Search results

This paper aims to explore the impact of salespeople’s goal orientation and self-regulatory mode on their performance through sales ambidexterity and sales technology infusion (STI) using a sales technology ecosystem approach.

This paper adopts a qualitative methodology, through in-depth interviews with salespeople from a diverse range of industries, age profiles and contexts, to explore the narratives and original meanings related to their goal orientation, self-regulatory mode, ambidexterity, STI and performance.

Sceptics are salespeople who may fear or hesitate to fully use the sales technology, whereas enthusiasts are ambidextrous salespeople with high STI, who are more open to change and able to face uncertainty, regardless of the differences in their background in terms of industry, age and experience.

STI may be influenced by individual factors, such as the salesperson’s goal orientation and self-regulatory mode. Hence, sales organizations should try to foster and facilitate further STI and sales ambidexterity, which are key to achieving positive outcomes in today’s technology-intensive sales settings.

This paper extends the current literature on sales technology and sales ambidexterity within a sales technology ecosystem perspective and provides new insight on the combined impact of these variables on the salesperson’s performance.

The purpose of this study is to provide a contextualized understanding of how business-to-business (B2B) firms use the sales development function for efficient and effective lead funnel management.

The authors adopted a qualitative field-study approach and interviewed 13 people from eight firms. While software as a service (SaaS) firms are the most prevalent application context for the sales development function, the authors also included respondents from non-SaaS firms to develop an in-depth understanding of the contextualized nature of the sales development process.

Sales development processes can be applied in outbound prospect-focused, outbound account-based, inbound prospect-focused and inbound account-based lead management contexts. The sales development processes of lead research, engagement and handover vary depending on the nature of the lead management context. These processes are supported by the appropriate design of organizational, technological and people platforms.

The authors explain how sales development as a form of inside sales can support effective lead funnel management in B2B firms through technology-enabled lead research and nurture processes designed to prepare customers for meaningful conversations with field sales.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to focus purely on the sales development function as a form of inside sales. They explain how the sales development processes relating to lead research, engagement and handover are conducted in four distinct application contexts to qualify leads for the outside salesforce.

The majority of business-to-business companies are working on their digital transformation in sales. Despite enormous transformation efforts, the expected productivity gains are often missing in most companies. Based on empirical research, this paper aims to develop a new market-oriented transformation model. Management implications as well as future research directions are derived for a more focused digital transformation process in sales.

Within the exploratory research study, 90 key informants were interviewed to provide better insights in the context of digital transformation in sales. The accuracy of the research results was safeguarded by triangulation.

As this research paper will show, the reasons for the missing productivity gains caused by a limited knowledge about the main success factors of digital transformation as well as a lack of understanding of digital transformation as an evolving process.

Based on the empirical research, a new market-oriented transformation model is developed and management implications as well as future research directions are derived for a more focused digital transformation process in sales.

This paper investigate how fit uncertainty impacts product return costs in online retailing and how digital product fitting, a pre-sales fitting practice, can reduce fit uncertainty.

The paper analyzes the current performance of a retailer's e-commerce and return operations by estimating costs generated by product returns, including product handling costs, tied-up capital, inventory holding costs, transportation costs, and order-picking costs. The estimated costs were built on 2,229 return transactions from a Scandinavian fashion footwear retailer. A digital product fitting technology was tested with the retailer’s products and resulted in estimations on how such technology could affect product returns.

The cost of a return is approximately 17% of the prime cost. The major cost elements are product handling costs and transportation costs, which together amount to 72% of the total costs. If well calibrated, the fitting technology can cut fit-related return costs by up to 80%. The findings show how customers reacted to the fitting technology: it was unable to verify fit every time, but it serves as a useful and effective support tool for customers when placing orders.

Virtual fit verification using digital product fitting is key to retailers to reduce fit-related returns. Digital product fitting using three-dimensional scanning is more appropriate for some products, but it is unsuitable for products that are difficult to measure and scan.

The paper contributes an empirical estimate of retail supply chain costs associated with fit uncertainty, as well as theoretical understanding of the role of pre-sales fit verification in avoiding product returns.

As empirical insights into when salespeople should integrate information and communication technology (ICT) into their sales tasks are limited, the purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of salespeople’s ICT orientation on role stress by considering the interplay of individual salesperson characteristics and the complexity of the selling environment, differentiating between customer and supplier complexity.

The authors develop an empirical framework based on the Job Demands-Resources model and previous research in the area of technology in sales. They test their hypotheses by means of a survey of 255 business-to-business salespeople which is analyzed using ordinary least squares regressions.

The results of this study show that ICT orientation generally helps salespeople to reduce role ambiguity. However, the benefits salespeople derive from ICT orientation to reduce role conflict depend on an interplay of both their job tenure and the average relationship duration with customers as well as the complexity of the selling environment.

This study contributes to research on the impact of technology use on salespeople by enhancing the understanding of contexts that make ICT valuable for them. In particular, the findings of this study demonstrate that the impact of ICT orientation on salespeople’s role stress depends on an interplay of individual salesperson characteristics, that is, resources, and environmental complexity characteristics, that is, demands.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the determinants of the performance of regional industrial technology development programs among the regional strategic industrial development program that the central government and Daegu metropolitan city jointly promoted between 2004 and 2012. Specifically, in this research, the authors are trying to identify the effects of R&D capabilities and technical development tasks on technological and managerial performance.

