Nikala Lane

Driving organizational citizenship behaviors and salesperson in-role behavior performance: The role of management control and perceived organizational support

Interest in management control approaches and organizational factors associated with higher levels of salesperson performance is reflected in research streams concerned with behavior-based control strategies and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). This study makes two distinct additions to the literature relating to control, organizational citizenship behaviors and salesperson performance. First, the study distinguishes between salesperson in-role behavior performance and outcome performance to model in-role behavior performance as a mediator between OCB and outcome performance. Second, the work supports sales manager control as an antecedent to OCB. A second model introduces perceived organizational support (POS) as an additional antecedent to salesperson OCB, and more important, as a consequence of sales manager control. This construct has not been included in prior salesperson OCB studies. Results show sales manage control has a stronger impact on OCB through POS, than directly, and POS has a strong impact on salesperson OCB.

Market orientation and retail operatives' expectations

Abstract Market orientation, and particularly the link with business performance, has been widely studied using the new measurement systems emerging in the 1990s. However, few successful efforts have been made to evaluate the impact of market orientation on operational employee characteristics or behavior. An exploratory study of market orientation in UK retail companies, grounded in case study research, adopts a novel survey design that compares managerial perceptions of market orientation with operational employee beliefs and attitudes. The study highlights an important issue neglected in the existing literature — the impact of enhanced employee expectations about management behavior in market-oriented companies and the influence on employee behavior of the confirmation or disconfirmation of those expectations by management. We suggest that it is the neglect of this intervening variable that has partly confounded attempts to demonstrate a clear positive relationship between market orientation and operational employee characteristics, such as morale, job satisfaction, and retention. The findings show that employees in market-oriented companies are aware of service and quality imperatives, but report little of the changes in their job attitudes in terms of motivation, team spirit, or autonomy in the workplace, that are predicated by the literature. These findings offer several new insights and identify important directions for executives and marketing scholars in addressing the market orientation issue.

Corporate social responsibility: Impacts on strategic marketing and customer value

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has impacted on the policies and behaviours of companies throughout the world. However, relatively little attention has been devoted to the link between CSR and strategic marketing. The impact of CSR initiatives on customer and other stakeholder relationships is key to performance improvement. It is also important to recognise that CSR initiatives may achieve undesirable effects and that barriers exist to their effective implementation. We provide a framework examining the degree and type of corporate response to CSR imperatives and the moderating effects of employee/manager perceptions, other stakeholder perceptions, and the companys social credibility. We examine the impact of CSR on customer value, and importantly the need for a resonating value proposition that underlines how a suppliers CSR adds value for the customer. We conclude with a new management agenda for marketing strategy that examines CSR opportunities and risks.

The World Wide Web as an Industrial Marketing Communication Tool: Models for the Identification and Assessment of Opportunities

This paper discusses the role of the Word Wide Web as communication tool for industrial marketers and its position in the business-to-business promotional mix. Using the well-known industrial marketing concepts of purchasing decision processes and hierarchy of effects models, it introduces a conceptual framework for measuring the efficiency of a Web site. Examples are given of both large and small industrial marketers who are currently using their Web sites to achieve these effects. Efficiency indexes are defined for five Web communication activities and an overall measure of Web site efficiency measure is presented.

Transformation of the traditional salesforce: Imperatives for intelligence, interface and integration

Many conventional sales organizations are under intense pressure from escalating customer demands for superior value, accompanied by the emergence of new business models that replace some traditional sales functions and processes (e.g., Internet-based direct channels, Customer Relationship Management technology), and new organizational strategies to partner with major customers (e.g., key account management and global account management). While this scenario suggests continued down-sizing and closure of conventional sales operations, particularly those with primarily order taking roles, it also identifies a major opportunity for the evolution of the conventional sales organization towards a strategic customer management role. Underpinning this role are three major issues: new ways of leveraging of intelligence to provide added-value for major cus tomers, better management of the interfaces between sales and other parts of the organization to identify new value-creating opportunities; and, the integration of all processes and activities that impact on a company’s ability to deliver seamless and superior value to customers. We identify the major clzallenges for marketing and sales executives to address in transforming the sales organization towards strategic customer management.

Collaboration between sales and marketing, market orientation and business performance in business-to-business organisations

The study considers whether improving collaboration between sales and marketing may provide benefits to organisations through greater market orientation and improved business performance. The influence of market intelligence systems and management attitudes towards coordination on market orientation and collaboration between sales and marketing are also explored. The study was carried out through a survey of senior executives in large, UK, business-to-business organisations from a number of industries and the results indicate that there is an interrelationship between market intelligence systems, management attitude towards coordination, and collaboration between sales and marketing. The results also confirm that collaboration between sales and marketing has a positive and significant impact on both market orientation and business performance.

The hidden risks in strategic account management strategy

Purpose – To provide a critical perspective on the robustness of strategic account management (sometimes called key account management) strategies as an approach to managing relationships with large and very large customers.Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on exploratory interviews and management workshop discussions and the observation of the operation of strategic account management approaches in practice, and is illustrated with cases drawn from secondary sources.Findings – Suggests that SAM may amount to investment in strategic weakness that enhances dependencies and limits the scope for superior supplier performance; a customer portfolio analysis of all accounts identifies where the best prospects for long‐term profit exist; many strategic account relationships are based on exaggerated estimates of customer relationship requirements and customer loyalty. We conclude that strategy analysts should be concerned with developing new business models that avoid the trap of dependence on powe...

Gaps within the IS department : barriers to service quality

While the external measurement of service quality, and even the measurement of the expectations and perceptions of internal customers, is well established in the services literature, less attention has been given to the assessment of the ‘gaps’ which cause the customer discrepancy. This paper describes a study which ascertained internal gaps (‘1 through 4’) in a large information systems department within a major consulting and accounting firm.

Thinking strategically about pricing decisions

Purpose – Harsh economic conditions have put pricing higher on the agenda but responses to pricing challenges have frequently been tactical. The intent is to build on basic pricing principles to emphasize a strategic perspective on pricing built around opportunities to deliver superior customer value.Design/methodology/approach – Our logic is drawn from the observation of company pricing practices and interesting moves from conventional to innovative pricing strategies.Findings – Our observations underline the need for executives to adopt a more strategic view of price and to examine the scope for raising prices, especially in a post‐recession economic scenario.Practical implications – Our action agenda addresses: why there is an urgent need to make pricing decisions strategically, particularly as economic recovery occurs, with important insights coming from innovative pricing models designed to deliver superior customer value; the role of price in strategic positioning – key management considerations are...

The Low Status of Female Part‐Time NHS Nurses: A Bed‐Pan Ceiling?

Despite increases in female participation rates into the paid working population of Britain women remain concentrated into particular sectors of the economy. Areas of the labor market where women predominate are also characterized by high levels of part-time employment. The significance of part-time work is that it is lower paid and offers fewer employment opportunities for women. This article examines the careers of 643 qualified female NHS nurses. It is found that respondents working part-time are the least likely to occupy the upper echelons of NHS nursing. Explanations for this centre on the actions and strategies of managers who use negative gender role stereotypes regarding part-time nurses to inform recruitment and promotion decisions. Managers, however, regard the low status of part-time nurses as a reflection of their own choice strategies, thus failing to recognize the existence of gender-based disadvantage. The resultant outcome is one where part-time nurses are confined to the lowest qualified clinical grades, with little opportunity to progress to the higher grades. Critical labor shortages in nursing, however, may mean that the utilization of part-timers is re-examined as NHS management seek to retain more qualified nurses. For such a re-examination to be successful management attitudes also need to change.