culture strength and explore its relationship to value congruity and to three sales force outcomes that define the sales management research tradition: role stress, organizational commitment, and job satisfaction. Within the contexts of the sales subculture of a Fortune 500 firm (Study 1) and specialized sales organizations (Study 2), the results reveal a compelling portrait of the forces that shape salesperson-culture fit. Specifically, the results of both studies indicate that a strong culture leads to higher levels of value congruity, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment, and lower levels of role stress. Key implications are highlighted for sales managers and for researchers.

Previous research examining the interrelationships among role stress, attitudes, and outcomes in business-to-business selling has not given much consideration to the possible moderating influence of the type of selling situation. Using the seminal model of business-to-business selling introduced by Brown and Peterson (1993), the authors reexamine these interrelationships by controlling for the type of selling situation. The results reveal an intricate pattern of relationships and complex trade-offs of positive and negative consequences across the various selling positions. Overall, the findings suggest that mixing heterogeneous sales populations into an aggregate sample may lead to erroneous conclusions., The critical importance of the business-to-business (B2B) sales force for creating and sustaining competitive advantage comes with the realization that salespeople are susceptible to high levels of role stress, which [...]

The sales job of the early twenty-first century has evolved due to myriad rapidly changing environmental factors. Customer relationship focus, technology, global competition, shifting customer preferences and demands, forced downsizing, increased competitive pressure, and other factors have contributed to altering the salesperson role what salespeople do. Yet outdated taxonomies are referenced when researching and writing about sales jobs. This paper develops an empirically generated sales position taxonomy based on changing selling activities and strategies. First, a set of 105 activities are factor analyzed to create 12 dimensions of selling. Second, the factor scores are entered into a duster analysis. The resulting factor score centroids allow for interpretation of a taxonomy of six categories of contemporary sales jobs., Over the past two decades, the nature of professional sales jobs and the function of selling within a firm and within the business milieu have changed dramatically. A number of [...]

The purpose of this study was to examine the equivalence of self-reports and managerial ratings of salesperson job performance. A meta-analysis showed that the two measures exhibited low convergent validity (mean corrected correlation = 0.19), which indicated that they are not interchangeable. The predictive validity of self-reports and managerial ratings was compared. Managerial ratings had a corrected mean correlation of 0.44 with objective performance, whereas the corrected mean correlation between self-reports and objective measures was 0.34. Further meta-analytic investigations showed that the divergence between self-reports and managerial ratings was attributable to the performance effect. A discussion of the findings and avenues for further research are also provided., Subjective measures of salesperson job performance have been used extensively in sales research. For instance, in Churchill et al.'s (1985) meta-analysis, more than 50 percent of the effect sizes were [...]

Previous research reports a relationship between attributions and specific behaviors following a failed sales call. This study investigates the influence of individual differences on both the attribution process and the relationship between attribution and the behavioral intentions of sales representatives following a failure using a sample of financial services salespeople. This research reveals the important roles that optimism and self-efficacy play in shaping salespeople's attributions for failed sales calls and in their behavioral responses to attributions for failure. Implications for managers and future research are discussed., Sales is a profession fraught with failures. Being successful as a salesperson depends, in part, upon the ability to respond effectively to failure. How salespeople interpret failure (i.e., the attributions [...]

This response addresses the comments of Sharma, Rich, and Levy, (2004) about the generalizability of the performance effect. The comments are addressed by bringing additional theoretical and empirical support with a new study that replicates and extends the results of our 2003 paper. Results confirm our 2003 findings that bottom performers overestimate and that top performers underestimate their job performance. Further, results confirm our 2003 findings that bottom performers are significantly more inaccurate than top salespeople in their performance estimation. Finally, this study extends previous research by providing evidence that the inaccuracy in self-evaluations is reduced when factual-based questions are used., We thank Sharma, Rich, and Levy (this issue, pp. 135-139; hereafter referred to as SILL) for taking the time and effort to write a very thoughtful Comment on our Research [...]

