Judith J. Marshall

An Empirical Study of Factors Influencing Innovation Implementation in Industrial Sales Organizations

The authors formulate and test a model of organizational factors leading to successful implementation of the telemarketing innovation. Data to test the model were collected by interviewing two key informants in each of 110 industrial salesforces. Support was found for many of the individual hypotheses in the model. Preliminary conclusions are drawn for marketing management and theory.

Successfully using telemarketing in industrial sales

Abstract Telemarketing has steadily increased in use in industrial sales organizations. Management faces the difficult problem of successfully implementing this tool. This research surveyed industrial sales and marketing managers involved in telemarketing operations to determine how successful their telemarketing operations were and how telemarketing was implemented in their companies.

The process of obtaining new accounts

Abstract How should a sales force be managed so as to realize a significant increase in business from new accounts? Data from a survey of industrial sales representatives and sales managers were studied to draw conclusions about this task. The results indicate that in the opinion of sales managers, sales representatives are not spending enough time on new accounts. There appear to be two major reasons: they frequently fail to see the pay-off to themselves in new account development activities, and often they lack the ability to perform these activities effectively. The article also develops a model for successful new account development and a plan for correcting the major problems.

Extending the external validity of the FITD effect to the industrial marketplace

The foot-in-the-door (FITD) effect has been extensively researched in prosocial settings. Several researchers have advocated its use as an influence strategy in marketing settings although no empirical evidence has previously been published regarding its operation in industrial/economic settings. This study experimentally tests the effect in an actual industrial marketing setting. The organization in which the study was carried out markets telecommunications products and the study sample exposed to the influence strategies consisted of potential customers—general managers and marketing managers representing industrial firms in the wholesale trade sector.