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During 2003, compensation practices for the retail sale of mutual funds came under fire. Recent revelations about failures in the processing of mutual fund breakpoints had triggered a more in‐depth investigation into mutual fund marketing and compensation practice by securities regulators, Congress, and the states. This article focuses on the regulation of sales compensation practices primarily as it affects a broker‐dealer selling mutual funds in the retail market. It addresses the regulatory framework for three key compensation practices: (1) the use of non‐cash compensation in connection with mutual fund sales; (2) marketing and compensation arrangements providing enhanced compensation to a selling firm as well as to its sales representatives for the promotion of certain fund securities over others, such as proprietary funds over non‐proprietary funds, preferred funds over non‐preferred funds, and Class B shares over Class A shares; and (3) the use of commissions for mutual fund portfolio trades as an additional source of selling compensation for selling firms, a practice sometimes referred to as ”directed brokerage.“

The purpose of this paper is to analyze price decision-making through a practice-based approach. The paper investigates the micro-level practices used to arrive at sales price decisions.

In this study, a qualitative study approach is used to develop findings abductively. The data are gathered through an in-depth case study at two firms: semi-structured interviews, meeting observations, shadowing and pricing documents.

This paper finds that pricing is a collective decision-making process involving multiple actors across the organization. The case firms work on solving information, coordination and control problems to arrive at sales prices by enacting interlinked practices. Pricing is therefore neither a structure nor a single decision but a process consisting of multiple micro-level practices that enable firms to make pricing decisions.

This paper develops a practice-based approach to pricing that conceptualize the micro-level practices used to to make pricing decisions in the face of information, coordination and control problems. The paper is interdisciplinary and adds to the accounting literature and the market literature, which have tended to study pricing as a decision made by one decision maker, and not as an organizational process where multiple actors share, evaluate, interpret and coordinate information and decisions.

Further explore the issue of sales management development and identify the practices most critical to sales managers' learning and development.

To explore the development needs of sales leaders, we surveyed 206 newer sales managers from ten US-based manufacturing and service organizations. The sample was 79 percent male and 21 percent female, averaged 2.2 years of sales management experience, 10.3 years of sales experience and 37.1 years of age.

Practices that sales managers considered to be important for their development are: clarifying roles, goals and performance expectations (81 percent); receiving effective performance appraisals and reviews (74 percent); exposure to challenging/difficult job assignments (71 percent); conducting formal career planning discussions (68 percent); receiving ongoing performance measurement, feedback and coaching (66 percent); being mentored by senior managers/sales people (60 percent); involvement with professional associations/affiliations (58 percent); and utilizing 360° feedback systems (57 percent).

If organizations are serious about developing their sales managers, they would be well served to consider the development practices presented in this study. Developing sales managers want clearly defined performance expectations as well as feedback from a wide variety of multi-sources including coaching, mentoring, and 360° processes. In addition, formal appraisals and career planning discussions, as well as the opportunity to participate in professional associations are desired areas of development.

The purpose of this paper is to understand what sales management practices (SMPs) are being used by managers in the current market place, changes over time, insights that can be gained and future research needs.

Data for this paper were collected via a cross-sectional internet-based survey using a sampling frame provided by a professional sales publication. ANOVA was used to analyze 159 sales manager respondents.

Empirical results indicate that several differences are evident across the 68 SMPs items gathered, especially in terms of the size of the sales force and establish some data on using technology in sales management. However, in spite of significant changes in the sales environment, many SMPs have had limited change.

The limitations of this paper include a sample frame drawn from a single source and via the internet and, thus, may have excluded some possible respondents from participation and somewhat limit generalizability.

The results of this paper raise a number of important issues for sales managers to consider. First, which SMPs should they be using? Managers need to give serious thought as to which practices they choose to use. Second, why are so many of them not making more extensive use of sales force technology? Third, is it wise for sales managers to be relying on executive opinion as their most extensively used forecasting method or should they be emphasizing another approach? A fourth issue is the continued heavy emphasis on generating sales volume as opposed to profits.

The data provide a rare and updated understanding of the use of SMPs by sales managers.

In reviewing a spectrum of practice across the 60 member firms of the Institute for the Study of Business Markets, those exhibiting an effective and efficient connection between marketing and sales appear to have three “key linkages” in common: linkages in language, linkages in organization, and linkage in systems. This paper seeks to outline these linkages, and explore how they might be strengthened in business‐to‐business firms.

