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Responding to a recent editorial call for sustainable development (Truong and Saunders, 2021), this study aims to explore the persuasiveness of climate-change-related appeals.

Three scenario-based experiments were conducted to test the effect of climate-change-related appeals on persuasion, the underlying mechanism causing that effect and associated boundary conditions. Statistical results were based on analysis of variance, mediation and moderation analysis.

Adaptation-oriented appeals are more persuasive than mitigation-oriented appeals. Specifically, adaptation (versus mitigation) appeals activate a self-regulation process that encourages people to think about the future, making them more likely to address climate change. This effect is salient when consumers’ environmental concerns are low.

To boost message persuasiveness, marketers and public policymakers could construct abstract and long-horizon climate-change-related appeals and provide prompts or interventions to promote people’s elaborations about potential outcomes.

To boost message persuasiveness, marketers and public policymakers could construct abstract and long-horizon climate-change-related appeals and provide prompts or interventions to promote people’s elaborations about potential outcomes.

Revealing mitigation and adaptation climate-change-related appeals yield diverse effects.

Continued usage of information systems (ISs) is highly critical to a firm’s sustained success. The expectancy-disconfirmation framework has been effective in explaining continuance. However, our own experiences suggest that we may continue using an IS despite low satisfaction. One of the reasons is that the prediction of future user intent in existing models is predominantly retrospective. The purpose of this paper is to address this gap by incorporating forward-looking considerations into the expectancy-disconfirmation model.

A questionnaire survey was conducted for two types of mobile applications: photo-sharing and note-taking, and 593 valid responses were collected. The partial least squares method was employed for structural model analysis for each type of applications.

The well-entrenched expectancy-disconfirmation model was empirically verified. This study further shows that the influence of satisfaction on continuance intention is higher when hope for the future of a mobile application is stronger, and vice versa, after controlling for the impact of past usage behaviour. In addition, hope is found to be induced by appraisals of perceived usefulness and importance of a mobile application.

This study demonstrates that the expectancy-disconfirmation model can be enhanced with considerations of future outcomes. It shows that emotions such as hope are inherent to continuance decisions. Moreover, it goes beyond the valence dimension of emotions and identified specific antecedents of hope based on the appraisal theory.

This paper aims to study the unexplored possibility that priming firms’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) activity in consumers’ minds may impact consumers’ preference for non-firm related consumption and lifestyle choice options with intertemporal trade-offs.

Across four experimental studies, the authors looked at the impact of CSR priming on the preference of participants for later larger versus sooner smaller money (Study 1), saving versus spending (Study 2) and healthy versus unhealthy food choices (Studies 3 and 4). These choice options were not related to the focal firm that practiced CSR. The authors measured the changes in participants’ consideration of future consequences (CFC) as a potential mediator for the results.

The participants in the CSR condition showed a higher CFC and a higher preference for the options with long-term benefits and immediate costs over the ones with long-term costs and immediate benefits, i.e. later larger over sooner smaller money, saving over spending and healthy over unhealthy food. The authors documented a mediation role for CFC.

All the participants in the studies were from the USA. Looking at the cultural differences can enrich the understanding of the impact of CSR on preference for the options with intertemporal trade-offs. Furthermore, this paper builds its theoretical justification based on the assumption of individuals’ acceptance of CSR activities. Nevertheless, consumers may have skepticism about these activities. Future studies may investigate the effect of CSR skepticism of individuals on the proposed effects. Additionally, investigating the moderating roles of individuals’ characteristics like their prosocial concern or their knowledge about choice options might be an avenue for future research.

The findings highlight the benefits of CSR priming on consumers’ welfare and normative behavior. Firms may use the findings to understand and manage the impact of other firms’ CSR communications on the evaluation of their own products.

This research is the first to highlight the impact of CSR priming on consumers’ non-firm-related consumption and lifestyle choices with intertemporal trade-offs. The results showed the positive effect of priming firms’ CSR activities on consumers’ CFC and the mediating role of CFC.

Considering recent changes in sales practices, such as the sales role becoming more strategic, increased reliance on technology for sales activities, increased stress from adding technological responsibilities to the sales role and decreased avenues of social support (such as traditional forms of community) to cope with work-related stressors, there is a need to reconsider Verbeke et al.’s (2011) classification scheme of determinants of sales performance, which was based on literature published before these critical changes became apparent. This paper aims to conduct a systematic review of sales performance research published during 1983–2018 to propose an extension to Verbeke et al.’s (2011) classification.

This paper followed a systematic approach to the literature review in five sequential steps – search, selection, quality control, extraction and synthesis – as suggested by Tranfield et al. (2003). In total, 261 peer-reviewed journal papers from 36 different journals were selected for extraction and synthesis.

