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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.

This paper aims to focus on changes in the way in which business‐to‐business companies are responding to customer and market pressures for higher service and relational investments, and the need for new capabilities in managing the business risk in the company's customer portfolio. The paper seeks to propose a model of the strategic sales organization as a basis for management review of how to realign sales, account management, and marketing processes around customers to achieve and sustain superior customer value.

The study traces the emergence of new pressures and mandates which are changing management thinking about the “front‐end” of organizations and edging companies towards a revolution in the role of sales, account management and marketing comparable to earlier reinventions in operations and supply chain strategy.

The outcome of the review is a model of the imperatives for the strategic sales organization.

The model produced in the review provides a tool or framework for executive consideration of the strategic sales issue, both in evaluating the strategic role and performance of the existing sales and account management structures and in designing new roles for delivering competitive strength in the future.

While the strategic role of the sales organization has been discussed in the literature, this paper provides a practical framework for executives to use in addressing the potential role of the strategic sales organization. The framework also highlights promising research directions for marketing and sales scholars.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to examine practices of and differences between small and large organizations as they relate to the training of sales managers.

Utilizing a survey approach, data were collected from a sample of sales managers and trainers employed by firms across the USA. Analysis was conducted between “small” and “large” organizations based on sales force size.

While many similarities do exist between small and large firms' sales manager training practices, some significant differences also exist in terms of teaching approaches, types of instructors, training locations, methods, and content utilized. Results of the current study exhibit both similarities and differences as compared to results of sales manager training practices found in earlier studies.

The study was based on a sample of sales managers and trainers employed by firms within the USA. Sales manager training practices could differ due to cultural differences, the industry the firm competes in, and other factors.

First, sales manager training activities show more similarities than differences between small and large firms. Second, internet‐based training methods are becoming prevalent in large firms while still struggling for acceptance in smaller ones. Third, no one type of instructor is viewed as being highly effective in either small or large firms. Fourth, senior management must support and encourage positive behavioral changes associated with sales manager training or else efforts will fail.

The current study answers the call for research to identify contemporary sales manager training practices, building upon results of previous studies.

This is Part II of a new approach to survey studies called knobby analyses of knobless survey items. In Part II, this approach is applied to a study of the national sales organization of a large high‐technology firm called here Euphoria BioTechnology. A 17 item Employee Opinion Survey (EOS) was constructed and administered concurrently with an Organizational Diagnostic Survey (ODS). The EOS inquired about the main features and properties of the organization and the ODS, based on the theory of the organizational hologram, provided a series of knobs which were used to “explain” their variance. Knobby analyses involve moving beyond data expertise to expert data. Data expertise is employed in both the EOS and the ODS surveys. However, knobby analyses allow one to leverage the EOS results to improve the derivation of the conclusions or meanings of the results of the survey data and to reach recommendations. Furthermore, knobby analyses allow follow‐up analyses of special management problems. Four examples of these subsequent analyses are provided in order to illustrate the process of producing expert data via the knobby analyses approach. It is inconclusive whether or not knobby analyses are more expensive than expert data processes using only the EOS results. However, knobby analyses did provide more and different information than an EOS could have done alone.

Key components of the logistics mix are described in an effort to create an understanding of the total logistics concept. Chapters include an introduction to logistics; the strategic role of logistics, customer service levels, channel relationships, facilities location, transport, inventory management, materials handling, interface with production, purchasing and materials management, estimating demand, order processing, systems performance, leadership and team building, business resource management.

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.

Salesperson behavior performance is conceptualized as a predictor of outcome performance and sales organization effectiveness. The research considers the effects of salesperson capabilities, industrial/consumer products, and industry growth moderators on salesperson performance and sales organization effectiveness relationships. Empirical analyses are conducted using data from a sample of 174 field sales managers in Austrian sales organizations. The results of moderator regression analyses indicate that salesperson capabilities, product type, and industry growth are relevant moderators. The roles of the moderators vary across the relationships analyzed. Several management and research implications are examined.

Prior studies have extensively explored individual examples of unethical behavior in sales organizations but focused little on repeated violation (RV) of ethical codes, particularly when managers develop salesforces. Based on social learning theory (SLT), the authors propose a multilevel model of RV antecedents and suggest that organizational influence (social cues and modeling) and individual factors (observer characteristics and behavioral outcomes) affect RV, especially with increasing recruitment of salespeople.

Using data from a leading financial company in Taiwan, the authors analyzed 1,231 records of salespeople’s misbehavior through logistic regression and average marginal effects.

Modeling in the organization (i.e. peer misconduct), observer characteristics (i.e. experience concerning job tenure and prior violations) and behavioral outcomes (i.e. information concealment violations) were all found to affect the likelihood of RV, and the interactional effect of organizational size was confirmed.

This study contributes to ethical decision-making theory by explaining aspects of RV through SLT. Its multilevel model, integrated with organizational strategy theories, adds an SLT-focused paradigm into unethical behavior research by considering vicarious learning and self-learning, alongside the reciprocal determinism of cognition, behavior, and environment.

Managers should consider socially based patterns of violation when initiating a sales business plan. The chances of RV are increased by unethical models in the organization and offenders’ potential for violations, which is reinforced by social environment.

This study clarified the key drivers of RV decision-making using SLT and identified an effective sales development strategy to maintain an ethically responsible salesforce.