Search results

This paper aims to determine a uniquely Canadian training path for tourism companies to follow to embed sustainable tourism practices in their companies.

The foundation of this paper was laid by conducting in-depth executive interviews with leading tourism companies in Canada. Based on the interviews, an eight-question survey was developed and sent to 22 Canadian tourism companies with a response rate of 36 per cent. The results of best practice research conducted in the UK and Ireland were considered in relation to implementation in Canada.

This paper suggests a Canadian process and key concepts to consider for embedding sustainability in tourism companies.

This paper provides a practical training process, geared for Canadian tourism companies, that embeds sustainability in all divisions of the company. A step-by-step process is described that all tourism companies, no matter their size, can use to embed sustainability.

This paper draws upon the author’s experience in working with Canadian tourism companies and incorporates best practices shared in a partnership with The Travel Foundation. As the paper represents both original research and industry best practice, it is of interest to academics, tourism training centres and tourism companies in Canada. Learning an effective and efficient process developed specifically for Canadian tourism companies will allow companies to economically embed sustainability and ultimately create a unique market position for the company.

This study aims to explore the changing nature of the inside sales role and the individual capabilities required for success. Additionally, it examines the influence of organizational structure on inside sales force capabilities. Although business-to-business firms are investing heavily in inside sales forces, academic research lags behind this evolution.

Using a two-study qualitative approach, the authors examine contemporary inside sales forces’ responsibilities and operational configurations. Study 1 uses a cross-industry sample of sales leaders and professionals to examine roles and responsibilities. Study 2 used the second sample of sales leaders and professionals to explore the impact of various organizational configurations.

The study identifies important differences between inside and outside salespeople in terms of job demands and resources; inside salespeople’s greater reliance on sales technology and analytics than outside counterparts; and existing control systems’ failure to provide resources and incentives to match with inside salespeople’s increasing strategic benefits and job demands. The study also explores four distinct inside–outside configurations. The differences among these configurations help to explain the distinct benefits and costs of each configuration regarding the company, customer and intra sales force processes, which, in turn, determine inside salespeople’s strategic benefits and job demands.

The authors discuss the theoretical implications of these findings for research on the evolving roles and capabilities of the inside sales force; antecedents and consequences of firms’ choice of inside–outside sales force configurations; and the impact of technology and the inside sales force. They propose a research agenda that includes a series of specific future research questions.

This study informs managers of the unique role of the inside sales force and how it differs from their outside counterpart. The results inform managers of the issues inherent to various inside sales configurations, helping them determine, which configuration best addresses their customers’ needs.

This research provides a detailed, updated account of the differences between inside and outside sales forces and the benefits/costs of major inside–outside sales force configurations. Drawing from job demands-resources, organizational structure and strategy-context fit theories, the authors develop research propositions about the underlying structural differences of inside-outside sales force configurations; how these differences drive the inside sales force’s increasing strategic benefits and job demands; and organizational choice of inside sales force configurations. A research agenda is then presented.

This paper aims to develop an omni-channel framework in the context of sales and sales management related to six areas: sales contexts, impact of technology, stages in the sales process, impact on relationships, impact on firm performance and the role of various communication tools and platforms. The paper also offers future reach needs in each of these areas.

Literature review and research needs development.

Research in omni-channel marketing in the context of sales and sales management is virtually silent. The authors identify key research gaps and offer recommended future research opportunities.

To date, little research in sales and sales management has studied multi-channel marketing. The omni-channel research framework reported here is unique and will help guide research in this area.

This paper aims to understand an emerging paradigm for business-to-business selling, Sales 2.0, which connects various enabling technologies within leading sales processes to drive improved business and relational outcomes. In the context of Sales 2.0, this paper addresses the need for buyer–seller dyadic sales research in the literature and highlights the importance of understanding buyer and seller perspectives regarding technology expectations and relationship-building performance.

This research utilizes a dyadic (salesperson–customer) data collection methodology, involving 74 matched salesperson and customer responses (37 dyads) to an online survey. Existing salesperson (self-report) measures of customer technology expectations and relationship-building performance with customers were utilized and adapted to provide dyadic measures to test for buyer–seller perceptual differences.

The dyadic data analysis supports the presence of significant perceptual differences between the salesperson and their customer, respective of customer technology expectations and relationship-building performance measures. In particular, the analysis reveals bidirectional perceptual differences for the two measures, whereas the salesperson underestimates the importance of their customer’s technology expectations, but overestimates their relational performance relative to their customers.

As technology continues to transform salesperson interactions with customers, the value of capturing a deeper understanding about those interactions increases. This study uses matched salesperson–customer dyads from a health-care sales organization to provide researchers and practitioners with insightful findings with respect to buyer–seller interactions and perceptual differences. Further, the research uniquely advances dyadic measures of customer technology expectations and relationship-building performance with customers to advance sales research in the context of Sales 2.0.

This paper aims to propose a conceptual model that will guide development of mobile applications to support value-added business-to-business (B2B) sales activities.

The paper reviews the concepts of context-aware applications and context-marketing, then examines B2B selling and the creation of value, utilizing Terho’s model of value-based selling, and presenting the potential role of context-aware B2B selling in creating value. Terho’s model is then combined with a taxonomy of context modeling to produce step-by-step a conceptual model for developing context-aware B2B sales applications (CABS).

By mapping the context-aware application development taxonomy against each stage of Terho’s “value-based selling” model, the CABS model is proposed. This model provides a platform for the B2B salesforce, their customers and information technology (IT) staff to work together in developing requirements and prototypes for mobile B2B context-aware applications.

The CABS model would require empirical testing to assess its viability and suitability. This would initially be done via focus groups in targeted sales organizations.

