Son K. Lam

The Role of Leaders in Internal Marketing

There is little empirical research on internal marketing despite its intuitive appeal and anecdotal accounts of its benefits. Adopting a social identity theory perspective, the authors propose that internal marketing is fundamentally a process in which leaders instill into followers a sense of oneness with the organization, formally known as “organizational identification” (OI). The authors test the OI-transfer research model in two multinational studies using multilevel and multisource data. Hierarchical linear modeling analyses show that the OI-transfer process takes place in the relationships between business unit managers and salespeople and between regional directors and business unit managers. Furthermore, both leader-follower dyadic tenure and charismatic leadership moderate this cascading effect. Leaders with a mismatch between their charisma and OI ultimately impair followers’ OI. In turn, customer-contact employees’ OI strongly predicts their sales performance. Finally, both employees’ and sales managers’ OI are positively related to their business units’ financial performance. The study provides empirical evidence for the role of leaders, especially middle managers, in building member identification that lays the foundation for internal marketing.

Resistance to Brand Switching When a Radically New Brand Is Introduced: A Social Identity Theory Perspective.

There has been little research on how market disruptions affect customer–brand relationships and how firms can sustain brand loyalty when disruptions occur. Drawing from social identity theory and the brand loyalty literature, the authors propose a conceptual framework to examine these issues in a specific market disruption, namely, the introduction of a radically new brand. The framework focuses on the time-varying effects of customers’ identification with and perceived value of the incumbent relative to the new brand on switching behavior. The authors divert from the conventional economic perspective of treating brand switching as functional utility maximization to propose that brand switching can also result from customers’ social mobility between brand identities. The results from longitudinal data of 679 customers during the launch of the iPhone in Spain show that both relative customer–brand identification and relative perceived value of the incumbent inhibit switching behavior, but their effects vary over time. Relative customer–brand identification with the incumbent apparently exerts a stronger longitudinal restraint on switching behavior than relative perceived value of the incumbent. The study has important strategic implications for devising customer relationship strategies and brand investment.

The Role of Consensus in Sales Team Performance

Although team-based selling is highly prominent in practice, research on the drivers of its effectiveness is sparse. Drawing from the literature on climate consensus, the authors propose that in addition to leadership and team factors, team consensus plays a critical role in boosting sales team effectiveness. Using survey and archival data from a sample of 185 pharmaceutical sales teams, the authors find that high team consensus regarding team-level leadership empowerment behaviors (LEBs) and team interpersonal climate quality enhances team potency given high LEBs but weakens team potency given low LEBs. In turn, team potency translates into sales team performance through both extra-role (team helping behavior) and in-role (team effort) behavior. The authors discuss the implications of these findings.

Know Your Customer: How Salesperson Perceptions of Customer Relationship Quality Form and Influence Account Profitability

Firms often utilize salesperson intelligence in marketing strategies to improve sales performance. However, this approach is problematic if the information is based on inaccurate perceptions. In light of this, the authors introduce a theoretical model to study the antecedents and profit impact of salesperson perceptions of customer relationship quality. Dyadic analyses using matched survey responses from salesperson–customer dyads and secondary performance data reveal several insightful findings. Results show that self-efficacious salespeople are upwardly biased, whereas customer-oriented salespeople are downwardly biased in their perceptions of customer relationship quality. However, managers can correct these inaccuracies using a behavior-based control system. Response surface analyses illustrate that the effects of salesperson accuracy and inaccuracy are distinct and curvilinear. During later relationship phases, salespeople profit more from salesperson accuracy in high- and low-quality relationships (i.e., a U-shaped effect). Yet the increasingly harmful impact of salesperson inaccuracy on profit is more severe during earlier relationship phases. Together, these findings highlight the benefits of measuring salesperson perceptions and how to manage them.

Social Network Theory and the Sales Manager Role: Engineering the Right Relationship Flows

Sales leadership research has typically taken a leader-focused approach, investigating key questions from a top-down perspective. Yet considerable research outside sales has advocated a view of leadership that takes into account the fact that employees look beyond a single designated individual for leadership. In particular, the social networks of leaders have been a popular topic of investigation in the management literature, although coverage in the sales literature remains rare. The present paper conceptualizes the sales leadership role as one in which the leader must manage a network of simultaneous relationships; several types of sales manager relationships, such as the sales-manager-to-top manager and the sales-manager-to-sales manager relationships, have received limited attention in the sales literature to date. Taking an approach based on social network theory, we develop a conceptualization of the sales manager as a “network engineer,” who must manage multiple relationships, and the flows between them. Drawing from this model, we propose a detailed agenda for future sales research.

