Ellen Bolman Pullins

The impact of purchase situation on salesperson communication behaviors in business markets

Abstract This research addresses the impact of purchase situation on sales communication behaviors used by the salesperson in business markets. We hypothesize that different sets of sales communication behaviors will be needed and vary for different purchasing situations. Measures of a salespersons communication behaviors were tested for different types of purchase situations. Differences were found in the persuasiveness of the salespersons getting, giving, and using information, depending on the type of purchase situation. These findings help support the value of salesperson adaptability, providing an important variable on which to adapt.

Technostress: negative effect on performance and possible mitigations

We investigate the effect of conditions that create technostress, on technology‐enabled innovation, technology‐enabled performance and overall performance. We further look at the role of technology self‐efficacy, organizational mechanisms that inhibit technostress and technology competence as possible mitigations to the effects of technostress creators. Our findings show a negative association between technostress creators and performance. We find that, while traditional effort‐based mechanisms such as building technology competence reduce the impact of technostress creators on technology‐enabled innovation and performance, more empowering mechanisms such as developing technology self‐efficacy and information systems (IS) literacy enhancement and involvement in IS initiatives are required to counter the decrease in overall performance because of technostress creators. Noting that the professional sales context offers increasingly high expectations for technology‐enabled performance in an inherently interpersonal‐oriented and relationship‐oriented environment with regard to overall performance, and high failure rates for IS acceptance/use, the study uses survey data collected from 237 institutional sales professionals.

An Exploratory Investigation of the Relationship of Sales Force Compensation and Intrinsic Motivation

Abstract In an era of relationship selling, one practical concern for sales management has been how to best compensate salespeople to achieve long-term and changing objectives. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation have long been a concern of sales research, but researchers have done little to relate motivation to the various components of a compensation system. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and relationship selling have not been linked either. This article explores these issues to develop a framework for future research on these topics. We first review a theoretical perspective and exploratory data from 19 interviews with sales managers. Using these two mechanisms, we present a series of propositions about the relationship of compensation, motivation, and relationship selling.

Measuring buyers’ perceptions of conflict in business‐to‐business sales interactions

The study reported perceived sales interaction conflict (PSIC) as a construct in need of evaluation. As a first step toward validation of a PSIC measure, the study draws perceptual data from a sample of professional industrial buyers. The researchers provide evidence as to the dimensionality of PSIC and its relationship to other variables characteristic of the buyer‐seller relationship.

Identifying Peer Mentors in the Sales Force: An Exploratory Investigation of Willingness and Ability:

There has been a high level of interest in the sales management practitioner literature in mentoring, but very little is known about peer mentoring relationships between more experienced and less experienced salespeople. Sales organizations that wish to initiate or encourage peer mentoring relationships must identify those salespeople who are both able and willing to mentor less experienced salespeople. The results of an exploratory study to identify mentors in an industrial sales force are reported. The authors find that job experience, job satisfaction, a measure of interpersonal competence, and role conflict are associated with willingness to mentor; interpersonal competence and role conflict are associated with ability to mentor. Results are discussed and opportunities for future research are offered.

A re‐examination of B2B sales performance

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of sales performance measurement by developing an organizing framework for classifying sales performance measures based on the various performance criteria used by researchers. Subsequently, the results of both a focus group and in‐depth interviews with sales managers and salespeople will be presented using the classification framework developed. The objective is to determine whether gaps exist between how researchers and practitioners view and classify salesperson performance measures as well as to provide insights to effective sales management practices in areas such as salesperson skill development, goal attainment, resource allocation, and customer relationship management.Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative study, using in‐depth interviews, explores the relationship between sales managers and salespersons and their respective views on sales performance measurement. The interview questions were developed using information...

Internationalizing Sales Research: Current Status, Opportunities, and Challenges

With economic activity in emerging markets growing at 40 percent, and with 10 percent and more of the firms in the Global Fortune 500 now headquartered in emerging economies, intense interest lies in the globalization of business activities, including the sales function. This systematic review of the international sales literature in a selection of the most influential journals explains, consolidates, and analyzes current knowledge. This paper also explores the challenges inherent in conducting international sales research, including conceptualization, research management, and data collection issues. Finally, we suggest ways to move forward for researchers in this field, including pertinent topics and how methodological and practical constraints might be addressed.

Individual differences in intrinsic motivation and the use of cooperative negotiation tactics

Considers cooperative negotiation tactic use in early stages of business‐to‐business buyer‐seller relationships. Specifically, it addresses a serious gap in the study of individual difference effects on cooperative negotiation, an area that has received little academic attention. In doing so, insight is provided on an area that marketing researchers say needs attention now. We conduct a study where subjects take the role of a salesperson. They make offers, or respond to buyers’ offers, to negotiate. Subjects indicate what offers they would make, or what counteroffers they would respond with. Results support the notion that individual differences in intrinsic motivation (operationalized as autonomy causality orientation) affect the use of cooperative offers, but do not affect counteroffers, due possibly to reciprocation.

The extent of technology usage and salespeople: an exploratory investigation

Purpose – Increasingly, salespeople adopt, or are being asked to adopt, and use a variety of technologies to increase their selling productivity and efficiency. Given this trend, many researchers have begun to explore the question of sales force adoption of technology. However, little work has been done to consider what happens once this technology is adopted. The purpose of this paper is to report two studies that investigated if and why salespeople had different technology usage and if the extent of usage had an impact on their performance.Design/methodology/approach – First, a qualitative study was performed to gain insights about extent of technology usage and the reasons that may explain differences. In order to test some of the research propositions that emerged from the qualitative study, an empirical study was conducted with 130 salespeople.Findings – Innovativeness was found to be helpful in distinguishing between different technology usage levels across various technologies (internet, e‐mail, in...

Examining impacts of technostress on the professional salesperson's behavioural performance

This paper examines the concept of technostress in the professional sales area and shows it to be a possible reason for low technology-enabled behavioural performance of professionals in the sales function. Integrating literature from sales, technostress and social cognitive theory, we examine relationships between technostress creators, role stress, technology-enabled innovation and technology-enabled performance. We hypothesize that technostress adversely affects the technology-enabled performance of the salesperson through two distinct paths, one by increasing role stress and two, by decreasing technology-enabled innovation. We further examine the role of factors that mitigate these adverse effects. We find that organizational technostress-inhibiting mechanisms negatively moderate the positive relationship between technostress creators and role stress, and technology self-efficacy dampens the negative association of technostress and technology-enabled innovation. We also find that technology-enabled innovation enhances technology-enabled performance. Our results are based on survey data collected from 237 institutional sales professionals. Theoretical contributions and practice-based implications of findings are discussed.