The findings make the following additions to the classification: strategic and nonstrategic activities as a new category, technological drivers of sales performance and job-related psychosocial factors as a broader category to replace role perceptions. Derived from the job demand–control–support model, three subcategories within the category of job-related psychosocial factors are psychological demands (encompasses role perceptions and digital-age stressors such as technostress creators), job control and work-related social support.

This paper identifies that manager’s role in facilitating technology skills, providing informal social support to remote or virtual salespeople using technology, and encouraging strategic behaviors in salespeople are future research areas having good potential. Understanding and building positive psychology aspects in salespeople and their effect on sales performance is another promising area.

Newly added technological drivers draw the attention of sales firms toward the influence of technology and its skilful usage on salesperson performance. Newly added strategic activities makes a case for the importance of strategic participation in salesperson performance.

This review extends Verbeke et al.’s (2011) classification scheme to include recent changes that sales profession and literature have undergone.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships between grit, unethical behavior and job stress among business-to-business salespeople.

The empirical analysis includes 240 business-to-business salespeople. Structural equation modeling is used to test the study’s hypotheses.

Results suggest grit is directly related to less frequent unethical behavior and customer-directed deviance. Neutralization techniques positively moderate the relationship between salesperson grit and both unethical behavior and customer-directed deviance. Grit is indirectly related to job stress through the positive relationship between unethical behavior and job stress.

Given research on grit in sales is relatively new several opportunities to pursue additional research in this area are presented.

Sales leaders may benefit from administering the salesperson grit scale as part of the screening process and developing grit among salespeople through training and coaching. Sales leaders should emphasize the negative impact of adopting neutralization techniques (excuses) in condoning unethical behaviors. The indirect effect of grit in reducing job stress through ethical behaviors underscores potential ways to mitigate costly and detrimental sales outcome losses.

This study develops a novel framework to explore the relationships between grit and unethical behaviors as moderated by neutralization techniques (excuses); examines an additional component of grit not previously considered in some studies of salespeople; and investigates whether these relationships increase a previously unexplored outcome – job stress.

This paper aims to examine the role of volitive desire in self-control toward temptations. It extends prior research on the role of prudence in temptation resistance by empirically demonstrating that prudence bolsters self-control toward food temptations by lowering volitive desire motivation toward temptation enactment.

This study consists of a 2 (food type: temptation vs goal-congruent) × 2 (prudence level: low vs high) between-subjects quasi-experimental design. Hypothesis tests were conducted by using analysis of covariance and ordinary least squares regression-based moderated mediation analysis.

The results show that high-prudence participants experienced lower volitive desire toward eating the temptation food option than low-prudence participants. Consequently, high- (vs low-) prudence participants reported significantly weaker eating intentions toward the temptation food option. Moreover, volitive desire significantly mediated the effect of prudence level on intentions to eat the temptation food option.

The study contains methodological limitations. First, the study operationalizes volitive desire as “non-appetitive, instrumental reasons for eating or not eating the food,” yet in some contexts volitive desire can include appetitive reasons. Second, the procedure consisted of presenting participants with only a goal-consistent or temptation food option, rather than with both, which is more realistic. The study also focuses on a single goal context, healthy eating, to the exclusion of other contexts associated with consumer self-control. Additionally, the appetitive and volitive desire self-report measure method produced flawed ratings, requiring us to use the open-ended responses as this study’s dependent variable. Finally, this study does not directly test the extent of prudence-driven deliberation about temptation enactment consequences.

Social marketing campaigns can encourage low prudence consumers to strengthen this behavioral trait by performing beneficial, slightly to moderately challenging utilitarian tasks (e.g. making one’s bed each morning, flossing one’s teeth every evening, etc.) that involve exercising self-control on a regular basis. Social marketing ads can also appeal to the consequence-vigilance of high prudence consumers by increasing the salience of consequences of self-control failures in behaviors related to social issues such as pollution, drinking and driving, smoking and recreational drug use. An additional implication is that marketers of health goal-related products and services could segment the market based on trait prudence and target high-prudence consumers with ads that increase the salience of consequences associated with not using the company’s health product or service or the consequences of using the competition’s products or services.

Consumers can improve their well-being by exercising self-control consistently in low to moderately challenging tasks, which boosts their prudence. High-prudence consumers can intentionally focus on volitive motives when faced with temptations to ensure effective self-control.

This research examines the role of volitive desire as the process by which trait prudence affects intentions toward temptation options, which extends prior research on the role of prudence in self-control for temptations (Puri, 1996). This framework builds on the philosophy of action perspective on desire and shows that trait prudence can predict temptation enactment intentions through the mediating role of volitive desire. Thus, the findings illuminate the motivational mechanism by which prudence bolsters self-control in the face of temptation: volitive desire.

