The role of leadership in salespeople’s price negotiation behavior

Salespeople assume a key role in defending firms’ price levels in price negotiations with customers. The degree to which salespeople defend prices should critically depend upon their leaders’ influence. However, the influence of leadership on salespeople’s price defense behavior is barely understood, conceptually or empirically. Therefore, building on social learning theory, the authors propose that salespeople might adopt their leaders’ price defense behavior given a transformational leadership style. Furthermore, drawing on the contingency leadership perspective, the authors argue that this adoption fundamentally depends on three variables deduced from the motivation–ability–opportunity (MAO) framework, that is, salespeople’s learning motivation, negotiation efficacy, and perceived customer lenience. Results of a multi-level model using data from 92 salespeople and 264 salesperson–customer interactions confirm these predictions. The first to explore contingencies of salespeople’s adoption of their transformational leaders’ price negotiation behaviors, this study extends marketing theory and provides actionable guidance to practitioners

Use of management reports and performance of sales managers in an insurance company

<div><p>ABSTRACT This article aims to investigate the relationship between perceptions of the enabling dimension and the technical validity of the management reports of an insurance company and the performance of its sales managers, mediated by the use of these reports. Companies invest resources in providing management reports for business managers to take decisions, so understanding what influences the use of these reports and whether this use is associated with performance constitutes a relevant subject for both academia and professional practice. The results may be useful for organizations that are taking decisions to invest in management reports, showing that technical validity is what best influences the use of these reports, at least in the short term, which is also a contribution to the theory. Secondary data were combined with a survey of 231 respondents from an insurance company and analyzed using the structural equation modeling (SEM) technique via partial least squares (PLS). The article contributes to the literature and management accounting practice by demonstrating that, unlike in previous studies, the enabling dimension does not positively influence the use of management reports. On the other hand, the study shows that technical validity, which is a more tangible dimension of the quality of management reports, is positively associated with their use and that this use influences the performance of the sales managers. Keywords: use of management reports, sales performance, sales managers, insurers, enabling.</p></div