In a recent Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management paper, Jaramillo, Carrillat, and Locander (JCL) further extended our understanding of the errors of salesperson self-report evaluations when compared to managerial evaluations. Our paper provides contrary evidence on three major conclusions drawn in this stud> First, we question the assertion by JCL that the correlation between self-report and objective measures of performance is consistently low. Second, we question JCL's claim that the correlation between managerial evaluations and objective measures of performance is consistently high. Third, we question the key finding of JCL that self-report measures of salesperson performance are less accurate than managerial evaluations. We provide an alternative perspective to these issues by highlighting past research on performance measurement. Moreover, we reanalyze data from a previously published study to examine the issues raised by JCL. Our expectation is that this comment will serve as an impetus for further research in this area., The area of performance assessment, specifically within the area of salesperson performance assessment, has been a fertile area of research. A recent paper by Jaramillo, Carrillat, and Locander (2003; JCL [...]

The sales literature reports that a greater number of offerings increase sales performance, but the enlarged product line should result in increased information requirements for salespeople. Strategies of sales force specialization imply that too much information can reduce sales performance. Yet theoretical and practical guidance regarding when information becomes detrimental to sales performance is sparse. Information overload theory is used to identify when performance suffers because of large amounts of information. The results of this study offer preliminary evidence that a self-report measure of information overload can offer guidance to sales managers in identifying when information becomes detrimental to sales force performance., Conventional wisdom suggests that increases in the number of products or features offered by a sales force should result in improved sales performance by appealing to a broader target market [...]

Increased use of sales teams reduces salespeople's latitude to operate as 'lone wolves.' A lone wolf prefers to work alone when making decisions and setting goals, has little patience for [...]

At the strategic level, the role of the industrial salesperson has been described as managing a portfolio of different buyer-seller relationships. This study identifies specific sales tactics (i.e., customer-focused, competitor-focused, or product-focused) that support the development of these strategic relationships. Data gathered from a national sample of industrial buyers was used to examine the differential effects of three sets of selling techniques. These differences tend to be contingent on the buyers' position within that firm. When a buyer occupies a higher level of authority within his or her firm, customer-focused approaches tend to garner higher responsiveness ratings., Considerable attention has been focused on the strategic assessment of buyer-seller relationships in business markets (Day 2000; Jap, Manolis, and Weitz 1999; Weitz and Bradford 1999). Less effort has been [...]

This paper posits and tests a model of the individual characteristics of self-efficacy, competitiveness, and effort as potential antecedents of salesperson performance. Based on two studies in different selling contexts, it is observed that whereas effort mediates the relationship between competitiveness and sales performance, self-efficacy has both direct and indirect effects on sales performance. Structural equation modeling results support the proposed model. Implications and conclusions of the studies are presented., Salesperson performance has long been a topic of research interest to marketing academicians and practitioners. Determining what leads to superior performance is an important aspect of every sales manger's job [...]

Intra-team conflict within core selling teams can shape team outcomes. Using congruency theory, we propose how conflict responses impact the relational distance between individuals in a core selling team, creating positive/negative team outcomes. Our framework suggests managers may improve team outcomes by monitoring sales team members' responses to conflict, encouraging internal cognitive voice behaviors, and intervening in teams not using internal cognitive voice behaviors when relational or process conflict exists. Our model helps explain the paradox in which an individual who is part of a 'winning' team (one achieving its team goals) may still choose to exit the team., Today's sales representatives face escalating competition and turbulence, increasing product proliferation, and mounting pressures to meet organizational goals and customer demands. Changes in customer contact patterns, customer expectations, and electronic [...]

Nonverbal cues are potentially important determinants of social impressions in industrial buyer-seller interactions. Yet there is a lack of empirical research concerning the effects of nonverbal cues in industrial selling contexts. This study reports the results of an experiment designed to assess the impact of salespersons' use of five nonverbal cues (eye gaze, speech hesitations, gestures, clothing, and posture) on buyers' social impressions of the salesperson and the sales presentation. Nonverbal cues are found to influence selected dimensions of buyers' perceptions of the salesperson and their evaluations of the video taped sales presentation., Introduction Do buyers' impressions of the salesperson in the initial sales call matter? Apparently so. As Jacobs, Evans, Kleine, and Landry (2001) and Macintosh (1992) note, sales personnel lay the [...]

