The Effects of perceived customer dependence on salesperson influence strategies

A national random sample of industrial salespeople was surveyed to examine the relationships among perceived customer dependence, cooperative motivational orientation, influence strategies, and sales performance. Results indicated that perceived customer dependence was positively related to sales performance. Perceived customer dependence also predicted influence strategies for closed influencers, noninfluencers, and combination influencers. Direct influencers and business-focused influencers did not use perceived customer dependence in choosing their influence strategies. Further, for combination influencers, salespersons' cooperative motivational orientation moderated the effect of perceived customer dependence on influence strategies. Based on these results, the managerial implications for selling organizations are discussed.15 page(s

Relationship marketing in a developing economy

The sales representatives of a pharmaceutical manufacturer in India were surveyed to explore the effects of relationship marketing on sales performance. Specifically, the effect of buyer-seller relationship quality on sales performance was assessed. The results indicated that customer oriented selling behaviors helped in developing buyer-seller relationship quality and adaptive selling behaviors fully mediated the effects of buyer-seller relationship quality on sales performance. Based on the findings, managerial implications for US firms operating in developing economies, such as India, are discussed.14 page(s

Closed influence tactics : do smugglers win in the long run?

A national random sample of industrial salespeople was surveyed to examine the manner in which closed influence tactics, such as ingratiation, moderate the effects of adaptive selling on salesperson goals. The results revealed that closed influence tactics strengthened the positive effect of adaptive selling on short-term salesperson goals, and weakened the positive effect of adaptive selling on long-term salesperson goals. Thus, smugglers of influence may win in the short run, but they are likely to lose in the long run. Given that adaptive selling is used by salespeople to manage their customer-salesperson relationships, the manner in which closed influence tactics alter the form of the relationship between adaptive selling and salesperson goals have implications for sales organizations. The managerial implications of these findings are discussed and future research directions are proposed.10 page(s

The Effects of formalization on salesperson performance

A national random sample of industrial salespeople was surveyed to assess the effects of formalization on salesperson performance. Results indicated that job codification and rule observation had a significantly negative effect on selling and non-selling behavioral performance, but had no effect on outcome performance. Thus, although salespeople may benefit from guidance and clarity of rigid rules and procedures, they do not like close supervision of the compliance to these rules. The marketing implications of the study findings and directions for future research are discussed.2 page(s

The Consequences of open versus closed influence strategies of salespeople in a developing economy

The sales representatives of a pharmaceutical manufacturer in India were surveyed to explore the effects of influence strategies on customer oriented selling, adaptive selling, and sales performance, and to examine the relationships among sales performance, job satisfaction, and propensity to leave. Of the 253 salespeople surveyed, complete responses were received from 146 respondents, providing a response rate of.57.7 percent. Results indicated that salespeople using open influence strategies were more customer oriented, more adaptive, and performed better. Further, for closed influencers, job satisfaction fully mediated the effect of sales performance on propensity to leave. Based on these findings, managerial implications for US firms who have entered or are planning to enter India were discussed.11 page(s

Demographic antecedents to the practice of adaptive selling

In an empirical study of the role of gender, age, sales experience, and education in the practice of adaptive selling. Levy and Sharma (1994) concluded that gender and education interact with age to affect the degree to which salespeople practice adaptive selling. In addition, as salespeople get older and more experienced, they demonstrate plateauing with regard to the practice of adaptive selling. The current study replicated and extended Levy and Sharma's work on a national random sample of industrial salespeople. Results did not find support for plateauing by salespeople, and the interactions among demographic factors were unrelated to adaptive selling. Managerial implications of the findings are discussed.11 page(s

Buyer satisfaction with relational exchange across the relationship lifecycle

Purpose – This paper aims to explore how relational constructs (total interdependence, trust, commitment, cooperative norms and conflict) impact the buyer's relationship satisfaction across the relationship lifecycle. Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected through mail survey from a sample of 162 Australian buyers. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to purify the measurement scales and multiple regression analysis techniques using dummy variables were used to test the hypotheses. Findings – The results indicate that interdependence and trust are associated with higher relationship satisfaction in the build-up and maturity phases while commitment is associated with higher relationship satisfaction in the maturity phase. Unexpectedly, cooperative norms are found to drive relationship satisfaction in both the build-up and maturity phases. Conflict, however, is not found to affect relationship satisfaction in the decline/deterioration phase. Research limitations/implications – A limitation of this study is the unequal sample size in each of the relationship phases. It would be desirable to run a model consisting of the five relational constructs for each of the three phases. Originality/value – Literature has suggested that the effects of relational constructs on outcomes vary across relationship phases. While this notion has been established theoretically, there has been little attempt to measure it empirically. This paper provides an empirical test of the important, yet unexplored, question of how different relational constructs have different effects on buyer satisfaction depending upon the relationship phase.24 page(s