Sales organizations embrace technological innovation. However, salespeople’s willingness to use new technology influences a firm’s return on investment, representing a significant concern for the organization. These concerns highlight tensions regarding the tradeoffs associated with technology implementations. The purpose of this study is to offer insights that help reduce the complexities of sales technology (ST) by exploring the changing dynamics of contemporary business relationships.

This paper synthesizes the ST literature using the service ecosystem perspective to propose the sales techno-ecosystem (STE) framework, providing new insights into organizational decision-making related to the ongoing digital transformation of sales tasks.

This synthesis of the ST literature with the service ecosystem seeks to clarify the impact of technology within the evolving nature of buyer–seller relationships by providing four unique perspectives.

Perspective 1 reviews the sales-service ecosystem framework and develops the theoretical underpinnings and relevant terminologies. Perspective 2 summarizes critical aspects of the ST literature and provides foundations for future research in the STE. Perspective 3 offers a more granular view, explicating roles and contexts prevalent in buyer–seller–technology interactions. Perspective 4 provides a set of tenets and advances research questions related to each tenet.

The culmination of these four perspectives is the introduction of five key tenants designed to help guide strategy and research.

The paper advances Hartmann et al. (2018) service ecosystem paradigm by explicating critical aspects of its ST domain to generate insights for theory and practice.

The purpose of this study is to reveal important insights by examining the relationships of two different field managers’ monitoring styles with performance through salespersons’ engagement.

Data was collected from 318 salespersons’ from 20 pharmaceutical firms. Given the performance-driven nature of the pharmaceutical sales profession, field managers seek to adopt the best monitoring style, which can optimize individual’s performance while providing a healthy work environment.

The results from multivariate analysis show the evidence of positive relationship between interactional monitoring and salespersons’ engagement. The results also confirm that engagement partially mediates the proposed relationships.

Authors assimilate and extend research and theory on field managers’ monitoring, salespersons’ performance and salespersons’ engagement to advance a model of salespersons’ reactions to different monitoring styles based on self-determination theory. Perhaps in no other field, the salespersons-field managers’ relationship is as important as in the field of pharmaceutical selling. The study offers insights about the important consequence of two different monitoring styles; also the study is one of the exceptional efforts to provide evidence regarding the role of engagement in the relationship between two different monitoring styles and salespersons’ performance.

The purpose of this study is to use a developed and pre-tested scenario-based measurement instrument for policy compliance and determine whether policy compliance measurements in the current policy compliance research are biased as has been postulated during a pre-study. The expected biases are because of social desirability and because of biases based on identity theory.

A survey was conducted (n = 54) that used policy compliance scales from literature and the developed self-reporting policy compliance (SRPC) scale, along with the Marlow–Crowne social desirability (MC-SDB) scale. Differences between the policy compliance scales were assessed. Moreover, a transformation of the SRPC measurements into the literature-based scales was examined using pair-wise t-testing. Finally, correlations between the MC-SDB and the policy compliance scales were examined.

There are no significant influences on the desire for social approval of the respondents as was exhibited by the MC-SDB values and policy compliance on either scale. However, the SRPC scale measurements show deviations from the literature-based policy compliance scales. Individuals that exhibit secure behaviour, which is not rooted in a policy but rather in anything but the policy, are also captured as being policy compliant in the current scales. This shows that a response bias exists in current scales. Respondents, who perceive to exhibit secure behaviours, may think that they are in compliance with the policy, even when they are not.

These findings mean that several contributions in the field of policy compliance must be questioned and that a revisit of several factors influencing policy compliance may be required.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, response biases in policy compliance research have not been considered to date.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of consumer spending self-control (CSSC), personal saving orientation (PSO), materialism, financial knowledge (FK) and time perspective (TP) on Brazilian consumers’ perceived financial well-being.

A conceptual framework is provided to support the research hypotheses. A survey with 1,027 respondents allowed the research hypotheses to be tested by means of regression-based models.

The findings show that the two dimensions of financial well-being – current money management stress and future financial security – are predicted by CSSC, materialism and TP; PSO also predicts future financial security. TP moderates the effect of materialism on current money management stress, and CSSC mediates this relationship.

The role of FK in predicting financial well-being is weakened in the presence of the psychological variables investigated, which has important implications for financial education efforts. The use of survey data alone limits the research findings, as the advocated causal relationships are based solely on theory; gathering experimental data to further support the findings is a possibility for future research.

Banks and other financial institutions can create tools to stimulate control of their customers’ day-to-day spending and try to show assertive projections to evidence the impact of their present actions on their financial future, enhancing personal awareness and promoting overall well-being.

The authors advance knowledge on the antecedents of financial well-being and offer two explanations involving moderating and mediating relationships that enhance the understanding of the individual differences that shape current money management stress.