Leveraging Frontline Employees’ Small Data and Firm-Level Big Data in Frontline Management: An Absorptive Capacity Perspective

The advent of new forms of data, modern technology, and advanced data analytics offer service providers both opportunities and risks. This article builds on the phenomenon of big data and offers an integrative conceptual framework that captures not only the benefits but also the costs of big data for managing the frontline employee (FLE)-customer interaction. Along the positive path, the framework explains how the “3Vs” of big data (volume, velocity, and variety) have the potential to improve service quality and reduce service costs by influencing big data value and organizational change at the firm and FLE levels. However, the 3Vs of big data also increase big data veracity, which casts doubt about the value of big data. The authors further propose that because of heterogeneity in big data absorptive capacities at the firm level, the costs of adopting big data in FLE management may outweigh the benefits. Finally, while FLEs can benefit from big data, extracting knowledge from such data does not discount knowledge derived from FLEs’ small data. Rather, combining and integrating the firm’s big data with FLEs’ small data are crucial to absorbing and applying big data knowledge. An agenda for future research concludes.

Sales Force Performance: A Typology and Future Research Priorities

Sales force performance is predominant in the B2B marketing literature. This chapter reviews how sales force performance has been defined, operationalized and measured. By providing a typology of sales force performance along two dimensions - namely positive versus negative performance and behavioral versus outcome performance - we outline some important gaps in this body of literature and propose avenues for further research. Much emphasis is placed on contemporary topics that are managerially relevant, including team selling, sales force performance during times of change and salespeople as brand ambassadors. We also provide brief methodological notes for exploring these topics.

The sales–marketing integration gap: a social identity approach

Firms often promote integration between sales and marketing functions. However, research has mostly focused on improving the level of realized integration and ignored the integration gap, defined as managers’ perceptions of the difference between realized and desired integration. Using the social identity approach, this study examines three potential antecedents of this integration gap, with sales–marketing task interdependence as the boundary condition. Results from a multifirm survey of 196 sales and marketing managers show that the joint effect between task interdependence and competitor orientation on the integration gap is opposite that of task interdependence and customer orientation. In addition, the authors find that regardless of task interdependence, rewards that focus solely on either sales or marketing widen the integration gap. They also find a negative relationship between the integration gap and firm performance. Our study informs managers of various ways to narrow the sales–marketing integration gap.

The Impact of Mergers and Acquisitions on the Sales Force

This research draws from the psychodynamic perspective of social identity theory to examine the causal effect of mergers and acquisitions involving a mismatch of external images on the sales force. Study 1, a natural longitudinal experiment, shows that a merger with a poorer-image firm immediately dilutes salespeoples organizational identification (OI), which in turn impairs their performance. As sense makers, salespeople who are more tenured experience stronger OI dilution, whereas those who perceive a high level of social inclusion experience weaker OI dilution. As sense givers, managers who emphasize the firms strategic intent in their communication buffer the OI-dilution effect, whereas those who emphasize the firms organizational culture aggravate the effect. Study 2, a scenario-based experiment, further demonstrates that the OI-dilution effect is stronger than the OI-enhancement effect from merging with a better-image firm. Furthermore, both studies confirm that the adverse effect of mergers and acquisitions that involve a mismatch of external image stems from image uncertainty rather than job uncertainty.

The Sales/Marketing Integration Gap: The Joint Impact of Environmental, Firm, and Functional Drivers on Realized Versus Desired Integration

Marketing and sales have distinct thought-world differences that often inhibit their ability to work together. As a result, firms promote integration between the two groups with the ultimate aim of improving relationship effectiveness and customer performance. This study introduces the concepts of realized integration and desired, or future, integration and the difference between the two (the integration gap). Through the lens of self-categorization theory, this study examines how both functional and firm behaviors interact with several internal and external environment factors to impact both types of integration. The study shows how these factors impact both realized and desired integration in several ways, providing a more complete view of the relationship between the two. Finally, the study finds that desired integration can negatively impact relationship outcomes reducing the positive benefits of the realized level of integration. As a result, managers need to not only promote integration but also manage the integration gap by increasing levels of realized integration or decreasing levels of desired integration.