Leff Bonney

It's the Thought (and the Effort) that Counts: How Customizing for Others Differs from Customizing for Oneself

While interest in customization is growing among consumers and academics, researchers have focused on consumers designing products for themselves. Many customization firms, however, are successfully positioning themselves as key sources for unique gifts. In this research, the authors examine whether factors under the firms control (i.e., the level of design support provided and the presence of a strong brand) are differentially effective when consumers design products for themselves or as gifts for others. Using participants drawn from the relevant target market, they report two studies involving real customization tasks undertaken on fully functioning customization websites. The findings lead to the surprising conclusion that design support is less effective for consumers designing products intended as gifts rather than for themselves, raising expectations without a corresponding rise in evaluations. However, the results offer some good news to firms targeting gift-giving consumers. Both Studies 1 and 2 reveal that gift-givers place a higher value on their own time and effort and thus report a higher willingness to pay than those designing for themselves. This effect is diminished, however, when a strong brand is present and consumers share credit with the brand for the products design.

An Application of the Investment Model to Buyer-Seller Relationships: A Dyadic Perspective

Relationships between buying and selling firms have been characterized by many scholars as being conceptually similar to marriages, or committed relationships between two people. Prior research has explored the question of how relationships between buyers and sellers are formed and maintained. This paper takes a well-tested model of interpersonal attraction, the Investment Model, and applies it to the relationships between organizational buyers and salespeople in an attempt to understand their decisions to either remain in a business relationship or to terminate that relationship.

Sales Education Efficacy: Examining the Relationship Between Sales Education and Sales Success

Sales education is on the rise and for good reason. Statistics say that sales jobs will continue to grow at a rapid rate over the next few years. Many universities are preparing their students to start their careers in the professional selling function through the inclusion of sales education in their business curriculum. Yet little research exists that investigates the relationship between sales education and sales performance on graduating from a college of business. This article seeks to fill this void in the sale pedagogy literature by assessing, empirically, the relationship between what is learned in university sales programs and the actual selling behaviors of recent graduates from these programs (vs. students who did not receive formal sales education in their undergraduate programs). Likewise, the relationship between sales education and extrinsic and intrinsic performance indicators is investigated. The findings suggest that university sales education is a significant contributor to sales rep performance. However, the results on the behaviors taught and those used in day-to-day selling were mixed.

Developing a Stakeholder Approach for Recruiting Top-Level Sales Students

With growing industry demand for sales professionals, recruitment at colleges and universities that have a sales education focus has increased remarkably over the past few years. However, results indicate that hiring organizations face an uphill task in filling sales positions. Recruiters and students struggle to build critical person–job fit during a relatively brief period of interaction. To address these issues, the present article presents a two-staged ideal recruitment process based on a stakeholder perspective. A set of 16 propositions is provided for improving key outcomes of the sales student recruitment process.

Positive and Negative Social Reactions to Salesperson Deviance

In this study, qualitative methods are used to gain a broader understanding of overall dimensions of salesperson deviant behaviors. Then reactions to the behaviors by others are explored, and contingent factors are identified that lead to either positive or negative social reactions and labels. This important aspect of salesperson deviance is explored to understand why some deviant behaviors are admired and others are shunned. Ultimately, this exploration of salesperson deviance contributes to the sales literature by developing a holistic model of salesperson deviance dimensions and the contingent factors that lead to positive and negative social reactions.

The In’s and Out’s of Incumbent Sales Rep Consultation in the Pre-decision Stage of Organizational Purchasing

Historically, sales reps’ main source of influence came from their ability to demonstrate that their products and services were the best fit after the customer had defined their own needs and requirements (Farrell and Schroder 1996). However, as Tuli et al. (2007) point out, customers are including suppliers much earlier in the organizational buying process. In many cases, customers have come to expect suppliers to be an integral part of needs identification and requirements definition, a step in the process traditionally owned solely by the organizational buying center (Galbraith 2005; Handfield and Giunipero 2009). This has led sales organizations to realize that sales people who are able to influence the buying center much earlier by helping to identify customer problems or opportunities will have a significant advantage over reps consulted later in the buying process.