Search

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to examine a customer orientation mechanism through which abusive supervision influences retail salespeople’s job performance; and second, to investigate how abusive supervision’s effects may be moderated by the same leader’s use of contingent punishment and contingent reward.Design/methodology/approachTwo studies provide consistent findings. Study 1 used the field survey data from 129 salespeople in 42 retail stores. The proposed moderated mediation model was estimated using the random coefficient modeling technique. Findings were replicated in Study 2, in which data were collected from a sample of 679 US retail salespeople recruited through M-Turk.FindingsResults from both studies show that abusive supervision reduces salespeople’s job performance through lowering their customer orientation. Furthermore, the use of contingent punishment from the same supervisor buffers abusive supervision’s detrimental effect, whereas the use of contingent reward augments it.Research limitations/implicationsThe issues the authors address in this research have significant implications for the literature of abusive supervision and retail selling. First, the authors contribute to the abusive supervision literature by pointing it out that the negative effect of abusive supervision can spill over to organizations’ external stakeholders, namely, customers. Previous research on abusive supervision has mainly focused on how abused subordinates exhibit hostile acts directed against the supervisor, coworkers and the organization (Tepperet al., 2017), with little attention paid to abusive supervision’s impact on organizations’ external stakeholders such as customers. This research fills the void by placing impaired customer-orientation as a critical consequence of abusive supervision. Second, this research tests a contingent self-regulation impairment model of abusive supervision and advances our understanding about how the same supervisor’s functional leadership behaviors (contingent reward/punishment) may set contingencies for the effect of abusive supervision on employee outcomes. This investigation clears the doubts about whether the use of functional leadership behaviors along with abusive supervision buffers or aggravates the detrimental effect of the latter. Finally, this study’s findings shed new insights to marketing practitioners, especially in understanding how salespeople may vent their stress on the customers when being abused by their supervisors. Without this in mind, supervisors may not be aware of the consequences of their abusive behavior and may even develop an illusion that such a practice worked. This research shows that abusive supervision can lower employees’ customer orientation, which will hurt the company in the long run.Practical implicationsThe findings intend to provide important guidelines for companies to develop effective workshops and training programs to combat the detrimental effects of abusive supervision in the retailing industry. For example, the findings shed new insights in understanding how employees may vent their stress on the customers when being abused by their supervisors. Without this in mind, supervisors may not be aware of the consequences of their abusive behavior and may even develop an illusion that such a practice worked. Another important managerial implication of this research is that the use of contingent reward after mistreating subordinates can backfire. Supervisor abuses, followed by a contingent reward, send an inconsistent signal to the employee that creates confusion and strain. Inconsistent actions from the supervisor also produce ethical tensions that reduce customer-oriented behaviors and a company’s ability to serve the customer (Friend et al., 2020). These training programs are important methods to combat the detrimental effects of abusive supervision in the workforce.Originality/valueThis research draws on the contingent self-regulation impairment model as an overarching framework to unpack the relationship between abusive supervision and salespeople’s job performance. Integrating three research streams (i.e. abusive supervision, leadership reinforcement and retail selling), this study proposes customer orientation as a novel mechanism and sheds light on how abusive supervision interplays with contingent punishment/reward to impact salespeople’s outcomes.

Drawing on the Job Demand-Resources (JD-R) theory, the present study investigates the underlying mechanisms through which capability control, a type of behavior-based control, influences salesperson turnover. Using a sample of 145 industrial salesperson–supervisor dyads from different industries, this study's findings reveal that capability control contributes to decreasing salesperson turnover intentions, both directly and indirectly. Specifically, management capability control reduces work overload and increases work meaning, thus lowering salesperson turnover intention. The findings also confirm that these effects are contingent on the complexity of a product. When product complexity is low, capability control increases work overload and decreases work meaning, which has a positive effect on salesperson turnover intention. This study discusses these findings' theoretical and managerial implications.

