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Modern interactionism asserts that both the P (person) and the E (environment or situation) should be considered simultaneously in predicting attitudes and behaviors. In this paper, we apply the interactionist view to salesforce research. Specifically, we use salesforce socialization as an example to illustrate how interactionist concepts from psychology can be effectively applied in salesforce research. The role of qualitative research in this context is explored.

The purpose of this study is to understand how a salesperson’s preset goals, customer satisfaction levels and past performance affect the extent of goal achievement, as well as how job-specific attitudes and emotions affect the relationship between preset goals and goal achievement.

This study uses a modeling framework with both main, moderating and mediating effects, using transaction data and survey results from a telecommunications firm.

The results indicate that preset goals and customer satisfaction, interestingly, have an inverted-U relationships with goal achievement. Further, attitudes and emotions regarding workplace conduciveness and workplace ethics and diversity, reduce the effect preset goals have on goal achievement. However, attitudes and emotions regarding workplace philosophy strengthens the effect preset goals have on goal achievement, whereas with disagreement, this relationship diminishes.

Two of the primary limitations of this study are: one, because of the cross-sectional nature of the study, there is limited opportunity to control for unobserved heterogeneity; and two, performance goal achievement, though is important for the firm, is one of many potential goals that affect a salesperson. For example, customer satisfaction goals or a one-time special event goals could play a role. Therefore, only using performance goal achievement could be a limitation of this study.

This study contributes to academic literature in three ways. First, it demonstrates the diminishing effect of customer satisfaction on goal achievement. Second, it identifies an inverse U-shaped relationship between preset goals and goal achievement. Finally, it examines how attitudes and emotions regarding workplace culture (conduciveness, ethics and diversity and philosophy) affect the relationship between preset goals and goal achievement.

The purpose of this paper is to elicit tacit knowledge exhibited in expert information system (IS) professionals in a form that can be shared with others; and to develop categorical framework suggesting key content areas of tacit knowledge in the requirements analysis domain.

Requirements analysis is selected as the main focus of this study due to the importance of this phase to the success of IS development and the nature of requirements analysis tasks requiring extensive amount of tacit knowledge. The authors used the “storytelling” approach, a semi-structured interview technique for knowledge elicitation.

The study resulted in 132 knowledge items using a qualitative method and categorized them into 14 categories using cluster analysis. The study found that experienced, successful analysts see systems analysis in behavioral, managerial, and political terms and focus heavily on interpersonal, project management, and organizational issues.

The limitations in the research sample, or in the recollection capability of the research subjects could compromise the comprehensiveness of the tacit knowledge in the requirements analysis domain; however, the elicited knowledge at least represents important dimensions one might reasonably find in this domain.

Very little research has attempted to capture this tacit dimension of system analysts’ knowledge. Thus, capturing and transferring the tacit knowledge from experts should help in the evolution of novice to expert system analysts thereby improving both their effectiveness and the quality of the information systems developed.

For the past several decades women have been moving into the United States workforce in greater numbers and they have been gaining access to the types of jobs that were, traditionally, performed exclusively by men. Despite this progress, they are still having difficulty penetrating the so‐called “glass ceiling” into upper management positions (Alimo‐Metcalfe 1993; Tavakolian 1993). Many reasons have been advanced, but the most compelling of these concerns the “glass walls” that support the “glass ceiling”. The “glass walls” refer to those invisible barriers that limit the ability of women and minorities to gain access to the type of job that would place them in a position to break through the “glass ceiling” (Townsend 1996). If women are to gain parity with men in the workforce, they need to succeed in the positions that lie inside the “glass walls” that will enable them to rise through the “glass ceiling” to upper management.

Psychology, the scientific study of the mind and of behavior, has experienced a rapid professional growth during the past 30 years. The number of research articles published each year continues to multiply, attendance at professional meetings and conferences increases at an almost exponential rate, and students continue to enroll in psychology courses in large numbers.

This paper aims to introduce eristic decision-making in entrepreneurship. A decision is eristically made when it utilizes eristics, which are action-triggering short-cuts that draw on hedonic urges (e.g. sensation-seeking). Unlike heuristics, eristic decision-making is not intendedly rational as eristics lead to decision-making without calculating or even considering the consequences of actions. Eristics are adaptive when uncertainty is extreme. Completely novel strategies, nascent venturing, corporate venturing for radical innovation and adapting to shocks (e.g. pandemic) are typically subject to extreme uncertainties.

