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While industrial marketing managers have long been concerned about the representativeness of sample information, few direct measures have been available of how accurately the sample represents the population. Suggests the use of characteristics available from sources external to the survey process as a basis for such assessment. Presents procedures for gathering, analysing and interpreting such surrogate measures.

Examines the impact of selling behaviors on performance. The time spent actually selling and servicing clients is shown positively to influence salesperson performance. Having a spouse in the profession, past sales experience, higher vocational esteem for selling and service, and a higher extrinsic reward orientation are antecendents to behaviors that relate to higher performance.

This paper aims to examine the impact of customer orientation, at the levels of both the company and the salesperson, on salesperson performance.

A survey of 283 salespeople provides the database that was analyzed using structural equation modeling.

Prior studies suggest that both company and salesperson customer orientation has a positive effect on performance. The findings of this study suggest that a salesperson's customer orientation completely mediates the relationship between company customer orientation and salesperson performance. Thus, the influence of a company's customer orientation on salesperson performance acts through the customer orientation of the salespeople.

The study reinforces the importance of customer orientation and the role of salespeople in putting customer orientation into practice.

To develop and propose a conceptual model that explains why downstream channel members (e.g. retailers) are likely to adopt or resist the implementation of emerging partner relationship management (PRM) technologies by their channel counterparts (i.e. suppliers).

The conceptual model is grounded in organizational innovation theory and utilizes select case examples to support posited relationships.

Resellers' level of commitment to new PRM tools deployed by suppliers is likely to be driven by their perception of the technology's impact on the equity (i.e. fairness) and efficiency (i.e. cost) of existing channel relationships. In turn, resellers' perceptions about the equity and efficiency implications of PRM technology adoption are expected to be influenced by several factors, including: environmental factors, suppliers' choice of influence strategies and the characteristics of the exchange relationship.

Aside from offering several testable propositions, the paper also raises various questions that are worthy of investigation, such as: To what extent (if at all) do boundary‐spanning technologies alter the basic nature of channel relationships? Can the deployment of PRM tools simultaneously lead to both greater channel conflict and coordination? Do differences in reseller commitment result when different implementation partners (i.e. third‐party software firms) handle the deployment of the technology across geographic regions?

The paper builds on the inter‐organizational concepts of equity and efficiency to offer a new perspective on the adoption of boundary‐spanning technologies in a channel setting.

The aging population in the United States makes skill in marketing to the mature consumer increasingly important. The biophysical and psychosocial aging process creates a need for specific strategies to address the changes brought on by age. Attempts to ascertain the degree to which the financial services industry recognizes some of the needs of the elderly market and the degree to which marketing programs are addressing these needs. The results show that financial services marketers have been slow in implementing strategies which might help them better attract and serve the mature consumer, when compared with other industries. While this industry has done an excellent job in developing products which appeal to older consumers, they appear to be lacking in special assistance to mature consumers and training to support such assistance. Provides managerial implications stressing specific areas for improvement.

A high level of product involvement is typically assumed to accompany higher information search, a fewer number of acceptable alternatives, and a higher number of choice criteria than does low level of product involvement. Inferring the level of product involvement from these behavioral or evaluative characteristics is, however, potentially misleading. Two factors are identified as mediating the relationship between the high level of involvement and these characteristics: (1) product trial, and (2) the consumer learning stage. The results of the present study support this view. Even for high involving products, considerable variations exist in these characteristics, depending on product trialability and consumer learning stage. Several strategic marketing implications stemming from these results are offered.

States that marketers require a better understanding of the consumer decision‐making process for selecting services, particularly of the prepurchase information search for professional services which are often selected just after relocation to a new geographical area. Examines the findings of research on this topic, which looked at questionnaires returned by a sample of two hundred new residents about their use of information sources in choosing a professional service. Discusses the managerial implications for marketers of the results of the study, which confirmed the importance of personal sources of information in the search process and showed that most residents were happy with their choices.

This paper calls attention to the profound differences between personal inventory decision making and the corresponding decision making of business organizations. It is argued first that the motivations and criteria being used by consumers are vastly different from the assumptions of models such as the well known EOQ (Economic Order Quantity) model. Next the implications for marketing are discussed. A research agenda is then proposed for filling in some of what is currently unknown.

This paper aims to examine a longitudinal study of mentoring functions and their effect on salesperson attitudes and intentions.

The research is based on a multi-year study of salespeople beginning when the salesperson entered the industry being examined.

The level of interaction between the mentor and protégé was found to be the only antecedent examined that related to the perceived quality of mentoring functions. Age, education and length of employment for both parties; the degree of age and education difference; and the length of the mentoring relationship were not significant. Successful mentoring appeared to be based heavily on a mentor’s willingness and ability to interact frequently with the protégé.

This study adds to the literature on mentoring, looking at mentoring in a sales context. Research examining mentoring in a sales setting is much more limited than in many other professions, so the findings represent a valuable addition to the sales mentoring literature. Its influence on sales socialization may be very important.