Timothy Heinze

Gender Differences in Personal Selling Ethics Evaluations Do They Exist and What Does Their Existence Mean for Teaching Sales Ethics

Sales career opportunities are growing, and the number of women in sales is increasing. Educators must adequately prepare both men and women for today’s ethical sales dilemmas. Using the Personal Selling Ethics Scale, the current study analyzes the impact of idealism and relativism on the sales ethics evaluations of men and women. Results indicate that women evaluate sales ethics scenarios as less ethical than males and that varying positions on these ethical frameworks partially explain the divergence. Results also imply that today’s sales educators should primarily emphasize moral idealism when teaching sales ethics. Ethical codes and situation-based frameworks can aid this effort. When teaching relativistic individuals, educators can supplement idealistic methods via the use of cognitive moral development frameworks.

The Personal Selling Ethics Scale: Revisions and Expansions for Teaching Sales Ethics

The field of sales draws a large number of marketing graduates. Sales curricula used within today’s marketing programs should include rigorous discussions of sales ethics. The Personal Selling Ethics Scale (PSE) provides an analytical tool for assessing and discussing students’ ethical sales sensitivities. However, since the scale fails to address many ethical issues within the personal selling process, it should be revised. The current research assessed the PSE’s content validity via a content analysis of today’s university sales texts, popular press sales books, and codes of ethics. Results of the content analysis were used to develop a revised scale (PSE-2) that includes new scenarios suggested by the literature search. A sample of 669 students was used to replicate the original study and test the revised PSE-2 and its new ethical scenarios. The updated scale offers marketing educators an effective tool by which to enhance sales ethics discussions.

Innovation Through Collaborative Course Development: Theory and Practice

A pressing issue for educators is the difficulty in fostering engagement and vesting students in courses. A new pedagogical model labeled Collaborative Course Development (CCD) has evolved as a viable solution. CCD not only allows students to be actively involved in initial course design but also empowers them to make decisions about class structure throughout the term. The purpose of this work is to explain the theoretical background of CCD, outline its effective use, and detail six specific practices for implementation. The article concludes with research-worthy propositions as well as preliminary findings and a brief discussion of potential challenges.

The Impact of Collaboration, Empowerment, and Choice: An Empirical Examination of the Collaborative Course Development Method

This research empirically tests collaborative course development (CCD)—a pedagogy presented in the 2016 Marketing Education Review Special Issue on Teaching Innovations. A team of researchers taught experimental courses using CCD methods (employing various techniques including syllabus building, “flex-tures,” free-choice assignments, and exam writing). Control sections used traditional classroom techniques (using professor-developed syllabi, lectures, forced-choice assignments, and professor-written exams). Results demonstrated that CCD classes yielded significantly higher levels of student engagement, perceived learning, satisfaction, and professor ratings. These effects were reliable between and within professors. It is interesting to note that the positive effects persisted even for students with high levels of two control variables (i.e., preference for consistency and separateness-connectedness self-schema).

An International Study of Culture, Gender, and Moral Ideology on Sales Ethics Evaluations: How Should Educators Respond?:

While international demand for sales positions is growing, negative sales stereotypes, partially fueled by ethical abuses in the sales arena, are prevalent and may dissuade students from pursuing sales careers. To help combat the situation globally, educators must develop and utilize effective sales ethics pedagogies. The first step involves understanding cross-cultural sales ethics perspectives. A convenience sample is drawn from five countries (United States, France, Germany, Indonesia, and New Zealand), and the Personal Selling Ethics Scale (PSE-2) is successfully used to examine culturally specific and gender-based evaluation differences. Gender-based ethical perspectives are of particular interest due to the growing gender diversity within sales professions. The study finds that cultural traditionalism/secularism and individualism/collectivism affect sales ethics evaluations. Likewise, gender and moral ideology affect evaluations. Women are more sensitive to ethical misconduct than men, and absolutist are more sensitive than exceptionists, situationists, and subjectivists. Specific pedagogical recommendations are provided.

Collaborative Course Development: A New Model for Improved Student Outcomes

This research proposes and tests the concept of collaborative course development (CCD)—a pedagogy in which students are actively involved in course design, empowered to make decisions about class structure, and free to make choices in assignments. Over a period of three academic terms, researchers taught experimental course sections utilizing CCD methods (i.e., employing various pedagogical techniques including syllabus building, “flex-tures,” free-choice assignments, and exam writing), as well as control sections utilizing traditionally structured classroom techniques (i.e., professor-developed syllabi, structured lectures, forced-choice assignments, and professor-written exams). Results indicate that CCD classes yield significantly higher levels of student engagement, perceived learning, satisfaction, and ratings of professors. These main effects are consistent between and within professors. Interestingly, the positive effects associated with CCD teaching techniques are also consistent for students with high and low levels of two control variables (the preference for consistency and the separateness-connectedness self-schema).