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Abstract In business-to-business markets, hunting for new customers and farming existing customers are critical to achieve sales goals. Although practitioners suggest that salespeople have a preference for either hunting or [...]

Current models of sales force strategy imply formidable information processing demands, which leads us to take a cognitive approach to studying the issue of sales force strategy. We focus on how top-level executives use mental models of sales force performance to simplify the issue of sales force strategy. We interviewed 74 senior executives responsible for their firms' selling function using the repertory grid approach, as this methodology has been shown to be particularly effective at uncovering the collective cognitive maps on which executives' decisions and behaviors are based. Executives identified a broad set of 37 strategic concepts that they felt distinguish the sales force efforts of directly competing companies. A second set of sales executives classified the 37 concepts into capabilities, resources, and organizational context concepts. Based on the classification results and feedback from both sets of executives, we developed research propositions for examining sales force strategy and provide directions for future research. Keywords Mental models * Repertory grid technique * Sales force resources and capabilities * Resource-based view * Chief sales officers, Our sales force is one of this company's most important competitive strengths. We are much better than our competitors; indeed, we have the best sales force in this industry. I [...]

Historically speaking, the pharmaceutical industry has not been known as a beacon of change or a champion of adaptation. For decades, pharma's sales model remained the same: A rep visits [...]

Although salespeople's perception of their customers is often systematically biased, research on the antecedents and consequences of perceptual inaccuracy in customer sales person relationships is still scarce and limited in scope. Drawing on findings from personality research and social psychology, we therefore empirically examine potential antecedents and consequences of salespeople's misperception of customer commitment in 233 customer-salesperson dyads. Results provide evidence of the effects of customer-related factors, relationship-related factors, and salesperson-related factors on the extent of salespeople's misperception of customer commitment. Moreover, we show that salespeople with an upwardly biased perception of customer commitment engage in less relationship-building effort, which in turn negatively affects customer behavior. Keywords Relationship marketing * Personal selling * Customer commitment * Perceptual accuracy, The sales literature generally emphasizes the importance of personal interaction in delivering benefits to customers. However, due to scarce time and resources, salespeople need to decide on a regular basis [...]

This study examines potential precursors, as well as consequences, of customers' emotions that arise during interaction with automobile salespeople. Perceived attributes of a particular automobile salesperson in the automobile purchasing process are proposed to have an impact on customer emotions. Emotion is posited to affect customers' relationship satisfaction and intention to remain in the relationship. The findings reveal that certain characteristics of automobile sales personnel do indeed influence customer emotion. Automobile salesperson trustworthiness, empathy, and professional appearance are observed to be positively related to customers' positive emotion. An inverse association between automobile sales person trustworthiness and accessibility, and customers' negative emotion is shown. In addition, both positive and negative customer emotion are found to be related to relationship satisfaction. Results further indicate that customers are more likely to maintain their relationship with the automobile salesperson when they are more satisfied with that relationship., Customers frequently experience various kinds of emotion, such as excitement, joy, pleasure, contentment, worry, frustration, or angel, while interacting with salespeople (Machleit and Eroglu, 2000; Kidwell et al., 2007; Menon [...]

It has been 25 years since the publication of a comprehensive review of the full spectrum of sales-performance drivers. This study takes stock of the contemporary field and synthesizes empirical evidence from the period 1982-2008. The authors revise the classification scheme for sales performance determinants devised by Walker et al. (1977) and estimate both the predictive validity of its sub-categories and the impact of a range of moderators on determinant-sales performance relationships. Based on multivariate causal model analysis, the results make two major observations: (1) Five sub-categories demonstrate significant relationships with sales performance: selling-related knowledge (β = .28), degree of adaptiveness (β =.27), role ambiguity (β = -.25), cognitive aptitude (β = .23) and work engagement (β = .23). (2) These sub-categories are moderated by measurement method, research context, and sales--type variables. The authors identify managerial implications of the results and offer suggestions for further research, including the conjecture that as the world is moving toward a knowledge-intensive economy, salespeople could be functioning as knowledge-brokers. The results seem to back this supposition and indicate how it might inspire future research in the field of personal selling. Keywords Sales performance * Salespeople * Meta-analysis * Knowledge-economy * Knowledge-brokering, An understanding of the factors that drive sales performance and how these vary across different contexts is essential for both managers and researchers in sales and marketing. Twenty-five years ago [...]

In Internet auctions, bidders alter their strategies as they gain market experience. While inexperienced bidders bid the same high amounts regardless of the seller's reputation, experienced bidders bid substantially less if the seller has yet to establish a reputation and raise their bids' as reports are filed that the seller has treated bidders well in the past. Experienced bidders also wait until much closer to the end of the auction to place their bids', although it takes very little experience to learn that waiting to submit one's bid is a superior strategy. (JEL L14, L15, D83, D12), I. INTRODUCTION As has now been documented in many studies, the Internet auction market has quickly become a thriving marketplace. In the United States, the market is dominated by eBay. [...]