The dependent variables of this study are technical and economic performance. Technical performance, product and process innovation, economic performance, sales and export increases were measured using five-point Likert scales. The authors added the contribution of sales through technology development to economic performance. The independent variable is the company’s R&D capability, measured by the number of R&D staff compared to the average total number of employees from 2004 to 2012. The characteristics of the technology development tasks were measured by technical characteristics, market characteristics and collaborative research types. The technological characteristics were measured by seven factors, including technological change, technical difficulty, potential in commercialization, competition between domestic and foreign competitors, difficulty in introducing overseas technology and the technological gap. Market characteristics were largely divided into complexity, dynamics and competitiveness. The types of collaborative research were divided into whether or not there were collaborative research with the participation of large corporations. The control variables are firm size (number of employees) and firm age. Regression analysis was used to analyze the determinants of performance, and a difference analysis was conducted to determine the effect of collaborative research on performance.

The main determinants of the regional industrial technology development program performance are the characteristics of the technology development task rather than the internal R&D capability; moreover, the technical characteristics, complexity of the developed product market and participation of large corporations had significant effects on R&D capability. The R&D capacity of firms in internal R&D capacity had a significant effect only on the improvement of technology development ability. Therefore, R&D capacity, which is the main determinant of technology innovation, did not have a significant effect on the performance of short-term technology development tasks. Technological change, technological difficulty, competition between domestic and foreign competitors and the technological gap had positive effects on performance, excluding sales contributions. In addition, the complexity of the developed product market such as the diversification of demand, competitive product and sales distribution channels had positive influences on the performance of technology development programs, unlike dynamics and competitiveness. In this study, the authors cannot confirm the effect of collaborative research on the performance of the technology development programs, but they confirmed that collaborative research involving large corporations had a positive influence on performance.

The results of the analysis of the determinants of regional industrial technology development programs suggest some implications in the future evaluation of these regional industrial technology development programs. It is necessary to review the application qualification and merit, advance review of the business plans and confirmation, an examination of the research results and performance of the applicants and a review of the technology and market situation of the project. For this, the authors suggest that the written review from the relevant technical experts be submitted to the evaluation committees. Also, when establishing regional industrial development programs, they should be evaluated thoroughly, including detailed information and contents about the technical and market characteristics of the local industry.

This research is one of the first to investigate the achievements of R&D support programs among regional industrial development programs in Korea. The results of this study can substantially contribute to the development and implementation of the R&D support policies of the central and local governments. Furthermore, the findings suggest guidelines for improving the performance of R&D support programs in the future. A theoretical model for enhancing the efficiency of government R&D support programs may be established, and an empirical analysis may be conducted to provide practical and academic implications for further research.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of distinct types of heating technology and their price impact in German residential real estate markets, considering a wide range of other housing market determinants. The authors aim to test and to verify specifically, whether the obsolescence of heating technology leads to a significant price discount and whether higher technological standards (and environmental friendliness) come with a price premium on the market.

The authors create housing market models for rental and sales segments by constructing generalized additive models with explicit multi-layered spatial components. To elaborate a profound and contemporary answer using these models, the authors perform large-sample regression analyses based on more than 400,000 observations covering German residential properties in 2015.

First and foremost, the heating system indeed shows significant explanatory importance for measuring housing rents and purchasing price. Second, the authors find that it makes a difference whether clean “green” technologies are implemented or whether “brown” systems with obsolete technology or fossil energy sources is on hand. Ultimately, the authors conclude that while low energy consumption indeed comes with a price premium, this needs to be interpreted together with the property’s heating type, as housing markets seem to outweigh the “green premium” by “brown discounts” if low energy consumption figures are powered by a certain type of heating technology system.

Aside of a possible omitted variable bias, the main research limitation is constituted by the integration of asking prices in the analysis, as actual transaction prices are not systematically transparent on national level in Germany. Limitations are discussed at the end of the paper.

This work supports investors who face the challenge of making environmental- and energy-related decisions as well as appraisers who deliver financial fundamentals for such. Third, the paper supports both asset managers as well as investment strategists in argumentation pro-environmental investments beyond all ecological necessity.

This paper contributes to the current discussion on climate change and the eclectic role of real estate in this context. The authors deliver evidence on pricing effects as a measure of socioeconomic acceptance of progressive heating technology and environmental friendliness as an imperative of twenty-first century societies.

This is the first study on “green premiums” or “brown discounts” that includes heating technology as a potential and distinct driver of value and rents. It is a contemporary contribution and delivers original information on the quantitative impact of contemporary and anachronistic technology in heating to researchers as well as investors and appraisers.

Digital ecosystemic business environments challenge dyadic approaches to value creation and particularly to business-to-business (B2B) sales. This paper aims to offer a novel conceptualization of the connection between value creation and B2B sales, which indicates practical implications and builds an agenda for future research.

This conceptual paper integrates theoretical insights on service-dominant logic, service ecosystems, interactional value co-creation and B2B sales. This paper uses anecdotal evidence from the field of B2B sales to illustrate theoretical concepts developed in the paper.

The paper develops the concept of value idea emergence (VIE), the process through which B2B entities become aware of a pursuable benefit. The paper further proposes that value (co-)creation in ecosystems happens through VIE’s intertwinement with the process of value proposition creation, a process, which includes all activities needed to bring a value proposition to a customer. The paper then discusses the role of B2B in these processes and proposes an agenda for future research.

The novel conceptualizations of value (co-)creation can help B2B sales managers to understand the ecosystemic nature of the interactions that affect sales and value creation in the current business environment.

The paper contributes to the literature on B2B sales and value creation by proposing a novel concept of VIE, introducing a conceptual model of interactive value (co-)creation in ecosystems and reformulating the role of B2B sales in value creation. These theory-developing insights can be used to guide both academic and managerial attention to interactions happening in the ecosystem outside of the buyer-seller dyad.