Editorial: Relational disruptions in sales and sales management

Citation

Rutherford, B.N., Hartmann, N., Anaza, N. and Ambrose, S.C. (2024), "Editorial: Relational disruptions in sales and sales management", Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Vol. 39 No. 4, pp. 669-672. https://doi.org/10.1108/JBIM-04-2024-639

Disruptive events and their resultant shocks are currently receiving substantial scholarly attention within the marketing literature because of the COVID-19 pandemic (Corsaro and D’Amico, 2022; Cortez Mora and Johnston, 2020; Das et al., 2021; Hartmann et al., 2023; Rutherford et al., 2023). However, issues concerning disruptive events in business-to-business (B2B) marketing predate the COVID-19 pandemic, despite having garnered minimal academic attention. Collectively, this stream of literature suggests that disruptive events, and the subsequent shocks, have important consequences for the relationships between B2B sales professionals and people who interact with B2B salespeople (Chaker et al., 2021; Habel et al., 2020; Hartmann and Lussier, 2020; Matthews et al., 2022).

Disruptive events, which span far beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, are well documented in academic literature (Kahn et al., 2013; Pearson and Clair, 1998; Williams et al., 2017). Examples of disruptive events that can impact B2B salespeople and the people internal and external to their organizations who interact with them include terrorist attacks, natural disasters, large-scale armed conflicts, new suppliers entering the market, disruptive technologies, supply shortages, labor strikes, mass turnover, conflict, changes to travel patterns, mergers and acquisitions, business closures, leadership death and lack of succession plans and customer churn. Nonetheless, there are also disruptive events that can impact a specific salesperson and/or the people who interact with the given salesperson. Such disruptive events can, for example, include birth of children, death, health-related events (e.g. stroke, heart attack), personal events (e.g. divorce), relocations to new sales territories, isolated workplace departures and job promotions.

Given the scope of disruptive events, studies which have focused on disruptions unrelated to the COVID-19 pandemic have periodically appeared within the B2B sales and sales management literature. These studies affirm that non-pandemic-related disruptive events can have important consequences for relationships within the B2B sales and sales management context (Bendapudi and Leone, 2002; Harmeling et al., 2015; Schmitz et al., 2020; Shi et al., 2017). However, this body of literature is nascent. Even scarcer are research studies stemming from relational disruptions because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Recently, researchers have recognized that these disruptive events, and the shocks that follow can manifest suddenly or over an extended period of time, requiring people to use varying coping mechanisms to respond effectively (Hartmann et al., 2023). Despite such research, there remains a need to examine the consequences disruptive events have on relationships within the scope of B2B sales and sales management. Of particular importance is further understanding how salespeople, and individuals that interact with them, respond to such disruptive events in a way that maximizes beneficial outcomes and mitigates detrimental consequences. Consequently, identifying the negative effects of such calamities will shed insights into how B2B firms can avoid the pitfalls of relational disruptions. Therefore, this Special Issue responds to this need.

The purpose of this Special Issue on “Relational Disruptions in Sales and Sales Management” is to advance the emerging body of sales and sales management research that seeks to provide insights into disruptive events that alter the relationships and day-to-day functionality of salespeople. We view the term “relational” through a broad lens, allowing for the examination of a wide spectrum of connections that salespeople engage and interact with while tackling their personal and professional identity. This focus on “Disruptions in Sales and Sales Management” implies that the interest of the Special Issue is events or series of events that significantly impact one or more persons involved in sales and sales management. All the articles appearing in this Special Issue fall within this scope. In the next section, we briefly overview the articles, followed by an identification of future research opportunities.

Overview of the special issue articles

“Disruptive AI: The response depends on the buyer’s political ideology” is an article written by Patrick van Esch that examines B2B buyer preferences for human versus AI agent performing cleanliness tasks. Based on a series of field experiments, the findings suggest greater preference for humans over AI cleaning services, especially among politically liberal orientated buyers, due to their desire for “human touch” experiences. This article is a valuable contribution to the literature on disruptions, as it highlights the complexities that disruptive innovations bring to business environments.

“I want what they have: The impact of salesperson envy on customer relationships amid organizational disruption” is written by Tyler Hancock, Michael Mallin, Ellen Pullins and Catherine Johnson. This study seeks to explain how organizational disruption influences the development of envy that can lead to negative outcomes, such as unethical selling practices, turnover intentions and a reduction in customer orientation. A survey of 211 salespeople suggests that the effects of envy ultimately harm customer relationships; however, the findings also show that these negative customer disruptions are mitigated by salespeople with higher psychological capital resources (e.g. hope, efficacy, resilience and optimism). As it is inevitable that firms go through major disruptions at some point in time, understanding the risks associated with organizational disruptions and how to reduce these risks extends the body of literature and offers worthy managerial implications.

Rodrigo Guesalaga, Jose Ruiz-Alba and Pablo Lopez Tenorio authored the article “Drivers of business-to-business (B2B) sales success and the role of digitalization after COVID-19 disruptions.” This study strives to gain a better understanding of the main drivers of B2B sales performance and the role of digitalization within the post COVID-19 business environment. Using a novel combination of a two-stage qualitative study with Chilean sales professionals and a fsQCA analysis, the research findings indicate that interfunctional coordination, agility in the selling process and business customer engagement are critical determinants of B2B sales success, with digitalization moderating these relationships. This article extends important practical guidelines to firms on how to effectively use digitalization tools to increase sales success.