Mission planning for surveillance coverage is of both practical and theoretical interest. In brief, regional surveillance involves planning the search of certain given regions in the minimum possible time. The surveillance problem can therefore be described as a variant of the classical travelling salesman problem. The uniqueness of the problem lies in the different allowed entry and exit points. Additionally, the mission schedule has to ensure the probability of target detection must not be compromised. From the practical perspective, any reduction in travelling time provides immediate cost savings to the defence department. A dynamic programming formulation is derived for the regional surveillance problem. An example is included to illustrate the methodology. Keywords: military applications; travelling salesman problem; dynamic programming

In this paper, a novel constructive-optimizer neural network (CONN) is proposed for the traveling salesman problem (TSP). CONN uses a feedback structure similar to Hopfield-type neural networks and a competitive training algorithm similar to the Kohonen-type self-organizing maps (K-SOMs). Consequently, CONN is composed of a constructive part, which grows the tour and an optimizer part to optimize it. In the training algorithm, an initial tour is created first and introduced to CONN. Then, it is trained in the constructive phase for adding a number of cities to the tour. Next, the training algorithm switches to the optimizer phase for optimizing the current tour by displacing the tour cities. After convergence in this phase, the training algorithm switches to the constructive phase anew and is continued until all cities are added to the tour. Furthermore, we investigate a relationship between the number of TSP cities and the number of cities to be added in each constructive phase. CONN was tested on nine sets of benchmark TSPs from TSPLIB to demonstrate its performance and efficiency. It performed better than several typical Neural networks (NNs), including KNIES_TSP_Local, KNIES_TSP_Global, Budinich's SOM, Co-Adaptive Net, and multivalued Hopfield network as wall as computationally comparable variants of the simulated annealing algorithm, in terms of both CPU time and accuracy. Furthermore, CONN converged considerably faster than expanding SOM and evolved integrated SOM and generated shorter tours compared to KNIES_DECOMPOSE. Although CONN is not yet comparable in terms of accuracy with some sophisticated computationally intensive algorithms, it converges significantly faster than they do. Generally speaking, CONN provides the best compromise between CPU time and accuracy among currently reported NNs for TSP. Index Terms--Constructive-optimizer neural network (CONN), Hopfield-type neural networks (HNNs), Kohonen-type self-organizing maps (K-SOMs), traveling salesman problem (TSP).

This correspondence describes a hybrid genetic algorithm (GA) to find high-quality solutions for the traveling salesman problem (TSP). The proposed method is based on a parallel implementation of a multipopulation steady-state GA involving local search heuristics. It uses a variant of the maximal preservative crossover and the double-bridge move mutation. An effective implementation of the Lin-Kernighan heuristic (LK) is incorporated into the method to compensate for the GA's lack of local search ability. The method is validated by comparing it with the LK-Helsgaun method (LKH), which is one of the most effective methods for the TSP. Experimental results with benchmarks having up to 316 228 cities show that the proposed method works more effectively and efficiently than LKH when solving large-scale problems. Finally, the method is used together with the implementation of the iterated LK to find a new best tour (as of June 2, 2003) for a 1904 711-city TSP challenge. Index Terms--Hybrid genetic algorithm, maximal preservative crossover (MPX), memetie algorithm, traveling salesman problem (TSP).

The longitudinal influence of a situational opportunity on intraindividual performance outcomes of sales representatives is analyzed along with Conscientiousness and Openness to Experience traits. The results show more weekly variation in individual performance resides within individuals than between individuals with positive relationship between referrals and outcomes, which is stronger for sales representatives high on Conscientiousness, but weaker for representatives high on Openness to Experience.

The impact of the beliefs and attitudes of field salespeople on technology usage is investigated. The results show a support for the technology acceptance model (TAM) in a sales force context, as well as evidence that support services and personal innovativeness impact perceived ease of use of technology by field salespeople.

This article describes how a door-to-door sales company trains salespeople to engage in emotion management. Company managers and salespeople engage in emotion mining, the search for and development of potential emotional capital in salespeople's biographies. This emotional capital forms an emotional bridge between a salesperson's current self and the self that is supposed to be developed for the job. The article emphasizes the reflexive relationship between emotion management and the self Salespeople manage their emotions in an attempt to develop a new, better self which in turn will be better equipped to do emotion management. Keywords: emotions; identity; sales; narrative; organizations

Various elements of control as direct and indirect predictors of justice and subsequently as predictors of turnover are examined. A control model of salesperson turnover is developed by integrating two well-known perspectives of justice, the self-interest and group-values frameworks, and is tested with a sample of 240 business-to-business salespeople and a discussion of the finding and managerial implications is presented.

The triphasic model of job stressors of a salesperson is compared with the corresponding linear-quadratic-interactive model. The salespersons' job satisfaction, life satisfaction, performance and turnover intention exhibit are examined with respect to the role ambiguity, role conflict, job stress and work-family conflict.

Creativity is very essential for organizational success in competitive business environment, and sales is one particular area where creativity plays an important role. As markets evolve and technology advances, tasks such as finding new prospects, identifying the real needs for a customer, and seeking tailored solutions to customer problems require all creative thinking and solutions, and suggesting creativity becomes an inherent requirement of the sales job.