Despite its importance in sales, listening is an overlooked concept in research with limited empirical studies examining the construct since the work conducted by Castleberry and Shepherd (1993) and Ramsey and Sohi (1997) . Knowledge of the role listening plays in sales and the processes involved in explaining listening in relationship performance is limited with many discrepancies identified between studies. Using meta-analytical techniques, this study summarizes approximately 20 years of research on salesperson listening. The study developed a meta-analytical model based on the marketing and psychology literature to build an underlying framework for listening theory, advance research in listening, and provide theoretical and managerial implications. The obtained results show that customer-oriented salespeople express their care toward customers through listening, which helps them adapt their selling behaviors to fit customers' demands. Salesperson relational and sales outcomes are driven by listening through direct and mediated mechanisms.

Purpose: The goal of this paper is to investigate whether salesperson proactive behavior mediates the relationship between sales manager servant leadership and salesperson overall performance ratin...

It has been observed in the academic and practitioner literature, a disconnect between the activities of salespeople and the sales strategy espoused by sales organizations. This study examines orga...

Impression management tactics have recently been identified as effective strategies for coping with work stressors. However, despite the evidence that using a combination of tactics can provide more favorable outcomes than using a single tactic, previous studies have often examined impression management tactics in isolation. Furthermore, many sales organizations view their employees' proactive behaviors as essential for gaining a competitive advantage, but our knowledge about the antecedents of proactivity at work is still limited. To address this knowledge gap, we introduce a theoretical model that explains the joint moderating effects of combining two forms of impression management tactics on the relationship between work-family conflict and salespeople's proactive behaviors. We study 249 salesperson-supervisor dyads, and the results indicate that work-family conflict is negatively related to salespeople's proactive behaviors through emotional exhaustion. In addition, the combination of ingratiation and self-promotion has a buffering effect on the relationship between work-family conflict and emotional exhaustion.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine how a service provider’s offer quality is evaluated (OQ).This study shows that attitude toward the salesperson in a service context (AS) is an important antecedent to OQ.Design/methodology/approachThis study involves three studies, first is a dyadic data analyzed with HLM, second is an experiment and the third an IAT.FindingsThe findings of this study show that active empathetic listening increases offer quality evaluations, regardless of the AS level. However, at lower levels of AS,sales perseverancenegatively affects offer quality evaluations.Originality/valueWhile research suggests that listening is extremely important, there is also research that suggests that perseverance is more important. Considering data from sales people and from consumers, the authors examine when listening and when perseverance is important.

International audience; Service businesses are increasingly facing more demanding customers as a result of a shift in power from the service providers' side to the customers' side. Related literature predominantly examines the negative side of this ongoing trend, while overlooking the positive side. The major aim of this paper is to examine how frontline employees — investment account managers — deal with the ongoing increase in customer demandingness. To address this, we draw on adaptability performance theory to test the facilitating effect of frontline employees' post-transaction service behaviors (SBs) — diligence, inducements, information communication, sportsmanship, and empathy — as a means of adaptation to higher levels of customer demand. Findings indicate that frontline employees adapt most of their SBs' intensities to match customers' demands. The results show that some SBs actually increase the effectiveness and efficiency of frontline employees' service performance, leading to an increase in customer value and satisfaction. Customer value is found as a mediator in some of the relationships between SBs and customer satisfaction. Contrary to the conception of the negative outcomes of customer demandingness, service firms need to consider taking advantage of customer demandingness by stressing the role of frontline employees in adapting to customers’ demands.

Purpose Mobile technologies have become indispensable in sales. However, there is a lack of agreement about whether mobile technology use facilitates the sales job or contributes to the salesperson’s stress and reduced job satisfaction. To address this controversy, this study aims to examine the effect of mobile technology use (smartphones, laptop computers and tablets) on salespeople’s role stress and job satisfaction. Design/methodology/approach Hypotheses are tested using responses of 265 sales employees working for a broad range of industries in Spain. Findings This study shows that mobile technology use during working hours has a positive effect on job satisfaction through a mediating process that involves role stress. In addition, the impact of mobile technology use on role stress is strengthened by technological compatibility. Originality/value The current study extends previous research by moving beyond a focus on technology-centric outcomes (i.e. sales performance) to understanding broader, more psychological outcomes, namely, role stress and job satisfaction. Importantly, previous research reporting that salespeople feel “plugged in” to a device all day have not made the distinction about when the mobile device is used. One important difference in this study is that it exclusively focuses on mobile technology use during working hours.

