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The purpose of this paper is to examine the performance of salespeople when selling new products (namely, electronic goods) in a business-to-business context by incorporating the organizations’ perceived psychological climate into goal orientation theory.

The current study uses the goal orientation theory to examine the performance of 158 salespeople based on new electronic product sales. Organizational psychological climate perceptions (i.e. customer orientation, sales supportiveness and sales innovativeness) are included as variables that can moderate salespeople’s performance. This study used partial least squares to examine its proposed model.

This study found that the learning goal orientation and the performance-prove goal orientation positively affect salespeople’s self-efficacy to sell new products, whereas a performance-avoid goal orientation negatively affects efficacy. In addition, new product selling self-efficacy itself has a positive influence on new product sales performance. As for the moderator, sales supportiveness and customer orientation have the ability to moderate the relationship between self-efficacy and performance.

This study has implications for sales managers or product managers who are responsible for promoting new products. First, this study’s findings suggest that managers should consider employing performance-prove goal-oriented staff and learning goal oriented staff to sell new products. Second, management can attempt to develop a more supportive climate for the sales team, such as assisting the team in obtaining needed resources from other departments. Finally, management needs to let salespeople know that they are doing their best to understand what new products existing and potential customers will need in the near future.

This current research is one of the first to examine how the perceived psychological climates of organizations (i.e. sales supportiveness, sales innovativeness and customer orientation) may moderate salespeople’s performance when selling new products. Second, this research examines how different types of goal orientation affect salespeople’s self-efficacy when selling new products. Previous results have not always been consistent regarding the influence of a performance-prove goal orientation. Last but not least, this study tests how new product selling self-efficacy mediates the relationships between goal orientations and new product sales performance as scholars have suggested that more research into the mediating role of self-efficacy is needed.

The current study examined relationships between goal orientation dimensions and other individual difference constructs in order to clarify the conceptual definition of goal orientation. Results from a sample of university students (N = 228) revealed that learning goal orientation is related to constructs addressing competence (need for achievement, intrinsic motivation, and private self‐consciousness) and to constructs addressing control (locus of control and dominance). Additionally, results indicated that performance goal orientation is related to constructs addressing individuals' desire for favorable evaluations (social desirability and public self‐consciousness). Finally, we proposed that self‐esteem addresses issues relating to both competence and desire for favorable evaluations, and results revealed support for predicted relationships with learning and performance goal orientation dimensions. Our clarification of the goal orientation construct provides a framework to guide future research.

This paper aims to examine how the motivation and ability of individual employees to sell influences their units’ capability to align their service delivery with sales in a way that satisfies customers. It also addresses the potential influence of employees’ confidence in their supervisor’s ability to sell, such that they predict a joint influence of personal and proxy agency.

This study uses hierarchical linear modeling to address the research issues.

Employees’ learning orientation has a positive influence on service-sales ambidexterity, but the impact of a performance-avoidance goal orientation is negative, and a performance-prove orientation has no influence. Proxy efficacy enhances the positive impact of learning orientations due to the manager’s ability to lead by example, facilitate knowledge sharing and provide advice. However, it attenuates the impact of self-efficacy on service-sales ambidexterity, because skilled supervisors tend to take over and eliminate opportunities for employees to build their own skills. It also confirms the positive influence of service-sales ambidexterity on branch performance.

To examine the emerging service-sales ambidexterity issues raised in frontline service units, this study adopts a motivation and capability paradigm. It is among the first studies to address service-sales ambidexterity issues by considering both individual and branch contextual factors.

Based on goal orientation theory, this study aims to examine how and when employees' performance goal orientations (PGOs) affect their change-supportive behavior in entrepreneurial firms undergoing change.

A two-wave time-lagged research design was applied to collect data from companies undergoing change in China.

The results showed that employees' performance-proving goal orientation (PPGO) was positively related to change-supportive behavior, and employees' performance-avoiding goal orientation (PAGO) was negatively related to change-supportive behavior. Openness to change played a mediating role in these mechanisms, and employees' learning goal orientation (LGO) played a moderating role.

By solving the mechanism of the relationship between PGOs and change-supportive behavior that has not been explored before, this study answers the question of how and when different PGOs affect support behavior.

Finite element discretizations of low‐frequency, time‐harmonic magnetic problems lead to sparse, complex symmetric systems of linear equations. The question arises which Krylov subspace methods are appropriate to solve such systems. The quasi minimal residual method combines a constant amount of work and storage per iteration step with a smooth convergence history. These advantages are obtained by building a quasi minimal residual approach on top of a Lanczos process to construct the search space. Solving the complex systems by transforming them to equivalent real ones of double dimension has to be avoided as such real systems have spectra that are less favourable for the convergence of Krylov‐based methods. Numerical experiments are performed on electromagnetic engineering problems to compare the quasi minimal residual method to the bi‐conjugate gradient method and the generalized minimal residual method.

This study aims to explore the effects of three competency layers of personality on salesperson effort and performance: self-efficacy, competitiveness and entrepreneurial motivation.