Within the literature of sales management, researchers have explored different configurations of job characteristics, organizational commitment and job satisfaction. In this paper, we offer a new configuration that includes interactive effects of job characteristics and organizational commitment on job satisfaction. Utilizing structural equation modeling, we test our proposed model against three alternative models among expatriate, guest worker, salespeople in Saudi Arabia. The proposed model produces the best fit. The theoretical and managerial implications are discussed., Introduction Models relating the differing job characteristics of salespeople to the levels of both their organizational commitment and their job satisfaction are legion in sales, marketing and management literatures (e.g., [...]

The results of this study which used sales managers in the United States as subjects indicate that obese salespeople are considered less fit for challenging sales territories and may be discriminated against in assignment decisions. Interestingly, a job which included little face-to-face contact with customers (inside telephone sales) did offset the effects of obesity. Obese salespeople are also disciplined more harshly for breaches of ethical conduct. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

In two different studies of large industrial sales forces, the frequency of positive and negative critical sales events is shown to affect sales force satisfaction and performance, both directly and indirectly through their impact on role stress. Managerial variables (training and leadership) also affected role stress, satisfaction, and performance, both directly and as moderators. Despite the differences in sales forces/selling situations and the use of different performance measures in the two studies, the results are reasonably consistent and provide solid evidence that critical sales events add to our ability to explain sales force outcomes and are worth further research and managerial attention. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Sales employees generally do not share all of the performance information that they are privy to with their supervisors. This leads to information asymmetries that they can use for personal gain. This study examines the antecedents and consequences of information asymmetry in a performance evaluation setting. A major feature of the study is the use of two theories - namely, agency theory and social exchange theory - for explaining the level of information asymmetry between salespeople and their supervisors. Empirical results indicate that social exchange theory is more useful in explaining the occurrence of information asymmetry. The study also examines the dual role played by control systems in reducing asymmetry and promoting dysfunctional behaviors of salespeople. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

This study examines the relationships among salesperson performance outcomes, causal attributions, and expectancy estimates. The authors extend the conceptual work of Teas and McElroy (1986) and the empirical work of Johnston and Kim (1994) by deriving and testing a more parsimonious attribution process model. The survey findings that performance and skill/knowledge attributions have a direct relationship with salesperson expectancy estimates. In addition, the findings suggest organizational support attributions moderate the linkage between performance and salespeople's expectancies. Implications for research and practice are developed that recognize the importance of salesperson performance and cognitive processing on the motivation of sales personnel. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

This paper discuses change management initiatives undertaken by companies for the purpose of sustaining competitive advantage with customers and preventing sales force obsolescence. The paper discusses a number of topics related to change management initiatives including the following: (1) the challenged associated with change management initiatives, (2) experiences with three change management programs, (3) the business life cycle and change implications for sales managers, (4) the wisdom of change management focus being operational or strategic, (5) change management objectives that achieve sustainable competitive advantage through people, and (6) the change management implications of high performance systems for sales managers. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

This pre and post-job entry study of new insurance agents investigated the predictors of job entry and post-entry organizational commitment. Results showed perceived person-job fit and internal locus of control were the best predictors of pre-entry commitment. Realistic positive expectations predicted post-entry organizational commitment, controlling for pre-entry organizational commitment. The results suggest that job research practices have a significant impact on early employment organizational attachments. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

This study examines the type of relationship that exists between the sales manager and subordinate (vertical exchange status), and its impact on the sales manager's attributions about the subordinate performance, as well as subsequent responses to the subordinate. Results indicate that cadres may receive preferential consideration in explaining their performance, which then impacts the sales manager's response to the salesperson. The findings imply that sales managers should be careful in assigning attributions for performance by both cadre and hired hand salespersons. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