This is a viewpoint paper, developed by the executive director of the Institute for the Study of Business Markets, after a full day‐and‐a‐half meeting of ISBM member firms discussing marketing and sales linkage, expanded with additional qualitative observations of marketing/sales linkage across a selection of the ISBM membership base of 60 firms.

The study finds that effectiveness of the linkage between marketing and sales requires strong communication. Often one sees marketing and sales professionals talking past one another – they are not aligned on the definition of key terms, concepts, the nature of their practice. Firms which pay attention to training and alignment on language achieve better results. Common definitions of key terms and attention to communications issues are key in developing a more effective linkage between marketing and sales. Organizational approaches which favor “mixing” marketing and sales, joint meetings and contact, joint sales calls, and a reduction of the boundaries between marketing and sales seem to produce more favorable results. Finally, firms that have thought through, mapped, and show artifacts of a “demand generation process” where the role of marketing and sales are clearly defined, and how one feeds the other is charted clearly, appear to get much better results.

A better understanding – and further research – of the dimensionality of the connection between marketing and sales, how marketing/sales linkages work, antecedents and consequences of strong linkages, and other approaches which produce better results are clearly indicated.

The “Three Linkages” approach points to practical and actionable approaches for managers in strengthening the effectiveness of their marketing and sales teams, such as: train the teams together to create agreement and clearer understanding of language; map the demand generation process and work as a team to understand, streamline, and strengthen it better ; pay careful attention to “handoffs”; and avoid siloed structures where marketing and sales only interact occasionally: implement joint selling calls, and organization structures which foster connection.

Although much discussion goes on with regard to marketing and sales effectiveness, the three dimensionalities of language, organization, and process surfaces as an approach to better understanding how the marketing and sales teams may be better aligned to produce stronger business results.

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.

The literature on forecasting makes hardly any distinction between domestic and export sales forecasting. Based on in‐depth interviews with exporting firms, suggests that companies face additional problems when preparing export sales forecasts compared to forecasts for the domestic market. More specifically, using a qualitative data analysis methodology, offers insights into actual export sales forecasting practices and forecast performance. Also links company and export characteristics to forecasting practices, developing a typology of the latter, and offers suggestions for future research in the area.

The aim of this chapter is to illustrate and discuss — through a case study of Sandvik Corporation — how business practices with focus on sales can improve with regard to effectiveness and efficiency by utilization of IT tools. This approach challenges the traditional view of doing business in big industrial corporations where sales experts known as sales stars have traditionally developed relationships with customers. In order to do this, the chapter initially delineates the traditional business practices and the main issues associated with this approach.

The following section brings up the case of Sandvik Corporation. This part of the chapter first discusses problems with unorganized business practices as a source of business inefficiency. These problems are represented by (1) offer and order management, (2) pricing and value, and (3) customer planning and daily work routines. The consequent part of this section illustrates how the company improved its business by organizing business practices using CRM tools. The discussion of the new efficiencies is supported by elaboration on the Sandvik’s Sales Program that the organization launched in order to address the above mentioned problems of inefficiencies is sales work. The chapter ends with potential new challenges that the implementation of IT tools brought about and a summary of the chapter.

The aftermath of the 1990 Middle East war and the region′s subsequent exposure to Western technologies and lifestyles has contributed to an accelerated opening up of Arabic culture to Western ideas. Often relegated to a secondary role in the Arab culture, changing market conditions have helped increase the importance of many marketing functions and, in particular, personal selling. Given the increased importance of personal selling in a high context culture, such as that of Saudi Arabia, the development of a qualified salesforce should significantly improve a firm′s competitive position. This exploratory study examined the extent to which sales training philosophies and practices differ between Saudi Arabia and the United States. Findings reveal the limited extent of Saudi sales training programmes and offer insight into the future development of marketing and sales training in this Arab culture as well as implications for both Arab and foreign businesses.

The librarian and researcher have to be able to uncover specific articles in their areas of interest. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume IV, like Volume III, contains features to help the reader to retrieve relevant literature from MCB University Press' considerable output. Each entry within has been indexed according to author(s) and the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus. The latter thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid retrieval. Each article or book is assigned its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. This Volume indexes 29 journals indicating the depth, coverage and expansion of MCB's portfolio.