A two-study approach with data from 285 business-to-business (B2B) salespeople in the USA and 342 B2B/business-to-consumer salespeople in Poland is used. This study has also used structural equation modelling with partial least squares, common method assessment and mediation testing.

The findings show that across both studies, entrepreneurial motivation relates directly and positively to effort: salespeople with a greater entrepreneurial motivation exert more effort to perform their sales-related tasks. In addition, competitiveness and self-efficacy are two antecedents of entrepreneurial motivation in a sales context.

This study introduces the concept of entrepreneurial motivation as a goal orientation.

This paper aims to further the understanding of the motivation to learn (ML) among an organisation’s older cohort of employees. It is proposed that age diversity climate (ADC) will positively impact ML by improving employees’ subjective age (SA) perception. Such a climate will indicate that the organisational climate is fair and inclusive regardless of the employee’s age.

Salaried Indian workers were administered a questionnaire on SA, ML and ADC.

ADC was positively related to ML, with SA acting as a mediator. The relationship is stronger for employees with higher chronological age (C.Age).

Policymakers and managers can draw from the findings and develop HR programs aimed at managing an age-diverse workforce and can incorporate measures that enhance the employability of the chronologically ageing but subjectively younger cohort to prevent premature departure from the labour market.

The present article contributes to the literature on work and ageing by investigating the subjective relationship of workers to their age. The findings also focus on successful ageing, thus contributing to the life span developmental theories.

This paper aims to investigate the process of innovation in firms founded by user-entrepreneurs. It also empirically investigates the role of customer involvement and user-entrepreneurs’ learning goal orientation in the innovation process.

A survey design is used to collect data from entrepreneurs managing small businesses. A total of 255 entrepreneurs responded to the survey questionnaire. The partial least square structural equation model was used to test the measurement and structural model.

Results suggest a positive association of user-entrepreneurship with innovation and customer involvement. Results also confirmed that customer involvement mediates the relationship between user-entrepreneurship and innovation. In addition, results suggest that the higher learning orientation (LO) of user-entrepreneurs plays a vital role in innovation by strengthening the relationship between user-entrepreneurship and customer involvement.

The study focuses on small entrepreneurial firms with less than equal to or less than 250 employees. The results may not be generalizable to larger user-entrepreneurial firms. Also, this study is based on American entrepreneurs. Therefore, the results may not be generalizable to other countries.

Evidence for the role of customer involvement and LO in the innovation process can be used by entrepreneurs and small business owners in hiring and training decisions. Also, the findings suggest the important role played by customers in the innovation process. Firms can use this insight to involve their customers in the product development process to secure better innovation outcomes.

This study contributes to the innovation and entrepreneurship literature by emphasizing the critical role of customer networks in user-entrepreneurs’ innovation performance. It offers a process model that offers empirical evidence supporting the positive role of customer involvement in new ventures. It highlights the role of the LO of user-entrepreneurs in the customer engagement process.

This study aims to investigate how learning goal orientation (LGO), participative decision-making (PDM) and leadership member exchange (LMX) influence innovative work behaviour (IWB) through expatriate employee creativity (EC). This research study further contributes to the extant literature by investigating team potency’s (TP) potential interaction effect on the expatriate EC–IWB relationship.

Data were gathered via survey from 175 expatriate employees in non-managerial positions in the United Arab Emirates. Partial least square structural equation modelling was used for analysing the collected data.

The statistical results show that PDM, LGO and LMX have a direct positive impact on IWB. The statistical findings also reveal that EC mediates the LGO and IWB relationship. Furthermore, TP has a significant positive moderating effect on the EC and IWB relationship.

This work adds to the literature in the field on innovation work behaviour and its antecedents by analysing data within the expatriate employee context, where empirical examinations are limited.

The emphasis on short-term by project-based firms (PBFs) implies the adoption of project efficiency and impact on the team as project success drivers in PBFs context. Good performance by employees, as individuals in a team, can be explained by their behaviors, associated with goal orientation theory. Learning and performance orientations are associated with teams’ effectiveness and overall project performance. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationships between the dimensions of goal orientation, especially learning orientation, and project efficiency and impact on the team, in PBFs context.

A quantitative approach was adopted, based on data from a survey of 714 respondents, representing project managers, that turned into a valid sample of 315 composed only by PBFs respondents. The results were analyzed through multiple linear regression and, mainly, mediation analysis methods.

Performance-avoid orientation is a predictor of project efficiency; performance-prove orientation, a predictor of impact on the team. Learning orientation relates positively to both project success criteria. Project managers should balance/induce the proper orientation within the team, favoring learning orientation according to the results, to have short-term project success in PBFs.

There is a direct relationship between learning orientation and project efficiency, but it is fully mediated by impact on the team, which it was not found in previous studies. This study argues that they are not parallel constructs, constituent parts of equal weight in project success, but that impact on the team precedes project efficiency when learning orientation is considered.