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Not that long ago, half of all sales research was demonstrably if not unequivocally “atheoretical” (Williams and Plouffe, 2007). The foundational argument of this paper is that stronger theoretical development and application of theory in sales research is critical for the sales field to retain its relevancy. The purpose of this paper is to underscore that deliberate and cogent application of HWV (2018) is scant in the recent sales literature (over five years after publication in Journal of Marketing) for one or both of two reasons: scholars either do not understand the paper and/or are fearful of (mis)applying it.

More than simply introducing the articles to this special issue of the European Journal of Marketing (EJM), this paper also makes a number of important, overdue contributions. Although Hartmann, Wieland and Vargo’s JM (HWV, 2018) theoretical and conceptual paper has been well-received by the sales community, it has seen limited meaningful integration or application in sales research since its publication. This paper thus clarifies key misunderstandings and misperceptions with HWV (2018) so that sales researchers can more impactfully apply it to future sales research.

This paper identifies and then explains key aspects of service-dominant logic (S-D logic) and commonly misapplied and/or misunderstood aspects of HWV (2018) to guide future sales research. Ultimately, the overarching goal of this special issue of EJM is to focus a “spotlight” on sales theory development, while simultaneously demonstrating – through the five articles the special issue reports – that with purposeful effort, rich theoretical insights can effectively be applied to both “classic” and more current and emergent sales research topics.

Because HWV (2018) draw heavily upon S-D logic, it follows that some aspects of their article have been misinterpreted or misapplied by sales scholars. In particular, the critical concept of “crossing points” (both of the “thick” and “thin” variety) are explicated and detailed further, so as to afford sales researchers with better knowledge and insight on how to apply these key tools within HWV (2018).

The practical implications of this paper primarily revolve around further educating and clarifying for sales researchers “how” to better apply HWV (2018) to sales research, rather than simply citing it in passing. The paper also concludes by providing a summary and introduction to each of the five EJM special issue articles.

The originality and value of this paper and this special issue of the EJM is twofold. First, both this paper and the entire special issue itself emphasize the ongoing importance of advancing sales research through the meaningful and cogent application of theory. Second, the paper demonstrates that purposeful effort can lead to successful applications of HWV (2018) – as exhibited by the five articles in the EJM special issue – such that rich theoretical insights can be woven into both traditional and contemporary sales research topics.

The purpose of this study is to extend sales control research to inside sales. Aside from a few notable exceptions (Conde et al., 2022) much of the sales control literature has focused on a single control mechanism rather than a sales control portfolio perspective. The authors add multiple layers to Conde et al. (2022) by capturing secondary operational data and manager interviews to access sales control theory in practice.

With operational data from a Fortune 100 financial services company and sales manager interviews, the authors present evidence that managers apply a portfolio of controls to ensure sales agents’ overall performance.

Findings support that cultural controls have a greater influence on overall performance than a focus solely on process and outcome controls. Inside sales managers can generate better results when they focus on creating an employee-centric culture rather than controlling sales agents with formal sales controls.

This study extends sales control research by examining inside sales managers’ formal and informal sales controls. Historically, inside sales had sales leaders balance a myriad of sales controls grounded in strict oversight. With a few notable exceptions, the limited inside sales control research provides the opportunity to display an inside sales manager’s need to jointly focus on operational results and sales outcomes, illustrating the importance of cultural controls compared to other sales process and outcome controls. This research considerably extends sales controls research by focusing on inside sales.

Lengthy and complex routes to specialist care may negatively affect clinical profiles of trauma survivors accessing mental health services. The purpose of this study was to describe the characteristics and referral pathways of a cohort of clients accepted by a specialist trauma service in England; and investigate the associations between referral pathways and clients’ clinical profiles, namely, pre-treatment levels of post-traumatic stress, depression, anxiety, stress and post-traumatic growth.

Data on 117 consecutive, accepted referrals were extracted from clients’ clinical records. Information on demographics, trauma histories, clinical presentations and referral pathways was synthesised through summary statistics. Correlational analyses were conducted to test associations with pre-treatment scores.

Clients accessing the service were highly complex and mostly experienced prolonged, interpersonal trauma. Pathways to the service varied, but 50% of the sample had at least four “steps” in their referral histories and seven previous clinical contacts. The average time between trauma and specialist referral was 16.34 years. The number of referral steps positively, significatively and moderately correlated with anxiety and stress at pre-treatment.

Limitations include issues around collecting past referral information, the small sample size for clients with available pre-treatment data and the lack of post-treatment scores.