This study investigated the relationship of information-seeking from managers and coworkers, number of prospecting methods used, and number of joint sales calls the new hire went on with managers and coworkers to sales productivity during the first six months of employment. This study also investigated whether age was directly related to sales productivity, indirectly related through its influence on the other independent variables, or moderated the relationship between the independent variables and sales productivity. Results showed that age and going on joint sales calls with managers and coworkers were positively related to sales productivity. Age also served as a moderator. Older new hires who used a variety of prospecting techniques, and younger new hires who asked their peers for information about job and organizational procedures were better performers. The implications of these results for organizations are discussed. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Evaluating salespeoples' performance is an important task for sales managers. However, little is known about what bases are used by sales managers to evaluate the performance of their salespeople. A study was conducted to determine the bases actually used by sales managers and the results were compared with a study conducted in 1983. Findings indicate more emphasis on profit and cost control, a continued reliance on qualitative measures, and a wide variety of bases being utilized to evaluate the performance of salespeople. Furthermore, the stability of results, across a wide variety of respondent job titles as well as business types and sizes, indicates a good deal of generalizability to other firms. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Anderson and Oliver (1987) presented a behavior vs. outcome sales control taxonomy based on methods of monitoring salespersons' effort. Under an outcome system, sales revenue is thought to be a sufficient criterion for sales proficiency. Under a behavior system, the sales process itself is critical and 'input' monitoring activities are maximized. Oliver and Anderson (1994) tested these differences on salesperson perceptions and found effects on affective and cognitive consequences. This paper extends these findings and shows that, while conventional behavior and outcome strategies appear to be operating in accord with theory, evidence is found for an integrated or 'hybrid' philosophy exhibiting degrees of both. The incidence and nature of such strategies are discussed in terms of their consequences and implications. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

A recurring, but unresolved, issue in salesforce research is the choice of salesperson performance evaluation methodology. Salesforce compensation is typically based on some form of evaluation, and hence the assessment method used is critical. The authors outline several evaluation methods currently in use and their pros and cons. Some methods are purely output or purely input based, and often employ only one indicator of performance. Still other methods use absolute ratios of outputs to inputs, or compare performance with the 'average' performance rather than the 'best.' The authors propose a data envelopment analysis (DEA) based approach that provides a measure of relative (to best) performance efficiency. An empirical example illustrates the proposed method of salesperson evaluation. The advantages of the proposed approach are discussed along with a description of situations in which its use may be more appropriate. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

There is increasing recognition that customer satisfaction should be an important objective of sales organizations. For example, 40 percent of the incentives of IBM's salesforce are based on customer satisfaction ratings. In a series of three studies, this paper investigates the relationship between different bases of salespeople's incentives and their customer service response behavior. The results provide evidence that incentive systems based on customer satisfaction increase salespeople's customer service response compared to salespeople whose incentives are based on sales volume. An interesting and important result of the studies is that mixed incentives (incentives based on a combination of sales volume and customer satisfaction) reduce the customer service response of salespeople. Thus, firms that are introducing mixed customer satisfaction incentives need to study the impact of the incentive structure on salesperson behavior. Finally, training positively influences salespeople's customer service behavior. Theoretical and methodological implications of these findings and directions for sales managers are discussed. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

With the current uncertainty in the job market, coupled with an emphasis on customer satisfaction and long-term business relationships, there is a renewed interest in salespeople who are highly involved in their jobs. Before any convincing research in this area can be undertaken, a psychometrically sound scale of salesperson job involvement must be available. Our paper provides an assessment in a sales setting of three versions of the most widely used job involvement scale - the Lodahl and Kejner (1965) scale. Results suggest that all three versions have serious flaws and should be used with extreme caution. While one study is never enough to make final recommendations, a classic scale development project with salespeople may be beneficial. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of facets of internal and external equity on job satisfaction. The study was conducted using a sample of outside salespeople. Results indicated that internal promotion equity, internal salary equity, external recognition equity, external incentive equity and external raise equity were the facets of internal and external equity related to job satisfaction for outside salespeople. Age and performance were also positively related to job satisfaction. Implications for salesforce management and future research are presented based on these findings. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Research into the interaction of a salesperson with a buyer would seem to be relatively simple, but in fact there are a number of theoretical and methodological challenges. The author describes several of these challenges, particularly the nonindependence of observations and the existence of effects at both individual and dyadic levels. An analytical approach, the Social Relations Model, is presented which takes these phenomena into account. The model's application is illustrated with an investigation of the relationship between a salesperson's communication competence and performance. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

