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Purpose This study aims to validate a research model testing trust and commitment as mediators between economic and non-economic satisfaction in sales manager business to business (B2B) relationships. Design/methodology/approach Based on a broad range of 242 small-, medium- and large-sized Spanish companies, the data analysis used structural equation modeling by means of the SPSS/AMOS 26.0 software. Findings The findings confirm that trust and commitment serve as mediators between economic and non-economic satisfaction in business channel relationships, when adopting a sales perspective. Practical implications This study provides managerial support and guidance for assessing satisfaction, trust and commitment from a sales manager perspective in business channel relationships, to create and maintain long-term exchange relationships, with mutual benefits extending to other partners. Originality/value The findings shed light on the confusion regarding the nomological framework in models related to the quality of B2B relationships, thus confirming the mediating role of trust and commitment between economic and non-economic satisfaction in business channel relationships, following a sales perspective and considering the dual nature of satisfaction, distinguishing between economic and non-economic satisfaction.

Purpose The increasingly complex business-to-business (B2B) sales process necessitates that sales managers strike the right balance between appropriate resource allocation, while also maintaining the profitability of the organization. While previous research has mainly focused on how changes in the business environment pose distinct challenges to salespeople, very little research has focused on how sales managers should react to these complex situations. Drawing upon the extant sales research, this paper aims to point to a gap in the literature of how sales managers deal with the complexity associated with the sales process and deal with the same. Design/methodology/approach Methods from the grounded theory research approach were used to conduct 18 in-depth interviews with B2B sales managers. Purposive sampling was used to identify the participants. Findings A taxonomy of sales situations that reflects the changing complexity of the sales function and how sales managers need to orchestrate their resource allocation decisions to ensure appropriate value capture from B2B relationships emerged within the themes. This paper highlights four fundamental tenets of sales situations that account for both the complexity of the sales process and the value appropriation challenge that sales managers face. Practical implications The taxonomy will help sales managers have a better understanding of the changing complexity in the B2B sales process and help them with decisions making. Sales managers can orchestrate their resource allocation to achieve value appropriation. Originality/value This paper develops a new taxonomy of the sales situation. It unravels the changing complexity of the B2B sales process and discusses how value appropriation can be achieved by sales managers.

Sales force incentive design often involves significant participation by sales managers in designing the compensation plans of salespeople who report to them. Although sales managers hold valuable territory-level information, they may benefit from misrepresenting that information given their own incentives. The author uses a game theoretic model to show (1) how a firm can efficiently leverage a manager's true knowledge and (2) the conditions under which involving the manager is optimal. Under the proposed approach, the firm delegates sales incentive decisions to the manager within restrictive constraints. She can then request relaxed constraints by fulfilling certain requirements. The author shows how these constraints and requirements can be set to ensure the firm's best possible outcome given the manager's information. Thus, this \"request mechanism\" offers an efficient, reliable alternative to approaches often used in practice to incorporate managerial input, such as internal negotiations and behind-the-scenes lobbying. The author then identifies the conditions under which this mechanism outperforms the well-established theoretical approach of offering the salesperson a menu of contracts to reveal territory-level information.

This article analyzes empirical research in which the sales manager is the unit of analysis to determine what knowledge has been generated by sales scholars about sales managers and sales management practice. It examines what we have learned from sales managers about their jobs and themselves with particular emphasis on the managerial relevance of the work. While the sales literature is vast and despite the importance of sales managers being widely recognized and accepted, an extensive search of the sales literature identified only 163 articles in which the sales manager was the focus of empirical research about what they do. To help better understand what has been discovered, these articles are examined and categorized according to the main focus of each article's research. The results show that with respect to sales managers, our knowledge is limited and substantial opportunities exist for additional research to expand our understanding of the nature, roles, and impact of sales managers as well as providing usable advice for the practice of sales management.

