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Questions the value of ‘morale boosting’ as a device for salesman improvement, concludes that attention to specific attitudes is likely to prove more rewarding. Specifies the improvement of sales‐force morale is often seen as vital to effective performance. Sheds light on the scarcity of research efforts and the inconclusiveness of available findings indicate the effects of job attitudes on sales performance are uncertain and, at best, are likely to be situation specific. Chronicles that this study was designed to contribute to a small but growing body of research efforts into the question of job attitudes and selling performance.

The significance of the search for sales organization effectiveness is underlined by the major costs represented by the field salesforce for many organizations, and it is heightened by the pressures of global competition and new challenges to develop long‐term customer relationships as the foundation for competitive and sustainable marketing strategies. A study of sales management in British companies adds to an emerging research stream by identifying certain characteristics of superior performance and effectiveness in the business‐to‐business sales organization. We find that conventional measures of salesforce size, call‐rates, costs and productivity reveal relatively little about the differences between more effective and less effective sales organizations and may be dangerously misleading. The hallmarks of effective sales organizations we found to be: balanced compensation strategy; successful salesperson characteristics, in terms of motivation, customer orientation, team orientation, and sales support orientation; high performance in the drivers of sales effectiveness, i.e. sales presentation, technical knowledge, but most particularly adaptiveness, teamwork, sales planning, and sales support; the use of behaviour‐based control approaches involving effective monitoring, directing, evaluating and rewarding activities by sales managers; and, sound organizational structures. The research findings contribute benchmarks to a powerful management agenda to be addressed by executives in pursuing sales organization effectiveness.

Innovation is central to modern competition and yet many executives are wary of the risks of cannibalisation of their existing product and service sales through inappropriate innovation. However, the impact of discontinuous technological change is fundamental, and the risks to established companies from not innovating to compete with disruptive technologies are substantial. Many of the arguments which tended towards avoiding cannibalisation are increasingly invalid as a basis for strategic decisions. We propose a framework of proactive cannibalisation that responds to changing customer value, as part of the process for building appropriate innovation strategies for the new competitive and technological environment faced by companies. We provide a framework for managers to evaluate the drivers of successful innovations in developing their strategies.

This paper seeks to record the author's personal reflections on his career as a marketing scholar.

Personal reflections are provided in an autobiographical approach.

The author's career as a student, teacher, and scholar are described in some detail.

This paper records events and memories that might otherwise be forgotten. No other such account has been published of William Lazer's career.

Reports a study of sales management in UK companies, which explores the relationship between behaviour‐based control systems and outcome‐based control systems. Although conventional theory has suggested that behaviour performance and outcome performance result from different stimuli, we find that behaviour‐based control is positively associated with both behaviour performance and outcome performance. We find also that organizational commitment and sales territory design are significantly related to salesforce performance. This suggests a number of important avenues for improving salesforce performance. These findings and the growing emphasis on building long‐term, collaborative buyer‐seller relationships favour the use of behaviour‐based control systems in many sales management situations, and suggest a new agenda for management attention in improving salesforce effectiveness.

The effective management of sales organizations is important to managers of international marketing operations spanning multiple countries, but also to managers of local operations who may question the validity of many of the prescriptions of US‐based research. Studies sales management control in companies in Austria and the UK to contribute a European perspective on behaviour‐based control compared to outcome‐based control. Focuses on the pivotal role of the field sales manager compared to prior research at the salesperson and chief sales executive levels. Confirms the robustness of the behaviour‐based control in these international contexts, and also contributes a number of new insights to the general sales management control research literature. Identifies a number of important research directions in this important area, as well as implications for managers of international selling organizations.

Presents a portfolio model for multi‐sales channel effort deployment. Shows how the approach can help sales management restructure sales channels. Notes that combining an organization′s selling effort into multiple sales channels can be facilitated through an analytical approach that considers variations in customer requirements, buying power and contact costs. Concludes that implementing a successful multiple sales channel strategy offers impressive productivity opportunities.

Examines the impact of manager and salesforce antecedents on sales organization effectiveness, using a sample of 146 Australian sales units. Indicates that sales manager monitoring, directing, evaluating and rewarding activities distinguish between high and low sales unit profitability and managers’ satisfaction with their units. Suggests that sales territory design displays significant differences between high and low sales/market share and unit satisfaction. Discovers that several salesperson characteristics and performance were significantly different between high and low customer satisfaction effectiveness and managers’ satisfaction with sales units. Highlights significant antecedent roles for sales manager and salesforce antecedents of sales organization effectiveness.

The development of collaborative network structures is an increasingly significant issue in the services industry. These interorganizational relationships are formed to gain flexibility, obtain needed skills and resources, and achieve operating efficiencies. Evaluates processes of network formation and compares them with the emerging relationship marketing paradigm, in the search for greater insight into an important but little understood phenomenon. Proposes a novel network classification scheme that identifies hollow, flexible, value‐added and virtual networks, leading to discussion of the need to extend the knowledge base concerning networks and the significance of the relationship marketing model to achieving research and managerial goals in this area.