William D. Perreault

RELIABILITY OF NOMINAL DATA BASED ON QUALITATIVE JUDGMENTS

Most research related to the reliability and validity of marketing measures has focused on multi-item quantitative scales. In contrast, little attention has been given to the quality of nominal sca...

Collinearity, power, and interpretation of multiple regression analysis.

Multiple regression analysis is one of the most widely used statistical procedures for both scholarly and applied marketing research. Yet, correlated predictor variables—and potential collinearity ...

A Role Stress Model of the Performance and Satisfaction of Industrial Salespersons

This research proposes an integrative model of the antecedents and consequences of salesforce role stress, with particular emphasis on two outcomes important to sales reps and firms alike: salesfor...

A Conceptual Paradigm and Approach for the Study of Innovators

An operational approach for measuring an organizations innovativeness is proposed. This procedure draws on measurement theory to overcome problems often associated with single product and composit...

Sales Technology Orientation, Information Effectiveness, and Sales Performance

Sales managers need a practical means for evaluating returns from investments in sales technology implementations (including sales automation and sales-based customer relationship management systems). This research proposes a behavioral process model approach that can be applied to evaluate sales technology implementations. We develop and test the model with data collected from the sales force of a major consumer packaged goods company. The results indicate that a salesperson’s technology orientation has a direct impact on internal role performance, and it affects performance with customers through a double-mediated mechanism involving the effective use of information and smart selling behaviors (planning and adaptive selling). Sales managers can influence sales technology orientation by providing better internal technology support, considering technology orientation along with customer’s approval of technology in account assignments, and understanding the probability of negative effects through a salesperson’s experience. In our sample, salesperson experience correlates with age, suggesting a “generation gap” effect on sales technology orientation.

Influence Use by Industrial Salesmen: Influence-Strategy Mixes and Situational Determinants

Personal selling is a critically important element in the marketing mix of almost every industrial firm. The salesman is entrusted with the care and nurturance of the firms most valuable resources: its customers and prospects. Every sales call is important. If it is not successful, or does not lead to a sale, the opportunity costs (lost revenues) may be substantial. Moreover, whether successful or not, each call represents a substantial expenditure for the sponsoring firm. Given the marketing challenge of developing an effective sales representation at a reasonable cost, it is little wonder that marketing managers and researchers alike are concerned about the problems of selecting, training, and controlling the sales staff. In spite of the importance of these personal selling activities, there is little empirical evidence concerning what actually takes place during the sales call. More specifically, there has been little effort to evaluate the influence strategies actually used by industrial salesmen in their sales calls, or to identify characteristics of the buyer-seller situation which affect the salesmans use of influence with a customer. This article reports a study designed to evaluate the influence strategies used by industrial salespersons in their sales calls and to identify characteristics of the buyer-seller situation which affect the salespersons use of influence with a customer. The results of the study, which are based on responses from 444 salespersons from 220 different firms, suggest that negotiating obstacles encountered in a sales situation and the general level of buyer-seller involvement in the sales call are major underlying dimensions of the sales situation which discriminate among groups of salesmen who vary not only on the intensity of influence used, but also on the particular combinations or mixes of influence strategies used. *We gratefully acknowledge conversations with Robert H. Miles of Harvard University concerning this area of research, and the support of William B. Phillips, Director of Industry Relations, the Associated Equipment Distributors, in data collection.

A Multivariate Analysis of Media Exposure and Vacation Behavior with Life Style Covariates

Two different multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) models are used to examine the relationship between selected media exposure groups and market behaviors. The dependent vector variable in the first model is vacation behaviors which is adjusted for covariance with interest-specific AIO measures in the second model.

Is Retail Category Management Worth the Effort (and Does a Category Captain Help or Hinder)

Category management (CM) is challenging for retailers that sell thousands of products across hundreds of categories and often lack the resources and capabilities to manage all of them intensively. Some retailers respond by picking one supplier to be a “category captain” that manages the category—including rivals’ brands—on their behalf. Others worry that influential captains will be opportunistic and that the benefits of intensive CM are simply not worth the costs. However, there is little conceptual development or empirical evidence concerning CM best practices. The authors develop a comprehensive model of retail CM based on a synthesis of field interviews and relevant literature, especially work on governance value analysis theory. Their test of the model using category and financial growth data from U.S. supermarket chains shows that more intensive CM improves results. Furthermore, use of a category captain increases CM effort and results, without increasing opportunism or problems with other suppliers. The authors also find that retailers with more resources are less likely to rely on help from a category captain; yet the level of retailer resources is not related to CM intensity. Thus, “go-it-alone” retailers do not deploy their own resources on CM and miss out on the corresponding performance improvements.

Interrelationships among Key Aspects of the Organizational Procurement Process

For decades, there has been research on specific buying approaches and procedures used by organizational customers. Yet, there has been only limited effort to conceptualize the key higher order constructs that characterize organizational buying as a process. It is therefore useful to evaluate the simultaneous interrelationships among different aspects of the overall procurement process and how they vary with characteristics of the purchase situation. This research addresses these issues. We draw on structural equation modeling techniques and use a sample of 636 purchases to develop and test a parsimonious integrative model of interrelationships among key aspects of the procurement process. In general, our results support our model of the procurement process, including relationships among purchase importance, extensiveness of choice set, buyer power, reliance on procedural controls, a proactive focus on long-term strategic issues, search for information, and the use of formal analytical tools.

A Computer-Aided Approach for Teaching and Learning Physical Distribution Service Concepts

This article discusses an approach for teaching concepts related to physical distribution service based on an interactive computer program. The computer program, which is written for the IBM PC and available free from the authors, is based on an extended economic order quantity formulation that considers the impact on customer costs of inconsistent distribution service, as measured by the suppliers order cycle time and its variability. The article provides a set of teaching examples that demonstrate the value of consistent physical distribution service to both customers and suppliers, then discusses how the program can be used for student assignments, class discussion, or both to improve student understanding of physical distribution service.