Shannon Cummins, James W. Peltier and Andrea Dixon
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…
Abstract
Purpose
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.
Design/methodology/approach
Literature review and research needs development.
Findings
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.
Originality/value
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.
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Shannon Cummins, James W. Peltier, John A. Schibrowsky and Alexander Nill
– The purpose of this article is to review the consumer behavior and social network theory literature related to the online and e-commerce context.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this article is to review the consumer behavior and social network theory literature related to the online and e-commerce context.
Design/methodology/approach
To conduct the review, the authors draw on a sample of 942 articles published from 1993 to 2012 addressing consumer behavior or social network issues in the online or social media context. The sample is analyzed by both era (incubation, expansion and explosion) and primary topic.
Findings
Eight categories of online consumer behavior research are described. In the order from largest to smallest, these are: cognitive issues, user-generated content, Internet demographics and segmentation, online usage, cross cultural, online communities and networks, strategic use and outcomes and consumer Internet search.
Originality/value
The literature has been summarized in each category and research opportunities have been offered for consumer behavior and social network scholars interested in exploring the online context.
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Richard A. Rocco and Alan J. Bush
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…
Abstract
Purpose
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.
Design/methodology/approach
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.
Findings
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.
Originality/value
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.
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– 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.
Abstract
Purpose
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.
Design/methodology/approach
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).
Findings
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.
Research limitations/implications
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.
Practical implications
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.
Originality/value
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.
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Keith E. Niedermeier, Emily Wang and Xiaohan Zhang
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…
Abstract
Purpose
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.
Design/methodology/approach
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.
Findings
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.
Research limitations/implications
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.
Practical implications
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 implications
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.
Originality/value
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.
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Michael Rodriguez and Kevin Trainor
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…
Abstract
Purpose
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.
Design/methodology/approach
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.
Findings
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).
Originality/value
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.
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Barbara Barney-McNamara, James Peltier, Pavan Rao Chennamaneni and Keith Eric Niedermeier
The purpose of this paper is to provide a detail review of the social selling literature and to offer future research needs. Social selling has gained the attention of sales…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide a detail review of the social selling literature and to offer future research needs. Social selling has gained the attention of sales researchers. Rather than merely a new tool, social selling redefines the traditional sales process. However, the literature is spread across topics of social media and sales, social customer relationship management, salesforce automation and social selling, and does not provide an agreed-upon definition or tested construct for implementation.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper presents a comprehensive literature review of social selling and all related terminology.
Findings
The authors propose a social selling framework that includes personal branding, information exchange, networking and social listening to define and outline the construct while suggesting the antecedents and outcomes to guide future research. Findings from a literature review include outlining key theories used in social selling research.
Originality/value
This review offers a conceptual framework of social selling, including both antecedents and outcomes, to inform future research and guide academics and practitioners.
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Angus Corbett, Jo Travaglia and Jeffrey Braithwaite
This paper aims to be a theoretical examination of the role of individuals in sponsoring and facilitating effective, systemic change in organisations. Using reports of a number of…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to be a theoretical examination of the role of individuals in sponsoring and facilitating effective, systemic change in organisations. Using reports of a number of high‐profile initiatives to improve patient safety, it seeks to analyse the role of individual health care professionals in developing and facilitating new systems of care that improve safety and quality.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper uses recent work in sociology that is concerned with the phenomenon of “sociological citizenship”. The authors test whether successful initiators of change in health care can be described as sociological citizens. This notion of sociological citizens is applied to a number of highly successful initiatives to improve safety and quality to extrapolate the factors associated with individual clinician leadership, which may have affected the success of such endeavours.
Findings
In each of the examples analysed the initiators of change can be characterised as sociological citizens. In reviewing the roles of these charismatic individuals it is evident that they see the relational interdependence between the individuals and organisations and that they use this information to achieve both professional and organisational objectives.
Research limitations/implications
The paper uses a case study method to investigate the usefulness of the role of sociological citizenship in interventions that aim to improve patient safety. The paper reviews the key concepts and uses of the concept of sociological citizenship to produce a framework against which the case studies were assessed.
Practical implications
The authors suggest that a goal of policy for improving patient safety should be directed to the problem of how hospitals and health care organisations can create the conditions for encouraging the individual diligence and care that is needed to support reliable, safe health care practices.
Social implications
Improving the safety and quality of health care is an important public health initiative. It has also proven to be difficult to achieve sustained reductions in the harm caused by the occurrence of adverse events in health care. The process of linking individual diligence with service outcomes may help to overcome one of the enduring struggles of health care systems around the world: the policy‐practice divide.
Originality/value
The paper directs attention towards the role of sociological citizenship in health care systems and organisations.
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Niccolo Curatolo, Samir Lamouri, Jean-Charles Huet and André Rieutord
As reimbursements fall and costs for services climb, organizations are forced to follow the painful motto of doing more with less. A solution could be the adaptation of industrial…
Abstract
Purpose
As reimbursements fall and costs for services climb, organizations are forced to follow the painful motto of doing more with less. A solution could be the adaptation of industrial business process improvement (BPI) methods such as Lean to the hospital setting (HS). The purpose of this paper is to analyze if Lean approaches related in the literature provide sufficient methodological support for other practitioners to reproduce the reported results.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors analyzed the published Lean literature in the HS using a methodological maturity-level framework and what the authors defined as the 11 characteristic activities of BPI.
Findings
The literature analysis reveals that a Lean approach with a high-methodological maturity level that includes the 11 characteristic activities of BPI has never been reported. Considering this, the paper suggests a meta model for a high-methodological maturity-level Lean method based on the characteristic activities of BPI.
Originality/value
This is the first study on the Lean approach in the HS that evidences the absence of a robust Lean methodology in the literature. For Lean to be adopted and implemented by hospital practitioners a structured robust method should be provided.
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Francine Rodier, Fabien Durif and Myriam Ertz
Previous research has extensively examined “food deserts,” where access to healthy food is limited. However, little is known of the buying behavior at the individual household…
Abstract
Purpose
Previous research has extensively examined “food deserts,” where access to healthy food is limited. However, little is known of the buying behavior at the individual household level in terms of buying habits and consumption in these areas. The purpose of this paper is to determine to what extent other factors than access can account for the purchase of healthy food products, namely, fruits and vegetables.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper proposes to partially fill this gap through a qualitative (n=55) and quantitative (n=512) study of those people who are in charge of their household purchases in two food deserts in the city of Montreal.
Findings
Results show that geographical access to supermarkets is not the main factor fostering the purchase of healthy foods (fruits and vegetables). Indeed, food education (e.g. information, simple recipes, cooking classes), associated with a changing mediation process through product diversification (e.g. availability of local products in bulk) and supply (e.g. farmers) seems to be more significant.
Research limitations/implications
Future studies could compare the results obtained through this study in different socio-demographic contexts. Longitudinal analyses could also increase the understanding of the social and commercial challenges.
Originality/value
In contrast to previous studies, the results show that geographical access to supermarkets is not the main factor fostering the purchase of fruits and vegetables. Indeed, food education (e.g. information, simple recipes, cooking classes), associated with a changing mediation process through product diversification (e.g. products in bulk) and supply (e.g. farmers) seem to be more significant.