This evaluation provides an informative overview of the characteristics and referral pathways of clients accessing a specialist trauma service. It also offers preliminary insights on the relationship between clients’ routes into the service and their clinical profiles. Practice, commissioning and research implications are discussed.

Intrinsic motivation affects job satisfaction and turnover intention. Still, previous motivational studies among real estate brokers (brokers) have primarily focused on extrinsic rewards, leaving intrinsic rewards/motivation practically unexplored. The purpose of this study is therefore to evaluate the role of both satisfaction with intrinsic rewards (SIR) and satisfaction with extrinsic rewards (SER) on job satisfaction and turnover intention among Swedish brokers.

This article is a replication, more precisely an empirical generalization and extension, of Mosquera et al.’s (2020) study conducted among brokers in Portugal. Using a sample of 910 Swedish brokers, the study analyzes a conceptual framework and tests hypotheses by using partial least squares (PLS).

Results indicate that SIR has a very strong impact on job satisfaction, which is not the case in the Portuguese sample. On the other hand, SER does not have an impact on job satisfaction, which is the case in the Portuguese sample. SIR does not have an impact on turnover intention in the Swedish sample, whereas SER does. Job satisfaction has twice the positive impact on turnover intention in the Swedish sample compared to the Portuguese. Furthermore, job satisfaction mediates the relationship between SIR/SER and turnover intention.

Findings of this study extend the existing literature of satisfaction with extrinsic and in particular intrinsic rewards on job satisfaction and turnover intention in the context of the brokerage industry. The most interesting difference between the samples is that Swedish brokers display much higher levels of satisfaction with intrinsic rewards. On the other hand, Swedish brokers appear to be less driven by extrinsic rewards, which is not in line with prior studies within brokerage.

Both managers and students planning to become brokers should consider that SIR has a stronger impact on job satisfaction than SER. What are perceived as intrinsic rewards, however, is highly subjective, which is troublesome from a managerial perspective, even more so as SIR is much harder to influence than SER. Given that intrinsic motivation is primarily a consequence of needs fulfillment, screening of applicants for person-job fit ought to increase job satisfaction and reduce turnover given its focus on the congruence between job demands and worker’s needs, respectively, what a job provides and the worker’s needs.

This study contributes to the brokerage research field by indicating that being a broker differs substantially between countries and that intrinsic rewards matter for Swedish brokers.

The study seeks to examine the effect of the Covid-19 on organisational commitment with the mediating role of job satisfaction of Iraqi auditors to determine the impact the Corona has on the organisational commitment of Iraqi auditors with the mediating role of job satisfaction.

The study's statistical population consists of those auditors working in the auditing organisations and private sector auditing institutions in Iraq. The number of respondents was 1,500 and 305 questionnaires were collected and analysed using Cochran's formula. Data were collected using the Covid1-19 questionnaire developed by the researcher, Minnesota Life Satisfaction Questionnaire (1967) and Allen and Meyer (1990) Organisational Commitment Questionnaire. In this study, the components of individual fear, collective fear and the transition from a feeling of security to insecurity with 29 questions for the impact of Covid-19 and job satisfaction components derived from the Minnesota Model, which includes six components (payment system, nature of job, progress opportunities, organisational atmosphere, leadership style and physical condition) is based on 19 questions. The components of organisational commitment are based on three types of emotional commitment, continuance commitment and normative commitment with 24 questions. Structural equation modelling using Smart-PLS software was used to analyse the data.

The results showed that the Covid-19 effect variable was not significant on organisational commitment but was significant considering the mediating role of job satisfaction.

The paper has covered a very interesting topic nowadays and the results may give great insight to auditors in a challenging condition due to COVID 19.

This paper aims to explore the dimensions that foster the accomplishment of goals of business ecosystems.

The paper reviews recent contributions to business ecosystems and identifies the key pillars that support the achievement of good results.

The paper suggests that entanglement with the customers, value sharing based on a holistic win-win approach, organizational entrepreneurship alignment and continuous smart learning are four dimensions of criticality for designing an effective business ecosystem. These four dimensions nurture the relationships between participants and external actors to make ecosystems successful. Entanglement with the customer is critical to the long-term relevance of the value proposition that reinforces companies’ relationships within the second pillar of value sharing in a win-win system. The development is structured in an organizational alignment where entrepreneurship is the engine, from the employees themselves to the largest corporations, and is enriched with continuous learning based on the exploitation of knowledge and big data.

The paper identifies a set of four pillars of business ecosystem design for further empirical analysis by ecosystem researchers.

The paper provides managers and professionals with strategies to develop effective growth within business ecosystems.

The authors contribute a fresh perspective to the business ecosystems literature by identifying four key pillars of success in the current business landscape.