Meta-analytic inquiries enable researchers to synthesize empirical findings obtained over the evolution of a topic area and identify boundary conditions affecting the associations of key variables. Sales researchers can employ meta-analytic techniques to amalgamate empirical work conducted in a given topic area, and several sales researchers have effectively used meta-analyses to advance our understanding of the field. This article provides an exposition of this research design by analyzing its application in sales research. The authors review the meta-analytic studies in sales research and advance key considerations in topical foci, article selection, data coding and evaluation, and analytic approaches. An empirical example is provided to illustrate the power of meta-analysis in substantiating or refuting findings that diverge from accumulated insight in sales research. Results provide support for a positive effort–job satisfaction association in contrast to findings evidencing a negative association bet...

Purpose The aim of this study is to reveal the contribution that Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing has to scientific research and its most influential thematic work in B-to-B since its beginning in 1986 until 2015, in commemoration of the 30th anniversary. Design/methodology/approach The paper begins with a qualitative introduction: the emergence of the magazine, its origins, editorial and positioning. Subsequently, it is based on bibliometric methodologies to develop quantitative analysis. The distribution of annual publications is analyzed, the most cited papers, the keywords that are mostly used, the influence on the publishing industry and authors, universities and the countries that have the most publications. Findings The predominant role of the USA at all levels is highlighted. It also highlights the presence (given its size and population) of the countries of Northern Europe. There is great interest in appreciating the evolution of the number of publications that are always increasing which demonstrates the growing and sustained interest in these types of articles, with certain times of retreat (often coincide with economic crisis). Research limitations/implications The Scopus database gives one unit to each author, university or country involved in the paper, without distinguishing whether it was one or more authors in the study. Therefore, this may bring some deviations in the analysis. However, the study considers some figures with fractional counting to partially solve these limitations. Practical implications After observing the different perspectives of the journal’s production, it allows to give an objective view of the evolution that the Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing has had in the past 30 years. Originality/value It is part of the trend that several journals (Journal of Marketing, Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of Business Research) made special sections to show progress and contribution of these journals to scientific research.

This research investigates the effects of sales-service ambidexterity on salesperson role perceptions, behaviors, and customer satisfaction. Using a business-to-business, salesperson-customer sample, we build and test a model which highlights both the positive and negative consequences of this simultaneous goal pursuit. Specifically, while sales-service ambidexterity positively impacts adaptive selling behaviors, it also increases perceptions of role conflict among salespeople. Customer demandingness moderates these relationships. Taken together, the results provide insights for firms on how to manage their sales force to optimize both sales and service outcomes based on characteristics of their salespeople and customers.

This chapter looks at the digital marketing strategies employed by high-end make-up brands in Colombia, Latin America, as well as the changes seen online and offline. To this end, dedicated social media were analyzed with and interviews with experts on luxury cosmetics brands and high-end make-up brands' managers with experience in online and offline markets were analyzed using ATLASti. Study findings reveal that users' purchase decision-making behavior differs when they shop online and in points of sale. They also show that access to brand information changes defining moments. In addition, the study has proven that digital marketing strategies seek the execution and development of multimedia, multisensory experiences.

The concept of customer orientation (CO) is a focal construct in marketing and sales literature. Saxe and Weitz introduced CO to contrast the traditional high-pressure approach to sales (selling orientation). This study synthesizes empirical evidence from 1982 to 2013 to provide insight into the antecedents and consequences of both CO and selling orientation (SO). A conceptual meta-analytic model based on research into interpersonal motive models is proposed and tested using effect sizes from 126,790 salesperson survey responses to advance theory development on our understanding of how SO and CO behaviours affect organizations. Findings show that adaptive selling mediates the impact of both SO and CO which has important practical implications for hiring and training salespeople. Furthermore, this study shows that goal orientations are antecedents of SO and CO and that the impact of SO on job performance varies by customer type.

Top performing salespeople are attracted to organizations that provide opportunities to make full use of their abilities. Responses from 1450 sales directors from a leading direct selling organization were used to examine salesperson's experienced meaningfulness. Results show that experienced meaningfulness is critical to sales because it impacts salesperson's performance, turnover intentions and felt stress. Further, ethical climate and customer demandingness influence experienced meaningfulness perceptions.

