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The main purpose of this research is to investigate the influence of promotional inputs presented to salespeople, such as continuing medical education (CME) sponsorship and drug samples, on adaptive selling and sales performance.

This study used a mixed-methods approach. First, depth interviews were done and this was followed by a survey on 247 pharmaceutical executives in India. Data analysis was done using AMOS, Process Macro and floodlight analysis.

Results showed that CME sponsorship and drug samples drove adaptive selling and sales performance positively. Additionally, results reveal that CME program sponsorship negatively moderated the adaptive selling–sales performance relationship; free drug samples too negatively moderated this relationship.

Firms may hire salespersons with high customer orientation and adaptive selling and train them hone these further. The present research also crucially suggests that pharma firms may allocate CME sponsorship and drug samples to salespeople low on adaptive selling.

This could be the first study, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, that uses promotional inputs (such as CME sponsorship and drug samples) as an antecedent to adaptive selling and sales performance. Moreover, this is the only research that has tested CME sponsorships and drug samples as moderators to customer orientation–adaptive selling and adaptive selling–sales performance.

The principal purpose of this study is to examine the moderating influence of selling experience on the following two relationships – adaptive selling and job satisfaction and customer orientation and job satisfaction – using unionized salespeople as respondents. It also tests for the mediating role of adaptive selling in the customer orientation–job satisfaction relationship.

This paper uses data from a survey conducted on 208 pharmaceutical unionized salespeople from 46 pharmaceutical firms in India. The model was tested using structural equation modeling. Moderation hypotheses were estimated using process macro and the Johnson–Neyman technique.

The data fitted the model well. This research found that customer orientation drove adaptive selling behavior and job satisfaction, and that adaptive selling influenced job satisfaction (all positively); it was found that adaptive selling partially mediated the relationship between customer orientation and job satisfaction. Results revealed that job experience negatively moderated the adaptive selling behavior–job satisfaction and customer orientation–job satisfaction relationships.

The results show that pharma firms may hire young recruits and, importantly, measure their customer orientation and adaptive selling levels. For the purposes of training to enhance customer orientation and adaptive selling, pharma firms may send only their less experienced salespersons.

To the authors’ knowledge, this study could be the first to examine the interaction of job experience and customer-directed selling behaviors such as adaptive selling and customer orientation on job satisfaction. Moreover, this is possibly the only study in this domain that uses unionized salespeople in an emerging market (India).

This paper aims to popularize the Bayesian methods among novice management researchers. The paper interprets the results of Bayesian method of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), structural equation modelling (SEM), mediation and moderation analysis, with the intention that the novice researchers will apply this method in their research. The paper made an attempt in discussing various complex mathematical concepts such as Markov Chain Monte Carlo, Bayes factor, Bayesian information criterion and deviance information criterion (DIC), etc. in a lucid manner.

Data collected from 172 pharmaceutical sales representatives were used. The study will help the management researchers to perform Bayesian CFA, Bayesian SEM, Bayesian moderation analysis and Bayesian mediation analysis using SPSS AMOS software.

The interpretation of the results of Bayesian CFA, Bayesian SEM and Bayesian mediation analysis were discussed.

The management scholars are non-statisticians and are not much aware of the benefits offered by Bayesian methods. Hitherto, the management scholars use predominantly traditional SEM in validating their models empirically, and this study will give an exposure to “Bayesian statistics” that has practical advantages.

This is one paper, which discusses the following four concepts: Bayesian method of CFA, SEM, mediation and moderation analysis.

In pharmaceutical marketing, salespeople require promotional instruments to satisfy and retain their customers (physicians), but companies ignore the need because of the costs involved. It appears that the importance of promotional support is understood differently by managers and sales representatives. This study aims at developing a new construct called “promotional support”, as a resource support provided to salespeople to help them satisfy customer needs and achieve sales goals.

A detailed review of literature is followed by in-depth interviews to create items for the construct “promotional support”. Substantive validity is performed for identification of items measuring the construct. To initially validate the measures, a vignette study is performed. Formative index development procedure is followed. Data from a sample of 124 pharmaceutical sales representatives are collected and analyzed.