The purpose of this study is to investigate (1) how managers respond to stock price crashes, (2) why they respond and (3) how their responses affect shareholders.

This study employs a panel regression with various firm-level controls and firm- and year-fixed effects. The sample is comprised of 101,532 firm-year observations with 11,727 unique firms from 1950 to 2019. Using mutual fund flow redemption pressure as an exogenous variable to stock price crashes, the paper provides further evidence of the causality of documented findings.

Management becomes more focused on improving transparency, raising investment efficiency, reducing agency conflicts and regaining the trust of shareholders by investing in social capital and employee welfare. These actions increase firm value. This study also suggests that management undertakes these actions out of concern for their tenure of employment.

The catalysts of stock price crashes are well documented, but much less is known about what happens following stock price crashes. This study provides more insights into the understanding of corporate crisis management practices following adverse events.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of greater reporting prominence of translation results following Accounting Standard Update (ASU) 2011-05 on net investment (NI) hedging practice. The authors investigate the role of increased transparency on the decision to engage in NI hedging (participation), the degree of NI hedging (level) and the hedging vehicle choice.

This paper uses the Heckman two-stage procedure (Heckman, 1979) in the hedging choice analysis. In the first stage, the authors model the participation decision as a function of reporting transparency, translation results and other control variables. In the second stage, the authors include the Inverse Mills ratio from the first stage Probit to examine both the level and vehicle choice decisions.

When translation is reported more prominently, the authors find an increase in the level of NI hedging and a greater likelihood of debt as the hedging vehicle, but no evidence firms are more likely to hedge. Regardless of where translation results are reported, firms facing ongoing translation losses are more likely to hedge.

This paper examines S&P 500 firms in the years surrounding the effective date of ASU 2011-05. The findings suggest managers respond to the increase in reporting transparency by increasing hedging for long-term risk management purposes, supporting accounting authorities’ efforts to promote other comprehensive income information transparency. The results should hold for comparable firms with similar currency exposure, size and visibility, but may not apply to smaller firms with limited translation exposure. As only about a quarter of firms with translation exposure engage in NI hedging, the primary results are based on a relatively limited number of firms.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that examines NI hedging behavior changes following ASU-2011-05. Second, the authors are the first to explore why firms are almost equally split between derivatives and debt as their exclusive hedging vehicle.

The purpose of this study is to discuss the significance of “contextual factors” on the talent development of underserved populations. Understanding the “context” and background of an individual provides greater insight into their life experiences (Paik, 2013). Race, class and gender, in particular, play a role in one’s life, providing both barriers and opportunities.

To examine contextual and other factors, in-depth biographical case studies were systematically studied across 10 diverse notable artists and scientists. Over 85 autobiographies, biographies and other sources were carefully content-analyzed for commonalities and differences in artists’ and scientists’ lives.

Because of their ascribed statuses (e.g. race, class, gender), these individuals had to navigate their unique school and life circumstances. Within their sociocultural contexts, however, key relationships (e.g. parents, teachers, mentors and peers) helped mitigate the challenges. All artists and scientists had a “village” – key stakeholders who invested in them at every stage of their talent development.

Parents, teachers, mentors and peers are not only critical, but they are lifelines for talent development. Key implications discuss the role of contextual factors and support networks for aspiring diverse artists and scientists.

The theoretical framework for this study is based on the productive giftedness model (PGM) (Paik, 2013, 2015). PGM includes 10 key psychosocial and environmental factors and how they influence “productive giftedness” (e.g. achievements, accomplishments, leadership). Within the model, both “alterable” and “contextual factors” provide access to different opportunities, support and resources. The model is considered generalizable and applicable for diverse populations.

This article examines if the national productions of West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) countries can be substituted for the imports by testing MLRC in these countries.

The Mundell–Fleming model (MMF) is the analytical framework adopted in this paper with import demand and export supply functions estimation borrowed to Thirlwall (1979). This study covers four countries in West Africa from 1990 to 2021. The estimation procedure used is an Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach to cointegration.

The findings reveal that there is a strong marginal propensity to import in the WAEMU countries. The hypothesis of a non-significant price effect on imports in the short-term is confirmed for several countries while only Togo satisfies the MLRC in the short and long run.

This study presents several originalities: (1) it evaluates MLRC with a clear analytical framework; (2) unlike other studies, this article quantifies the MLRC from a theoretical, econometric and empirical point of view; (3) this article presents the results country by country in order to reveal heterogeneity between countries; (4) this study adds to the Marshall–Lerner condition for the derivation of Robinson by considering a situation where initially the trade balance is not in equilibrium.