In order to objectively assess the progress of a discipline, it is important to periodically examine its publication outlets to identify topics and trends that reflect the state of knowledge. In this paper, the content of 13 years of sales force research in four established marketing/sales force journals was analyzed to identify the direction in which authors, editors, and reviewers are taking the field of sales force management. The authors find that sales force research is definitely becoming a more rigorous and scientific field of study. Implications for future sales force research are discussed. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Attempts to understand and improve salesperson performance have generated a considerable amount of research. Much of this research has focused on the relationships and impacts of various personal, organizational, and environmental variables on sales performance. The predominant model underlying much, if not most, of this research since 1979 has been the Walker, Churchill, and Ford (WCF) model. An important but overlooked aspect of the WCF model is the role of sales behaviors with respect to sales performance and sales effectiveness. This paper uses the WCF model to develop a more behavior-oriented view of sales performance. Sales behaviors and their performance are treated as mediating variables between such inputs as motivation, aptitude, and role perceptions and sales effectiveness outcomes. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

This study examines the importance which consumers place on various salesperson attributes in the retail purchase of durable goods. From an original list of 25 salesperson characteristics, exploratory factor analysis was used to identify seven underlying dimensions, and trustworthiness was found to be of greatest importance. Because past research had suggested that dependability was a critical buyer concern, the extent to which retail salespeople were considered dependable in providing a number of specific selling services was also examined as any additional part of the present study. This analysis generally showed that while consumers place great importance on sales rep dependability, they do not have high levels of confidence in the current retail sales force providing it. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

The relationship between job satisfaction and life satisfaction has been the focus of a great deal of research in the social sciences for over thirty years, yet very few studies on this topic exist in the business disciplines and none exists in the study of the sales force. Using a large national sales force, this study compares job satisfaction and life satisfaction across three organizational levels. Findings indicate a strong correlation between job satisfaction and life satisfaction regardless of job levels. Significant decreases in certain satisfaction areas were found between territory managers and district managers. Important implications are examined for both industry and researchers. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Although the direct link between performance and turnover is often weak, performance may still play a significant role: as a moderator of relationships involving antecedents of turnover. This study develops and tests hypotheses about performance as a moderator variable in relationships involving role stress, job satisfaction dimensions, organizational commitment, tenure, and turnover intentions. In a sample of food broker sales reps and their supervisors, these relationships were generally weaker for high performers than for low performers, and dimensions of job satisfaction played somewhat different roles. The results suggest the value of using performance as a moderator variable and point to the need for expanded organizational commitment and satisfaction measures. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Customer oriented selling, defined as practicing the marketing concept at the level of the individual salesperson and customer (Saxe and Weitz 1982), is important in selling situations yet has received relatively little attention from marketers. As such, job tenure, gender, organizational commitment, work involvement, and supervisory support are all examined as potential antecedent variables to customer oriented selling. The study, conducted on two different samples of sales personnel, revealed that organizational commitment is significantly related to selling style. However, the significance of the other variables differed among these two groups, suggesting that the antecedents of a customer oriented selling approach may indeed be product/service specific, job specific, or some combination thereof. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

This field study using salespeople, sales managers, and physicians identified 14 abilities necessary for successful pharmaceutical salespeople, the prototypical missionary sales position. Six of the abilities were identified by all three parties and make up the core requirements while one ability was recognized by physicians and not the other two groups. Finally, this research offers suggestions, based on the 14 identified abilities, for recruiting and sales training efficiencies to improve salesperson performance. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