A formative construct is developed which possesses convergent (redundancy analysis) and nomological validity. The results of post hoc validation tests like confirmatory tetrad analysis and inter-item correlation are satisfactory and confirm the authors’ conceptualization.

The scale requires external validation by testing it with different samples such as managers of pharmaceutical firms.

This study will help managers of pharmaceutical firms gain insights into the role and importance of promotional inputs given to their sales representatives.

This study uses the formative scale development procedure to develop promotional support. This construct can be used to understand the effect of promotional support given to pharmaceutical sales representatives on other constructs, which in turn helps in theory-building.

The direct selling model adopted in the beauty and cosmetics industry puts female consumer entrepreneurs at the heart of the business model. A neglected phenomenon in female entrepreneurship, this study aims to focus on female sales agents’ capabilities that are linked to sales performance and examine which capabilities might be shaped and enhanced through coaching and training in an emerging economy context.

Survey data were generated from a sample of 249 female sales agents who agreed to participate in a coaching and training programme run by a focal firm. Data were collected in two phases to investigate the capabilities linked to sales performance pre-intervention and the impact of coaching and training on the relationships between the capabilities and sales performance post-intervention. The time-lag data were analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling.

For female sales agents, self-efficacy and sales experience have a significant positive effect on adaptive sales performance both before and after the coaching and training intervention. In contrast, intellectual capital and self-motivation had a non-significant relationship with sales performance before the intervention. However, after the intervention, the relationship between these variables became positive and significant.

The study demonstrates the effects of pre- and post-coaching and training on female consumer entrepreneurs’ capabilities and the links to sales performance. These findings add critical empirical knowledge on how female consumer entrepreneurship may be developed and the role of entrepreneurship for female empowerment in the Asian context. Collectively, the findings bring to the fore the female sphere in consumer entrepreneurship research in emerging economies.

Launching a new product successfully in a multi-brand portfolio is one of the major challenges a pharmaceutical marketer faces. This study aims to examine the role of detailing of new brands on physicians’ prescription behaviour as compared to established brands. Further, the study explores mediating role of detailing priority and detailing time on the relationship between detailing of new versus established brands and physician’s prescription behaviour.

This study was conducted as a real-world observational study involving field research. In total, 338 physicians, 90 PSRs and 44 field managers participated in this study. A serial mediation model (Hayes, Model 6) was used to examine the relationship. Regression analysis with bootstrapping was used to test the hypotheses.

Detailing of new versus established brands has a differential effect on physicians’ prescription behaviour. In addition, this relationship is serially mediated by detailing priority and detailing time.

Results suggest that detailing priority and detailing time positively and significantly alter the relationship between the detailing of new brands and physicians’ prescription behaviour as compared to established brands. While, in the absence of mediators, established brands generate higher prescriptions than new brands, the serial mediating effect helps new brands to generate more prescriptions as compared to established brands.

This research highlights the importance of detailing priority and detailing time for the successful launch of the new products. It presents compelling evidence for practicing managers to effectively use a “predetermined detailing plan” vis-à-vis “individualized detailing strategy” during the launch of a new brand.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to evaluate the role of detailing priority and detailing time as mediators between the relationship of detailing and physicians’ prescription behaviour. This is also one of the rare studies to use real-world observational study methodology for conducting research.

The purpose of the study was to benchmark meta-analytical conceptualizations of business-to-business (B2B) seller skills against empirical evidence in services firms.

The study is based on a deductive approach and questionnaire survey focusing on a range of services firms from different industries and corporate sizes. A total of 389 questionnaires out of 732 were returned, generating a response rate of 53.1%.

The study aims to provide empirical evidence and structures relating to B2B sellers' capabilities in a seven-dimensional conceptualization, all of which can be used in services firms to improve their seller efficiency. Each seller skill dimension performs a different function in the sales services process.

The authors conclude that the verified meta-analytical conceptualizations of B2B seller skills seem valid and reliable in services firms. Nevertheless, further research needs to be carried out, based on other company characteristics as well as industries.