The CABS model could utilized by sales staff and their customers to develop requirements for mobile context-aware applications to support B2B activity. In addition, the CABS model could be utilized in joint application design processes to enable sales and IT staff to work together in developing prototype mobile applications.

While context-aware applications are beginning to transform business-to-sale (B2C) sales activities, it is clear that B2B sales could also benefit from these types of applications, but little progress has been made in understanding or developing their potential. The CABS model enables B2B sales staff and their customers to recognize these benefits and facilitate working with IT staff in defining requirements and developing prototypes.

Many organizations still struggle with sales force technology implementation because of low user adoption rates. The ubiquity of mobile computing devices, such as smartphones and tablets, and the proliferation of mobile customer relationship management (mCRM) applications, may lead to increased CRM adoption and higher returns on CRM technology investments. The purpose of this study is to attempt to extend the current literature by developing a model of mCRM antecedents and outcomes by incorporating the idiosyncratic mCRM characteristics that have not yet been examined in the sales technology literature.

This research utilizes the technology acceptance model and the technology-to-performance chain as the foundation of a conceptual model of the drivers and outcomes of mCRM adoption.

This conceptual study provides several contributions to both the sales technology literature and to practitioners within sales organizations. The proposed conceptual model outlines the benefits of providing mCRM capabilities to sales professionals. These benefits include increased productivity, sales activity and collaboration among both internal stakeholders (management and peers) and external stakeholders (prospects and customers).

Despite the increased use of mobile applications in sales, research on this particular form of technology is limited, and sales researchers have yet to examine mCRM or its relationship to sales performance. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to forward a conceptual model that allows researchers to explore the drivers of mCRM use and how mCRM influences individual and organizational-level outcomes.

The purpose of this 16-year review is to summarize interactive marketing literature in the context of personal selling and sales management. This paper serves as precursor to the Special Issue on the Convergence of Interactive Marketing and Personal Selling and Sales Management to be published by the Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing. Key research needs are identified.

A content analysis was performed on 106 articles categorized over 1998-2013. Ebsco Host was used as the database search engine, running impendent searches using personal selling, professional selling and sales management as identifiers across a variety of interactive marketing topics identified by Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing (JRIM)’s Editorial Board.

The examination of the convergence of interactive marketing in a personal selling/sales management context revealed 106 articles, with approximately 60 per cent being published in the past eight years. Although the interactive marking field is growing, there is clearly a significant opportunity for scholarly work across wide-ranging personal selling and sales management topics, and specifically in the areas of performance indices, evolving technologies, social media and tactical sales and management issues.

The paper reviews personal selling and sales management articles that have been published in the time period of 1998-2013 across marketing, business and non-business journals. While the Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management has been the dominant outlet, other marketing and non-marketing journals are increasing their exposure in these areas.

The study provides both academics and practitioners with an updated review of the interactive marketing literature along with a sense of how personal selling and sales management research is evolving. This review offers value as a standalone article and as input for scholars submitting manuscripts to JRIM’s Special Issue on the Convergence of Interactive Marketing and Personal Selling and Sales Management.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an integrative review of coaching research from different contexts (e.g. athletics, executive coaching, project management and sales), delineate professional sales coaching from other developmental activities and develop a research agenda for stimulating research on professional sales coaching. Professional sales coaching is considered an important sales force developmental program by both sales practitioners and researchers. Yet, research on sales coaching remains fragmented in the extant literature.

An extensive literature review of extant research and theoretical perspectives on coaching as well as insights gathered from exploratory, in-depth interviews of ten sales managers were used to develop the research agenda.

The review and research agenda identify a number of sales coaching-related topics that warrant further research. Specifically, the research agenda addresses salesperson characteristics, sales manager and coach characteristics, selling organization characteristics, sales coaching approaches, nature and effectiveness of the sales coaching process and, finally, outcomes of sales coaching. For each topic, extant research, relevant insights from exploratory interviews and directions for future research are discussed.

This paper is the first integrative review of coaching-related research in the sales literature. It offers an updated conceptualization of sales coaching and identifies opportunities for future research.

The purpose of this study is to explore the role of social media usage among business-to-business sales professionals in China. Specifically, the authors seek to define and explore the unique ways in which Chinese salespeople use social media, with a special emphasis on the role of guanxi. Guanxi is a complex cultural construct that revolves around the exchange of favors to build trust and connection for business purposes.

Three in-depth interviews of sales managers from two industries along with survey data from 42 pharmaceutical sales representatives were collected to gain an understanding of the general usage and attitudes toward social media in the sales process in China.

Results indicated that virtually all the salespeople in the sample were highly familiar with social media and integrated it into the sales process. Furthermore, all participants indicated that their companies were highly supportive of the use of social media with their customers. More importantly, salespeople in China view social media as a critical tool in building guanxi with their customers. Findings from this exploratory study are used to create a conceptual framework for understanding the important role of social media in building guanxi in China.

While the sample is limited to three managerial interviews and 42 survey responses, the data indicated a near universal acceptance and use of social media among Chinese salespeople. Most importantly, social media appears to be the modern gateway to the ancient and culturally unique construct of guanxi that is absolutely indispensable to successful business-to-business sales performance in China.

The structural challenges within China make trust and emotional connection essential to any potential business relationship. Trust is at the core of guanxi. Any firm hoping to succeed in China must understand guanxi and the use of Chinese social media to help build it. This study adds to the knowledge and understanding of guanxi and begins to elucidate the uses of social media as a tool to build and maintain it.

Social media appears to be the modern gateway to the ancient and culturally unique construct of guanxi that is absolutely indispensable to successful business-to-business sales performance in China. This study deepens our understanding of not only guanxi but also how the modern phenomenon of social media is affecting it.

This is one of very few studies to investigate the use of social media among salesforces in China. More importantly, the authors know of no other study linking social media with guanxi.