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The purpose of this paper is to extend the previous regulatory focus and sales force control literature suggesting that organizational control system not only moderates but also mediates the interactive effect of the assessment × locomotion on salesperson ambidextrous behavior. Organizational control system, which has behavior and outcome dimensions, moderates the effects of employee regulatory focus on their ambidextrous behavior, sales performance, and satisfaction.

The authors conducted a survey with 163 bank frontline employees (FLEs) who sell financial products to final consumers. Each respondent was approached by a professional interviewer who presented the questionnaire and collected the answers. These respondents are FLEs, who are the ones that sell financial services and are responsible for post-sales services, such as answering customer questions and account problems. In the sample, FLEs are the primary source of revenue generation and services activities (ambidextrous features) in banking sector, similar to Bailey et al. (2016).

First, the moderating and mediation analysis showed that the interactive effect of both regulatory focus, locomotion and assessment, predicts FLE ambidextrous behavior. Second, this interaction effect suffers a three-way interaction under organizational control system. Third, organizational control system also moderates the impact of ambidextrous behavior on performance, such that outcome-based control system amplifies the relationship. Fourth, the authors found a conditional indirect effect, in such ambidextrous behavior, mediates the indirect effect of control system on sales performance, generating stronger (vs weaker) results under an outcome-based control system (vs behavior-based control system).

Since this study adopts the cross-sectional research design, the authors could not empirically demonstrate the causality of the relationships among constructs. The authors also analyzed the organizational control system from the FLEs perspective and not from the supervisors/managers perspective, who daily control employees activities.

The authors propose a conditioning indirect mediating impact of control system on performance and consumer satisfaction through ambidextrous behavior and explore the regulatory focus-ambidexterity-performance moderating chain, theorizing that this sequence depends on the level of control system.

The purpose of this study is to develop a theoretical model that posits locomotion-assessment ambidextrous orientation as predictor of salesperson acquisition–retention ambidexterity, which as a consequence increases sales. The authors drawing on regulatory focus theory and self-regulatory for this propose.

Salespeople involved in the study represent different firms selling a wide variety of food and household products to a wholesaler, which resells them to supermarket chains. The authors collected data from 231 industrial salespeople.

First, salesperson assessment focus amplified locomotion’s effect on acquisition–retention ambidexterity. Second, salespeople increased their performance by implementing an acquisition–retention ambidextrous orientation that balances prospecting for new customers and growing existing customers. Third, findings revealed a mediating effect of ambidextrous orientation on the relationship between regulatory mode and sales performance. Finally, outcomes supported the conditional moderated-mediated effect of regulatory mode in explaining performance through ambidextrous orientation.

Results suggest that salespeople need to equalize their dual orientations in a complementary way to elaborate their selling strategies according to each customer. For example, in an unbalanced orientation, putting high levels of assessment into a sales encounter can reduce the effective and efficient use of time in interacting with customers.

The authors further illustrate the importance of using both locomotion and assessment in attaining sales goals (Pierro et al. 2013). This synergistic effect is known as the complementary hypothesis (Pierro et al., 2006a, 2006b). Each dimension complements the other and has a moderated-mediated effect on performance through acquisition–retention ambidexterity.