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Properly conceived, conducted and interpreted, motivation research can be an extremely powerful management tool, designed to help the manufacturer or advertiser to sell more goods. Its aim is to expose the market situation, explain it and suggest courses of action which will lead to desired changes. It is a way of looking at a problem rather than a collection of specialist techniques and is strictly practical. Hence it can be used alongside other market research tools for the solution of marketing problems and can be applied to a wide range of business activities. Much of its development has been in the advertising field but it can also help in the formulation of production policy, solving packaging problems and marketing operations. It is examined here in all these contexts. The idea of motivation research, the reasons for its use and the techniques by which to apply it are discussed, as well as the pitfalls that are likely to occur. New and imaginary case studies are used throughout to illustrate points. A review of the subject literature is included.

This paper focuses on the role of personality congruence, between salespeople’s own personality and the personality of the brand they represent, in driving salesperson identification with the brand and its subsequent effects on important sales force outcomes, including intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, task self-efficacy and both behavioral and outcome performance.

Data was collected via an online survey from a cross-sectional sample of salespeople. In all, 246 completed the survey. SmartPLS was used to estimate the measurement model and test the hypothesized path relationships using a (partial least squares) structural model.

Results indicated support for all proposed hypotheses in our model. In conclusion, we demonstrate, that the congruency of the salesperson personality with his or her perceived brand personality has a significant impact on the brand identification by the salesperson. This identification has important sales force outcomes, including affecting intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, task self-efficacy and both behavioral and outcome performance. This supports the notion of social identity theory as an important theoretical framework for understanding how the salesperson relates to and delivers the brand message.

Previous research has investigated the drivers and implications of customers’ identification with brands and employees’ identification with their organizations. However, less research attention has focused on salesperson identification with the brand. Given the uniqueness of the boundary-spanning role and the importance of the salesperson to the marketing communication of the brand image, investigation of the drivers of salesperson brand identification becomes particularly important.

To achieve a full understanding of the role of marketing from plan to profit requires a knowledge of the basic building blocks. This textbook introduces the key concepts in the art or science of marketing to practising managers. Understanding your customers and consumers, the 4 Ps (Product, Place, Price and Promotion) provides the basic tools for effective marketing. Deploying your resources and informing your managerial decision making is dealt with in Unit VII introducing marketing intelligence, competition, budgeting and organisational issues. The logical conclusion of this effort is achieving sales and the particular techniques involved are explored in the final section.

Missing in most of the research on selling has been an examination of the process from the point of view of the customer. When satisfaction in selling has been considered, researchers have focused on the satisfaction of the salesperson with his job and/or the impact of this job satisfaction on performance (e.g. Bluen, Barling & Burns, 1990; Churchill, Ford & Walker, 1979; Pruden & Peterson, 1971). To concentrate on salesperson performance while neglecting customers is to ignore the most important half of the relationship between buyers and sellers and entirely disregards the marketing concept and the streams of research in customer satisfaction. This research takes a different approach and examines customers’ satisfaction with salespeople.

Drawing on socioanalytic theory, this paper aims to explore whether a moderation mediation model can describe the mechanism linking salesperson social reputation (perceived stability and plasticity) and performance (customer share of wallet) in relationship marketing. The mediator is the salesperson’s overall equity, and the moderator is the salesperson-customer congruence.

A structured questionnaire was used to obtain data from 233 customers, served by 44 personal finance advisors at five banking agencies in Canada.

A multilevel approach showed that both perceived stability and perceived plasticity predict salesperson equity and performance. In addition, the empirical results indicated that the relationship between perceived stability and salesperson performance is partially mediated by salesperson overall equity. However, equity fully mediated the relationship between perceived plasticity and salesperson performance. Finally, the salesperson-customer congruence moderated the effect of both perceived stability and plastic on the salesperson overall equity.

This research suggests that the moderation mediation model enables predicting the relationship between the perceived personality and performance. From a managerial perspective, the author encourages sales managers to pay attention to salespersons’ equity development as well as their performance. Notably, the author suggests that sales managers support and monitor salespeople with regard to improving their social status as well as their social popularity in their interactions with customers.

Previous research in sales force literature focuses on salespersons’ self-personality to predict sales performance. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study is the first to show it is important to consider the perceived personality of a salesperson in predicting their performance. This study is also the first to introduce the salesperson reputation concept and its dimensions (perceived stability and plasticity).

In the last four years, since Volume I of this Bibliography first appeared, there has been an explosion of literature in all the main functional areas of business. This wealth of material poses problems for the researcher in management studies — and, of course, for the librarian: uncovering what has been written in any one area is not an easy task. This volume aims to help the librarian and the researcher overcome some of the immediate problems of identification of material. It is an annotated bibliography of management, drawing on the wide variety of literature produced by MCB University Press. Over the last four years, MCB University Press has produced an extensive range of books and serial publications covering most of the established and many of the developing areas of management. This volume, in conjunction with Volume I, provides a guide to all the material published so far.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

This paper aims to develop and empirically test a conceptual framework explaining the influence of the sales force on brand equity relative to the product and promotion elements of the marketing mix, in the context of business‐to‐business marketing.

Six research hypotheses, relating to the effects of four key drivers of B‐to‐B brand equity identified in a review of the relevant literature, were empirically tested with a sample of 201 respondents in B‐to‐B firms in Germany, using partial least squares analysis.

The results confirm the high relevance of the sales force to the building and maintenance of a strong B‐to‐B brand. The most important driver of brand equity in this environment is the salesperson's behaviour, followed in sequence by his or her personality, product quality and non‐personal marketing communications.

The sample size permits only a general analysis and conclusions. The choice of PLS analysis and formative scales limits the rigorousness of scale and model evaluation. The decision to interview one manager per company may have introduced informant bias.

The study identifies controllable variables that are critical to the effective management of a B‐to‐B brand and offers an alternative approach to the measurement of brand equity in B‐to‐B marketing.

This is the first study to test the widely claimed influence of the sales force on B‐to‐B brand equity empirically, developing a simple but powerful framework to integrate sales management and brand management in this context.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the concept of salesperson coachability and to propose potential relationships between it and sales coaching and sales performance.

This conceptual paper reviews the sales coaching and sales performance literature to highlight how the knowledge of each may be enhanced by the coachability construct. The concept of athletic coachability is then introduced to explain why it should be adapted and applied to salespeople in a personal selling context.

Adapting and applying the concept of athlete coachability to salespeople in a personal selling context may provide sales management practitioners and academics a better understanding of how certain salesperson personality traits combine and interact with certain situational influences to impact sales performance.

Future studies need to test the propositions advanced.

Salesperson coachability may be used by sales managers as a screening criterion for sales force recruiting and retention.

Salesperson coachability assessments for recruiting and training may result in lowering job turnover.

This paper introduces the concept of athletic coachability to the sales literature, argues why the concept should be adapted and applied to salespeople in a personal selling context, and advances testable propositions with respect to its expected relationship with sales coaching and sales performance.