A study is conducted to develop and validate scales for the measurement of both distributive and procedural justice in a sales force context. The findings suggest that it is important for a sales organization to focus on insuring that salespeople as being just perceive managerial actions.

The performance-based pricing is examined from a theoretical viewpoint. A sophisticated information and control system has to be developed as part of a risk management approach by the seller for the implementation of a successful performance -based pricing model.

The sales performance, satisfaction, commitment, and turnover based on previous empirical work are tested with many salespeople in Poland. A strong support is shown on the western sales management theory in a transitional economy.

A potentially important area that is the influence of salespeopleEs affect toward customers on their performance is examined. The research examined the relationship between salespeopleEs individual characteristics and their affect toward customers.

The influence of a firmEs market orientation and salesperson customer orientation on buyer-seller relationships is examined. The results suggest that a firmEs market orientation positively influences salesperson work attitudes. The importance of sales managers recognizing the impact of their organizational commitment on salespersonsE attitudes toward customers is highlighted.

The importance placed on a variety of factors related to salesperson success including skills, content knowledge, attributes, and historical indicants of performance, is investigated. It is stated that knowledge regarding the mentioned factors has benefits in several ways to several groups such as to sales organizations and their managers, as it provides a benchmark for their own recruiting efforts.

The gap between decision heuristics of customers and salespersonsE influence strategies, ascertaining the effect of the presence of a etop-of-the-lineE (TOTL) effect on product choice is bridged by using a compact disc (CD) player product line. The product choice results, using a net step-up analysis, indicate that the TOTL sales tactic was effective in producing higher product choices.

The factors associated with a customerEs willingness to provide referrals to their salespeople are examined. It is found that customer trust for the salesperson, and customer satisfaction with the salesperson influence the customerEs appraisal of the relationship. It is also observed that customer expectation of continuing the relationship did not influence customer willingness to provide referrals.

The influence of the decision makers' regional culture on the recruitment and promotion of staff is evaluated through a comparative study of managers in six European countries. Characteristics of key sales personnel for international staffing policies are identified.

Using practicing sales managers as subjects, the results indicate that personal characteristics of gender may be used in making disciplinary judgments following episodes of a particular type of unacceptable work behavior, an unethical selling act. As hypothesized, saleswomen were disciplined less severely while salesmen were disciplined more severely. However, female sales managers did not administer discriminatory discipline. The discipline administered by female sales managers to salesmen and to saleswomen was quite uniform. Furthermore, the discipline administered by female sales managers to salesmen and saleswomen was quite close to the discipline administered by male sales managers to salesmen. The only outlying level of discipline administered in the study was more leniency shown by male sales managers toward saleswomen. KEY WORDS: marketing ethics, punishing unethical employee behavior

Byline: Matthew S. O'Connell (1), Keith Hattrup (2), Dennis Doverspike (3), Alana Cober (4) Keywords: role simulations; retail; Mexican; validity; sales performance; biodata Abstract: The use of 'mini' role play simulations was proposed as a means of collecting predictor data in a low-cost, time-efficient, and reliable manner. Mini role play simulations were developed for the purpose of measuring sales ability. In order to evaluate the efficacy of using the mini role play simulations, a concurrent validation study was conducted with 94 salespeople from a large, Mexican retail chain. Results indicated that the simulations significantly predicted performance and also added to the prediction of performance after controlling for a biodata instrument. Author Affiliation: (1) Select International, Inc, USA (2) San Diego State University, USA (3) Psychology Department, University of Akron, Akron, OH, 44325 (4) University of Akron, USA Article History: Registration Date: 16/10/2004

Research on effective sales management focuses on the dynamics of cooperation between sales personnel. A model of salesperson cooperation is presented that considers personal ethics, social connections, organizational commitment, and management behavior.

'Ba' is the Japanese word for 'place' and is employed by Nonaka and Konno (1998) to describe a place, space or facility where individuals interact. This is a study of its impact on sales management.

Ineffective incentive programs can misdirect the efforts of salespeople in many firms and their efforts can sometimes be at variance with organizational goals. Issues concerning the pitfalls associated with award and compensation programs are discussed.

Byline: Renate B. Soyer (1), Janet L. Rovenpor (2), Richard E. Kopelman (3) Abstract: Relationships were posited between two personality constructs--narcissism and achievement motivation--and three facets of the sales role: attraction, satisfaction and performance. As predicted, currently and previously employed salespeople were more narcissistic and had stronger needs for achievement than individuals who were never employed in sales. Narcissism was positively associated with overall sales satisfaction and with level of comfort with ethically questionable sales behaviors narcissism was unrelated to sales performance. In contrast, need for achievement was unrelated to sales satisfaction, negatively related to comfort with ethically questionable sales behaviors, but positively related to sales performance. Practical implications of these findings for sales recruiters and trainers are discussed. Author Affiliation: (1) Baruch College/Cornell University, USA (2) Manhattan College, USA (3) Baruch College, USA Article History: Registration Date: 30/09/2004