Customer orientation is the central element of market orientation and a precursor of organizational success and performance. This manuscript demonstrates that salesperson’s empathy increases the positive impact of customer orientation on customer satisfaction and trust. The manuscript also shows that supplier customer orientation is a key factor in developing a relationship of quality with customers and a critical antecedent of customer loyalty. A conceptual model is tested using survey responses from 300 customers from two Chilean banks.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate why salespeople resist change and the impact of resistance to change on customer responsiveness and performance outcomes.Design/methodology/approachSurvey responses derived from 233 salespeople from three large financial institutions in Mexico are used to test relationships involving salespersons’ resistance to change.FindingsSalespeople are more likely to resist change if they believe that change increases their workload. They are less likely to resist change when they have higher levels of job autonomy and self‐efficacy. Resistance to change has a negative impact on customer responsiveness and salesperson's performance.Research limitations/implicationsThis study makes an important contribution to the literature by identifying factors that explain salesperson's resistance to change. Study findings rely on salesperson survey responses collected in one country and industry. Future research is needed to assess the generalizability of findings and causality of the proposed relationships.Practical implicationsResistance to change affects the salespersons’ capacity to respond to customer demands and ultimately undermines performance. Managers can help reduce resistance to change by providing salespeople with greater job autonomy and by explaining how change affects their workload.Originality/valueTo the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper linking salesperson resistance to change to job performance.

This paper identifies three potential barriers to career advancement in sales: being excluded from informal networks, a lack of cultural fit, and a lack of mentoring. Using a sample of 241 account executives and managers from an organization in the television broadcasting industry, study results suggest that perceived barriers to career advancement (PBCA) have a significant negative impact on the organizational commitment (OC) of these sales employees. Effects are estimated with path analysis, and the effects of common method bias and job satisfaction are considered. Demographic variables (age, gender, company tenure, job level) are also hypothesized to moderate the relationship between PBCA and OC. The negative influence of PBCA on OC is found to become stronger as company tenure increases. Data also suggest that the negative relationship between PBCA and OC is more powerful among account executives than sales managers/directors. Managerial and research implications are discussed.

Job stress is an integral part of the organizational landscape and particularly severe in the sales profession. A host of studies have looked at felt stress, its antecedents, and consequences. This research examines how employee resistance to change and a manager's decisiveness affect the salesperson's felt stress and turnover intentions. This study shows that the salesperson's resistance to change is positively associated with felt stress. Study results also show that the impact of an employee's resistance to change on felt stress is moderated by a manager's decisiveness. Model hypotheses are tested with responses from 255 bank salespeople in India.

This paper focuses on five critical, yet underresearched, areas vital to sales performance in a marketplace that is increasingly more complex, more demanding of customized solutions, and more relationship focused. The five topic areas addressed are the ability to marshal intraorganizational resources by salespeople, salesperson creativity, examining the buyer–seller interaction in terms of salesperson influence tactics behaviors and the importance of establishing credibility with buyers as a basis of influence, ethics relative to the buying and selling organization simultaneously, and selling teams. Research implications for each topic area are advanced.

PurposeThis research seeks to explore the role played by ethical reputation in amplifying the positive impact of value received by the customer on satisfaction with the supplier and ultimately loyalty.Design/methodology/approachSurvey responses derived from 299 customers, concerning two large financial institutions within Chile, are used to test relationships among ethical perceptions, customer value, satisfaction, and loyalty. Hypotheses are tested with a structural equation model.FindingsResults show that ethical perceptions about the organization amplify the impact of customer value on customer satisfaction and eventually loyalty.Research limitations/implicationsThis study contributes to the existing literature by showing that ethical perceptions from customers can help financial institutions achieve higher levels of satisfaction and loyalty. Study findings rely on customer survey responses collected in one country and one industry. Generalizability of findings is yet to be tested.Practical implicationsEthical reputation helps financial institutions retain their customers.Originality/valueThis is the first study showing that customer perceptions about company ethics amplify the positive impact of customer value on customer satisfaction.