In light of the relevant debates in entrepreneurship, psychology and decision sciences, the paper builds new conceptual links to establish its theoretical claims through secondary research.

The paper posits that people adapt to extreme uncertainty by using eristic reasoning rather than heuristic reasoning. Heuristic reasoning allows boundedly rational decision-makers to use qualitative cues to estimate the consequences of actions and to make reasoned decisions. By contrast, eristic reasoning ignores realistic calculations and considerations about the future consequences of actions and produces decisions guided by hedonic urges.

Current entrepreneurial research on uncertainty usually focuses on moderate levels of uncertainty where heuristics and other intendedly rational decision-making approaches pay off. By contrast, this paper focuses on extreme uncertainty where eristics are adaptive. While not intendedly rational, the adaptiveness of eristic reasoning offers theoretically and psychologically grounded new explanations about action under extreme uncertainty.

Is there an electronic banking (e‐banking) revolution in the USA? Millions of Americans are currently using a variety of e‐banking technologies and millions more are expected to come “online.” However, millions of others have not or will not. This paper explores factors that affect the of adoption or intention to adopt three e‐banking technologies and changes in these factors over time. Using a Federal Reserve Board commissioned data set, the paper finds that relative advantage, complexity/simplicity, compatibility, observability, risk tolerance, and product involvement are associated with adoption. Income, assets, education, gender and marital status, and age also affect adoption. Adoption changed over time, but the impacts of other factors on adoption have not changed. Implications for both the banking industry and public policy are discussed.

This research identifies the forms of tacit knowledge frequently requested in the job descriptions of knowledge workers in a multinational automotive manufacturer's product development department. It then explores how and why the most requested forms of tacit knowledge are used in practice to achieve organizational goals.

This study follows a sequential mixed-methods approach to quantify the most frequently requested forms of tacit knowledge within internal job descriptions and then explores how and why this tacit knowledge is used. The first stage applies manifest content analysis to internal job descriptions to highlight the epitomes of tacit knowledge to identify the most frequently requested forms of tacit knowledge. The second stage employs semi-structured interviews to explore the use of the most frequently requested forms of tacit knowledge in practice.

The research indicated that the organization most frequently requested tacit knowledge in the form of skills and experience in the job descriptions of knowledge workers in the product development department. When the use and application of tacit knowledge in the form of skills were further explored in practice, it was found that tacit knowledge-based socially-focused skills were used, which was underpinned by the need to bring people together and align them towards a common goal to make things work; by enabling people to work together as a team; by developing and using networks; and acting as a required resource to support the development and integration in product development. Tacit knowledge in the form of experience was applied through the application of personally obtained experience to enhance development work by acting as a pacemaker for increasing efficiency and a sense of upcoming issues.

This work addresses the paucity of studies identifying tacit knowledge in large organizations and meets calls to investigate the processes and activities related to tacit knowledge in specific contexts.

This study aims to focus on the role of employee commitment in the success of organizational change initiatives. The authors seek to propose and test a model that delineates antecedents and consequences of affective, normative, and continuance commitment to organizational change.

Data were collected via online survey from employees working in a large not‐for‐profit organization. A total of 191 responses (32 per cent) were obtained. The hypothesized model relationships were tested using structural equation modeling.

The results demonstrate that the antecedents: fit with vision, employee‐manager relationship quality, job motivation, and role autonomy all influence commitment to change (C2C). Notably, affective commitment, which in turn influences employee perceptions about improved performance, implementation success, and individual learning regarding the change, had the greatest impact.

Limitations that could lead to future research include three primary issues. First, the data were collected from one organization. Second, data were collected at one point in time. Third, the proposed model is far from exhaustive. Other antecedents to C2C could include risk acceptance, organizational culture, and/or leadership style.

In addition, given affective commitment to change (AC2C) has the greatest influence on outcomes such as implementation success and improved performance, the antecedents of AC2C warrant management's attention. If managers can influence AC2C through such factors as those proposed here, outcomes such as individual learning, perceived implementation success, and perceived improved performance will be influenced.

The paper integrates two models evaluating employee reactions to change, an under researched area, to help uncover ways to improve the success of change initiatives.