“Inflection points during a disruptive event: Planning within the sales force” is written by Ryan Matthews, Brian Rutherford, Lucy Matthews and Diane Edmondson. Within the context of the COVID-19 disruption, this research identifies vaccine availability as the inflection point and compares decision processes for industrial sales executives during two points in time – before vaccine development and five months post-vaccine availability. Findings from in-depth interviews with 13 sales executives show that before vaccine availability, business decisions were focused on short-term challenges, but vaccine availability became the game changer that led to immense adjustments to long-term sales practices. This research extends current literature on disruptions by highlighting the importance of inflection points and presenting different planning strategies for before and after inflection points.

The article titled “Understanding the enduring shifts in sales strategy and processes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic” is by Deva Rangarajan, Marta Giovannetti, Arun Sharma, Silvio Cardinali and Elena Cedrola. This study addresses the temporary and enduring shifts in sales strategy and processes that resulted as many sales interactions migrated from face-to-face to virtual environments during the COVID-19 pandemic. This research yielded five unique findings: sales professionals feel that safety regulations will increase; supply chain issues will be resolved; price fluctuations will decline; face-to-face selling will reemerge; and lack of enhanced digital experience will reduce virtual selling. This article contributes to extant literature and provides insights for sales leaders and managers on how to deal with exogenous shocks.

Brandon Gustafson, Nadi Pomirleanu and Babu John-Mariadoss authored the study entitled, “Not the way it used to be: B2B interactions in the era of ecosystems.” In this article, the authors take a holistic view of the B2B environment undergoing fundamental changes, where networks and ecosystems are replacing traditional markets, and the importance of relationships and interactions in shaping B2B ecosystems, especially at times of disruptions. Given the myriad of disruptive events that can affect the ecosystems, this study puts forward mechanisms that could be put in place to manage the interaction exchanges. Furthermore, guidance on breaking down interactions into finer-grained dimensions of micro, meso and macro will help B2B actors to identify issues and rank them in importance to manage the exchanges effectively. The authors provide propositions and detailed avenues for future research to continue expanding this stream of literature.

“Effect of the pandemic on professional selling: An exposition of different selling styles using theories-in-use approach” is written by Mohd Aman, Mohammad Azam and Asif Akhtar. Looking back at the COVID-19 pandemic, the authors sought to find out if the changes observed in professional selling practices during the pandemic persist in the post-pandemic era. Using a qualitative research approach, they focused on changes in the selling process, changes in sales professionals and changes in the sales profession across four different selling styles. Findings state that although the pandemic affected the sales profession, the effect was not uniform across different selling styles, and the changes that occurred in the selling process and the sales professionals varied across the selling situations. Furthermore, post-pandemic findings suggest that selling activities are returning to normalcy, although the situation remains overwhelming for the salespeople due to higher targets.

Future research opportunities

As the overview showcased, the articles in this Special Issue significantly advance researchers’ and practitioners’ understanding of relational disruptions within the B2B sales and sales management context. However, given that the literature is still in its infancy, many fruitful future research opportunities remain. Future research opportunities displays some of these opportunities:

• What knowledge, skills and abilities can sales functions and salespeople develop to prepare them for a relational disruption?

• Why do certain disruptive events lead some sales employees (or one), but not others, to reexamine the importance of work and various work-related outcomes (e.g. sales performance, quality of relationships)?

• Does career stage influence how salespeople respond to disruptive events?

  • Does career stage predict who invests in building knowledge, skills and abilities?

  • Does career stage predict who leaves the sales profession?

• When disruptive events occur, when and why do some salespeople prioritize collective over personal interests, and what are the long-term consequences for them doing so?

• Does sensitivity to salesperson outcomes vary depending on whether the salesperson experienced a shock from a disruptive event that impacted many versus just oneself?

• What practices and processes should sales managers and others use to fairly adjust performance expectations during disruptive events?

• What empirical approaches lend themselves to studying the actions that are derivatives of other actions taken during a shock resulting from a disruptive event?

• What impact does organizational bankruptcy have on salespeople’s performance and relationships with buyers?

  • Does organizational bankruptcy increase internal cooperation or foster a culture of fear?

  • What impact does organizational bankruptcy have on salespeople turnover?

• What effect does corporate violence have on salespeople’s mental health and behavioral performance?

  • The issue of corporate violence as a disruption can be studied from various perspectives, including workplace bullying, white-collar crimes and illegal behavior.

• What impact does death as a relational disruption play in B2B sales?

  • How does death and grieving of a sales team member affect team dynamics?

  • Does type of team member death (suicide, sudden, health-related, etc.) affect salespeople differently by demographic factors?

  • How does personal loss (death of sibling, spouse, parents, child, friend, etc.) in the life of a salesperson affect job performance and retention?

  • How does grieving affect the short- and long-term behavior and performance of salespeople?

  • How do death and grief affect the mental and physical health of salespeople?

• What is the impact of actions that sales managers take during the shock in relation to the responses of salespeople after the shock?

  • For example, are salespeople who feel that management was not understanding and supportive enough during the shock more likely to seek out alternative employment? Alternatively, do they perceive disruptive events to be uncommon and, therefore, the act of seeking out alternative employment to be needless?

  • Do shocks reveal opportunities to permanently alter processes that enhance buyer/seller relationships over the long-term and/or perhaps reveal processes that buyers/sellers were taking for granted prior to the disruption?

• How can sales functions and salespeople appropriately recalibrate to normalcy after a relational disruption?

Source: Authors’ own work

We hope that this Special Issue presents a foundation for continued research on Relational Disruptions in Sales and Sales Management. We feel that the articles accepted for this Special Issue will be used as a springboard to generate ideas to expand research on disruptions from different, and important, viewpoints. Furthermore, based on the articles and the author’s personal research, we feel that the future research opportunities provided within the above table lay out a solid direction forward on this developing research stream.