Este estudio examina el desempeño de fondos de pensiones obligatorios y voluntarios en el periodo 2004-2008. El documento presenta una metodología fundamentada en la técnica de componentes principales que facilita el proceso de selección de fondos. También se analizan dos metodologías de optimización de portafolios para evaluar mejoras en el desempeño en un periodo de evaluación, la primera sugerida por Markowitz (1952) y la segunda sugerida por Revéiz y Leon (2008b). Aplicando diferentes metodologías, se evidenció un incremento en el nivel de riesgo de los fondos obligatorios y voluntarios colombianos. Se halló además un conjunto de fondos que caracterizan adecuadamente el movimiento común de los retornos de los fondos. No se encontraron ganancias significativas en términos económicos ni estadísticos al utilizar una metodología de optimización en particular. This study examines performance of mandatory and voluntary pension funds in the 2004 – 2008 period. Furthermore, we present a methodology based on principal components that can aid affiliates when selecting funds. Moreover, we examine two portfolio optimization methodologies to evaluate any performance improvements in an evaluation period when choosing a particular methodology. The first one suggested by Markowitz (1952) and the second by Reveiz and Leon (2008b). We find an increase in risk, using several metrics, of mandatory and voluntary pension funds as well as a set of funds that better characterize the common movement of funds’ returns. No evidence was found in regards to economically or statistically significant gains of applying either optimization methodology using several holding periods.

Customer orientation (CO) and the development of long-term relationships with customers are known conditions for growth and profit sustainability. Businesses use special treatments, inducements, and personal gestures to show their appreciation to customers. However, there are concerns about whether these inducements really create the right perceptions in customer’s mind. This study suggests that when customers believe that the firm is ethical, the inducements and special treatments received are seen in a positive light and can help develop loyalty. The hypotheses were tested with responses from 299 customers of financial institutions in Chile. Results support the hypotheses that firm’s ethical reputation helps in retaining customers. Managerial implications are provided.

Much has been written about the importance of focusing on customers to drive organizational success. In this paper, aspects of manager–salesperson relationships are examined as drivers of deeper customer focus in salesperson–customer interactions. In particular, managers’ servant leadership, a leadership style emphasizing genuine concern for subordinate welfare, is examined as a catalyst of parallel concern by salespeople for their customers. Salesperson perceptions of managers’ servant leadership empirically relate to salesperson customer orientation, in turn driving adaptive selling behaviors, customer-directed extra-role behaviors, and sales performance outcomes. Other results and implications for management and sales leadership research are presented.

Since the inception of the concept, researchers have hypothesized that customer orientation plays a fundamental role in explaining sales performance. However, Franke and Park’s (2006) meta-analysis challenged this notion with findings of a nonsignificant effect of customer orientation on objective sales performance. This counterintuitive result was explained by noting that the impact of customer orientation on objective sales measures may be present in the long run. In this research note, we evaluate that notion by testing a model in which customer orientation is used to predict individual rates-of-change in sales performance over time. Longitudinal salesperson performance in dollars, from the database of a direct selling organization, is merged with survey responses and modeled using an emerging method called latent growth modeling (LGM). Results confirm Franke and Park’s findings that customer orientation has a nonsignificant direct effect on the static initial-level aspect of objective sales performanc...

A consensus notion in sales research is that superior performance requires high levels of effort. Studying the effect of individual and situational factors on effort has significant implications for managers and academics. This study shows that supportive leadership leads to higher salesperson effort directly and through a mediating process that involves intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy. Also, results indicate that the positive effect of supportive leadership on the salesperson’s intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy is amplified when serving demanding customers. Implications for sales managers and future research opportunities are discussed.

Leaders play a critical role in setting the tone for ethical climate in organizations. In recent years, there has been an increased skepticism about the role played by corporate executives in developing and implementing ethics in business practices. Sales and marketing practices of businesses, particularly in the pharmaceutical industry, have come under increased scrutiny. This study identifies a type of leadership style that can help firms develop an ethical climate. Responses from 333 salespeople working for a North American subsidiary of an international pharmaceutical company were used to analyze the impact of instrumental leadership on ethical climate. We also examined the effect of ethical climate on effort, satisfaction with the supervisor, and job satisfaction. Managerial implications are provided.