The authors compare several approaches to the evaluation of field salespeople to see if an improved analytical framework can be created. Based on performance data from 56 industrial salespeople, results suggest sales increase with experience and with the number of customer calls. The findings also provide support for the sales force career cycle and a new multi-attribute performance matrix. The use of a matrix approach allows mangers to review and compare the accomplishments of the sales force along several dimensions at the same time. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Salesforce control systems tend to focus on outcomes rather than behaviors. The use and effectiveness of behavior-based control systems is limited, particularly with industrial sales-people, who generally operate in the field much of the time where their behavior cannot be closely observed or supervised by management. The authors propose Behavioral Self-Management (BSM) as a means of controlling the methods salespeople use to achieve results. Specific BSM techniques applicable to selling and strategies for encouraging salespeople to engage in self-management are reviewed. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Of primary interest in this study was the determination of differences between males and female salespeople in the impact of supervisory reward and punishment behaviors on their job satisfaction, work motivation, and organizational commitment. The results suggest that male and female salespeople respond somewhat similarly to supervisory reward behaviors (contingent and noncontingent). However, contrary to expectations, males, not females, were more sensitive to punishment behaviors enacted by their sales manager. Specific guidelines are offered regarding how sales managers might best alter their supervisory behaviors so as to provide appropriate supervision to both female and male industrial salespeople. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Castleberry and Tanner (1986) introduced the Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) conceptually into the sales literature. This study evaluates the scale with 189 salespeople using LMX-7 investigating its reliability, dimensionality and convergent and discriminant validity. MANOVAS were run to determine different variables which may differentiate the 'cadre' from the 'hired-hand'. Demographics, personality traits, and outcome variables were investigated. The results support the use of LMX for future research and offer practitioners ample 'food for thought'. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

Previous research has found the proportion of time spent with customers is not related to several objective measures of concurrent performance. This article focuses on the results that emerged from a field study that investigated potential associations between time spent calling on accounts and annual sales and subjective sales performance. While time spent calling on potential accounts does not influence either measure of performance, time spent calling on established accounts is associated with subjective sales performance. One's career stage does not appear to moderate this relationship, although it is an independent predictor of how much time salespeople allocate to established accounts. Suggestions are made for future research and recommendations are offered for marketing practitioners. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

The accuracy of salespersons' perceptions of their customers can have a significant effect on corporate profitability. Aside from the impact on short term sales performance, inaccurate information from the sales force can adversely affect the quality of long term, strategic plans. Yet, a review of the literature uncovered only two empirical studies which examined salespersons' accuracy. The current paper presents a conceptual discussion and empirical study of the antecedents and consequences of the accuracy of the salespersons' perceptions. The paper emphasizes that the determination and improvement of salespersons' accuracy should be an essential part of the management of the salesforce. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)

[30] Belschak, Frank, Willem Verbeke, and Richard P. Bagozzi (2006), 'Coping with Sales Call Anxiety: The Role of Sale Perseverance and Task Concentration Strategies,' Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 34 (Summer), 403-418. [Jaramillo] This paper relies on both cognitive and physiological perspectives on social anxiety to investigate how salespeople cope with sales call anxiety (SCA). The authors view SCA as a syndrome of interdependent cognitive and physiological components that can result in protective actions. The study indicates that salespeople cope with SCA using both cognitive and behavioral strategies. A cognitive strategy involves distracting the salesperson's attention from anxiety feelings by directing his or her attention to a specific aspect of the selling situation (task concentration). Conversely, a behavioral strategy entails confronting the feelings of anxiety by persevering on the selling situation (sales perseverance). A model is tested using responses from 171 salespeople who sell computer courses to businesses in the Netherlands. Results indicate that both task concentration and sales perseverance reduce protective actions, yet interaction effects were also present. Results suggest that salespeople should focus on the coping strategy that is most effective for the SCA element: sales perseverance in the case of high physiological sensations and task concentration in the case of high anxiety cognitions.