It reduces the risk perceived by customers in B2B services settings through cultivating the sellers' capabilities, based on the seven-dimensional evidence of seller skills to enhance sales performance.

The study contributes to existing theory and previous studies by offering a foundation on which to structure sales performance indicators in services firms. Specifically, it contributes to structuring B2B seller skills across a selection of principal dimensions in B2B services settings.

This study aims to investigate cultural intelligence (CQ) as an antecedent of adaptive selling behavior (ASB) and cultural distance and intrinsic motivation as moderators in this relationship.

This research builds on a survey to 310 US-based international sales executives (ISE) and multiple regression analysis to test the hypotheses.

The results show that CQ has a significant positive relationship with ASB, both as an aggregate construct and through its metacognitive, motivational and behavioral facets. Also, intrinsic motivation moderates such relationship, whereas cultural distance does not.

The study includes only a sample of US-based international salespeople in the B2B context, which limits the generalizability of the findings to salespeople from other countries or other contexts.

The findings of this research suggest that supplier companies involved in international selling should consider the cultural intelligence of their salespeople for selection, training and coaching.

This study makes an important contribution to the literature on both ASB and CQ by expanding the knowledge on how to manage international salespeople effectively, considering the conditions under which CQ effects are expected and how these vary in this context.

Principally, this study aims to test a conceptual framework of the moderating influence of fear of COVID-19 on the following hypothesized relationships (1) quality of work life and bankers' commitment, (2) the mediating spillover effect of job satisfaction in the quality of work life (QWL) and affective commitment relationship.

A quantitative cross-sectional research design is adopted on 318 bankers chosen from four prominent Indian cities. The mediation model is tested through SPSS, PROCESS macro, and AMOS. Conditional process modeling is also administered to test the moderating effect of fear of COVID-19.

The results suggest that the positive effect of QWL on commitment is completely mediated through job satisfaction. Further, the fear induced by COVID-19 negatively moderated the positive direct relation of QWL with commitment and the positive mediating spillover effect of job satisfaction.

The present research is virtually the first to introduce fear of COVID-19 as a psychological construct, to test a moderated mediation model for implications to organizational behavior and human psychology theory and practice. In coalescence of the need satisfaction, spillover, and COR theories, the authors postulate that as spillover between the domains of an individual's life (work, social, financial, personal, and overall life satisfaction) occurs, such effect is calibrated (augmented or attenuated) by the degree of risk/threat/depletion of their resources in the quest for attaining higher valued resources (overall life satisfaction). The moderated mediation mechanism is suggested for replication in other avenues for greater generalizability.

In an ongoing War for Talent, what are the intangible and tangible return on investments (ROIs) for boundary-spanning employees? This study aims to develop a formative structural equation model (SEM) of the Matthew effect in talent. management.

This study develops a formative SEM theoretical model. Training and development (T&D) are the two antecedents of the latent construct – talent management strategy (TMS). This study frames the latent construct (TMS) in the proximal context of reducing burnout (cynicism and inefficacy), the distal context of subjective and intangible outcomes (job and life satisfaction) and the omnibus context of objective, tangible and financial rewards (the sales commission). The study collected data from multiple sources – objective sales commission from personnel records and subjective survey data from 512 sales employees.

The empirical discoveries support the theory. Both T&D contribute significantly to the TMS, which reduces burnout in the immediate context. TMS enhances job satisfaction more than life satisfaction in the distal context. TMS significantly and indirectly improves boundary spanners’ sales commission in the omnibus context via life satisfaction, but not job satisfaction. The model prevails for the whole sample, men, but not women.

Our discoveries offer practical implications for the Matthew effect in talent management: policymakers must cultivate T&D, develop TMS, facilitate the spillover effect from job satisfaction to life satisfaction, concentrate on the meaning in their lives and take their mind off money. TMS ultimately helps ignite these boundary spanners’ sales commission and their organization’s bottom line and financial health. The rich get richer.

It is life satisfaction (not job satisfaction) that excites boundary-spanning employees’ high level of sales commission. Our model prevails for the whole sample and men, but not for women. Job satisfaction spills over to life satisfaction for the entire sample, for men, but not for women. The results reveal gender differences.