This study explores why salespeople with equal intrinsic motivation may achieve different levels of performance. Utilizing action control theory, the paper explores the moderating effect of the initiative dimension of action-state orientation on the salesperson’s intrinsic motivation and adaptive selling relationship. An empirical study is presented that included 223 Ecuadorian salespeople and objective performance measures. Findings indicate that salesperson’s initiative strengthens the relationship between intrinsic motivation and adaptive selling. In addition, results show that adaptive selling is a significant antecedent of objective salesperson’s performance. Finally, results reveal that initiative has a significant direct effect on objective performance.

PurposeThe purpose is to investigate, the difference between SERVQUAL and SERVPERF's predictive validity of service quality.Design/methodology/approachData from 17 studies containing 42 effect sizes of the relationships between SERVQUAL or SERVPERF with overall service quality (OSQ) are meta‐analyzed.FindingsOverall, SERVQUAL and SERVPERF are equally valid predictors of OSQ. Adapting the SERVQUAL scale to the measurement context improves its predictive validity; conversely, the predictive validity of SERVPERF is not improved by context adjustments. In addition, measures of services quality gain predictive validity when used in: less individualistic cultures, non‐English speaking countries, and industries with an intermediate level of customization (hotels, rental cars, or banks).Research limitations/implicationsNo study, that were using non‐adapted scales were conducted outside of the USA making it impossible to disentangle the impact of scale adaptation vs contextual differences on the moderating effect of language and culture. More comparative studies on the usage of adapted vs non‐adapted scales outside the USA are needed before settling this issue meta‐analytically.Practical implicationsSERVQUAL scales require to be adapted to the study context more so than SERVPERF. Owing to their equivalent predictive validity the choice between SERVQUAL or SERVPERF should be dictated by diagnostic purpose (SERVQUAL) vs a shorter instrument (SERVPERF).Originality/valueBecause of the high statistical power of meta‐analysis, these findings could be considered as a major step toward ending the debate whether SERVPERF is superior to SERVQUAL as an indicator of OSQ.

Based on previous research, this study proposes conceptualization and measurement of five distinct ethical levels. The ideas are tested with secondary data obtained from responses of 246 salespeople to a nationwide survey conducted by a leading research firm. Results support a hierarchically indexed measure of ethical level and offer evidence that ethical level relates to a number of important organizational outcomes relevant to long-term viability and success. Specifically, ethical level is positively associated with salesperson well-being, customer and societally related measures, and also with a set of proxies for market and financial performance. This paper brings an important contribution to the sales and ethics literature by demonstrating that a true commitment to ethics is beneficial to salespersons and the firm, and that higher ethical commitment above and beyond codes and enforcement is even more beneficial. A discussion of implications and directions for further research is provided.

PurposeIn the years since Saxe and Weitz developed a scale to measure the selling orientation and customer orientation (SOCO) of a salesperson, research findings on the effect of SOCO on salesperson job performance have shown mixed results. This article aims to synthesize the findings from the empirical studies to identify the direction and the strength of this relationship. In addition, it aims to investigate the moderating effect of customer type (business or end user consumer) and type of job performance measure used (subjective or objective).Design/methodology/approachResearch questions were addressed by a meta‐analysis of 16 studies containing 17 effect sizes from 3,477 respondents.FindingsMeta‐analysis results reveal an attenuated weighted mean effect size (r) of this relationship of 0.14, with a 90 percent confidence interval of 0.04 to 0.23. The disattenuated mean effect size (rc) is 0.16. Findings also reveal that neither customer type nor type of job performance measures moderated the SOCO and job performance relationship.Research limitations/implicationsAlthough diligence was exercised to reduce selection bias, relevant studies may have been excluded from this meta‐analysis.Practical implicationsStudy findings demonstrate that SOCO is an important predictor of salesperson job performance. High performance occurs when salespeople focus their energy on identifying the customer's individual needs and offer products to satisfy those needs.Originality/valueThis is the first published SOCO meta‐analysis.

Emotional exhaustion and organizational deviance are getting increased attention because of their negative impact on business in terms of lost productivity, decreased job satisfaction, lower organizational commitment, and decreased performance. In this study, we investigated the combined effect of leadership style and person–job fit on emotional exhaustion using a sample of employees that provide healthcare and social benefits to a large metropolitan county. We also explored how the impact of emotional exhaustion on organizational deviance behaviors is mediated by employee's job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Results indicate that both emotional exhaustion and job attitudes mediate the effects of participative leadership and person–job fit on organizational deviance. Managerial implications are also provided.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to build on previous research on stress in sales forces to investigate the effect of perceptions of time wasted on salespersons' attitudes and behavioral intentions.Design/methodology/approachResponses from 400 salespeople who work in 49 business units of four Ecuadorian financial institutions were used to test a conceptual stress model. The research hypotheses were tested with a structural equation model.FindingsSalespeople operating in the banking industry are prone to be dissatisfied, emotionally exhausted, and are likely to quit when they believe that their time or their efforts have been wasted or used ineffectively.Research limitations/implicationsEcuadorian samples adequately represent Latin American banking employees. However, individuals from collectivistic countries, such as Ecuador, have a more relaxed view of time. Hence, perceptions of time wasted may have a greater effect on job attitudes and behaviors in the USA than in Ecuador.Practical implicationsSuccess in sales requires effective time management. However, salespeople are sometimes required to perform activities that they can perceive as wasteful. Managers should be aware that performing wasteful activities leads to emotional exhaustion and high intentions to quit.Originality/valueThis is the first study to empirically test the effect of time wasted on organizational variables.

This article presents a meta-analysis that includes studies conducted over the past 25 years across 14 countries and a mix of selling and nonselling situations. Findings indicate that the relationship between organizational commitment and job performance is positive and stronger for sales employees than for nonsales employees. Stronger correlations between organizational commitment and job performance are found for collectivist compared to individualistic cultures. The results are discussed in terms of implications for future sales force performance research.

Due to the effect of academic performance on employment opportunities and admission to graduate schools, researchers have long recognized the need for identifying factors that are linked to the academic performance of undergraduate marketing students. This research proposes a model that investigates the relationships among motivation, effort, personality, stress, and academic performance. Action-state orientation (AO-SO) is an important factor in students’ emotional exhaustion and effort. AO-SO relates to individual differences in the capacity to regulate emotions, cognitions, and behaviors to accomplish intentional actions. AO-SO consists of three dimensions: disengagement (versus preoccupation), volatility (versus persistency), and hesitation (versus initiative). Results indicate that persistency and initiative are positively related to effort, which is an important antecedent of academic performance. Also, disengagement is negatively related to emotional exhaustion.

Market orientation has emerged as a significant antecedent of performance and is presumed to contribute to long-term success. To investigate the impact of this predictor, a meta-analysis was conducted and findings suggest that the relationship between market orientation and business performance is positive and consistent worldwide. One of the unique contributions of this research is a sample that includes studies conducted in 23 countries spanning five continents. The moderating effects of business objective (profit, not-for-profit), industry type (manufacturing, service), socioeconomic development [gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, Human Development Index (HDI)), and Hofstede’s individualism cultural dimension] are examined. Stronger correlations between market orientation and business performance were found for not-for-profit compared to profit firms and service compared to manufacturing firms. D 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

This article identifies the selling techniques that are critical success factors (CSFs) for salespeople who sell banking products and services in Ecuador. The study examines the selling techniques that differentiate top and bottom sales performers in the Ecuadorian banking industry. Both self‐reported and supervisor ratings are used to measure salesperson performance. The results suggest that differences in performance between top and bottom performing salespeople relate to the use of five selling techniques: examining records at the prospecting stage of the selling process; approaching prospects using statements about the salesperson, the bank, or the names of persons who referred the prospect; using customer friendly language during the sales presentation; being knowledgeable of the benefits of the banks’ products and being able to clarify the products’ benefits; and ensuring post‐purchase satisfaction of existing customers.

This study combines meta-analysis with structural equation modeling to examine the impact of service quality (SQ) on customer satisfaction (CS), attitudinal loyalty (AL), and purchase intention (PI). Findings from 86 articles containing 115 independent samples and 161 effect sizes representing 42,877 customers are used to test a model of the relationships among the above-referred variables. Results show that SQ has a large effect on CS, AL, and PI. Also, SQ is indirectly related to AL and PI. Because AL and PI are critical indicators of a customer's willingness to engage in a relationship with the firm, this study provides clear evidence that SQ plays a vital role in a firm's quest for building long-term relationships with customers. The effect of measurement and contextual moderators is also analyzed. © 2009 M.E. Sharpe, Inc. All rights reserved.