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of sales manager support in promoting the subjective well-being of salespeople as well as the function of the sales manager in cultivating positive, motivating and productive environments.Design methodology approach - An exploratory assessment of the relationship between sales manager support and emotional health in salespeople was conducted by interviewing sales professionals from diverse industries. The insight offered from these individuals, in conjunction with prior literature, provided the basis for the development of a conceptual model that elucidates the impact of sales manager support on the emotional well-being of salespeople and subsequently salesperson effectiveness. The model was tested using 154 salespeople. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data.Findings - Results indicate that sales manager support is negatively related to emotional exhaustion and rumination, but positively associated with fostering positive working environments and future expectations. Salesperson motivation is positively related to positive working environments and customer-oriented selling and negatively related to emotional exhaustion.Research limitations implications - The study is cross-sectional in nature and no causal relationships could be established. Future studies might include field experiments that assess the effect of sales manager support on salesperson's well-being and behavior.Practical implications - The study demonstrates the important role sales managers have in promoting the subjective well-being of salespeople.Originality value - This research addresses how sales manager coaching specifically impacts elements of a salesperson's emotional health.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the mediating role of salespeople’s customer orientation on the relationship between sales manager personal characteristics, fellow salespeople’s characteristics, job satisfaction and adaptive selling and salespeople’s performance in the insurance industry in Jordan. Design/methodology/approach A structured and self-administered survey was employed targeting 500 insurance salespeople working at insurance companies operating in Jordan. The final sample size was 320 salespeople representing a response rate of 64 percent. A Confirmatory factor analysis was used to assess the research constructs dimensions, unidimensionality, validity and composite reliability. Structural path analysis was also used to test the hypothesized relationships of the research model. Findings The empirical findings indicate that salespeople’s customer orientation fully mediates the effect of fellow salespeople’s characteristics and adaptive selling on salespeople’s performance. Sales managers’ personal characteristics have a direct effect on salespeople’s performance, contrary to job satisfaction that had no effect on salespeople’s performance. Research limitations/implications This paper has examined only five factors that affected directly and indirectly salespeople’s performance; meanwhile other factors may affect their performance, such as salespeople experience, internal marketing and corporate image. Additionally, the fact that paper’s sample consisted only of insurance salespeople working at insurance companies limits its generalization potential to other industries. Practical implications The findings emphasize the importance of fostering good relationships among fellow salespeople’s characteristics and adaptive selling strategies. Further, sales managers’ personal characteristics directly affecting salespeople’s performance signifies the importance to hire managers with the right personal approach. Originality/value This paper represents one of the early attempts that investigate factors affecting salespeople’s performance through the mediating role of customer orientation. Accordingly, the findings shed more light into the strategic role of this construct in enhancing salespeople’s performance. Also, the paper is the first of its kind to build and examine an integrated model of salespeople’s performance in the insurance market of Jordan, which provides valuable empirical evidence concerning the drivers of salespeople’s performance in the insurance industry in Jordan.

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to examine how trends in historical data influence two types of predictive judgments: territory selection and salesperson hiring. Sales managers are confronted frequently with decisions that explicitly or implicitly involve forecasting with limited information. In doing so, they conceptualize how the magnitude of these trend effects may be affected by the experience managers have in making these types of judgments. Study 1 provides evidence of a curvilinear relationship between experience and reliance on the trend data whereby the sales territory selections of novice sales managers exhibited greater susceptibility to informational trends than did the evaluations of naïve and expert decision-makers. A benchmark analysis in Study 2 further revealed that the salesperson selections made by novice and expert sales managers were equally biased, albeit in opposite directions, with novices overweighting and experts underweighting historical performance trends. Implications of these findings are discussed, as are avenues for future research. Design/methodology/approach – The authors employ an online experimental design methodology of practicing managers. For Study 1, they use regression, whereas Study 2 uses a deterministic process to develop a priori predictive benchmark forecasts. Ordinary least squares is then used to estimate manager’s decisions, which are then compared to the predictive forecasts to determine accuracy. Findings – Study 1 provides evidence of a curvilinear relationship between experience and reliance on the trend data whereby the sales territory selections of novice sales managers exhibited greater susceptibility to informational trends than did the evaluations of naïve and expert decision-makers. A benchmark analysis in Study 2 further revealed that the salesperson selections made by novice and expert sales managers were equally biased, albeit in opposite directions, with novices overweighting and experts underweighting historical performance trends. Originality/value – The present inquiry is the first to provide insights into an important issue that has been the subject of equivocal findings, namely, whether experience in a judgmental domain exerts a facilitating or debilitating effect on sales manager decision-making. In this regard, some research supports the intuition that experience in making a particular type of decision can insulate managers from judgmental bias and, in doing so, improve decision quality (see Shanteau, [1992a] for a summary). In contrast, other work provides a more pessimistic view by demonstrating that the quality of decision-making is either unaffected by or can erode with additional experience (Hutchinson et al., 2010). To help reconcile these conflicting findings, the authors presented and tested a theoretical framework conceptualizing how trends may influence predictive judgments across three levels of decision-maker experience.

Salesperson’s job satisfaction is of particular interest to companies because it has been linked to performance and customer retention. Contemporary sales workplace is becoming increasingly complex, but sales managers still, and more than ever, play a significant role in shaping attitudes of their salespeople. us, it is important to understand the influence of different sales management practices on salespeople’s satisfaction which leads to better personal and organizational results. The main aim of this paper is to explore the influence of three types of sales management control (behavior-based, knowledge-based and outcome based control), sales management support and satisfaction with sales manager on salespeople’s job satisfaction. The research was conducted among sales force in Croatia and Italy and the data were analyzed by the PLS-SEM method. The study shows that knowledge-based control, manager support and satisfaction with manager positively impact salespeople’s job satisfaction. An influence of behavior-based control and outcome-based control was not demonstrated. e findings are partly in line with previous researches, but also provide new insights into aspects of manager-seller relations. e results can help sales managers to shape the target behavior and practices, and make them aware of the importance of their role in achieving job satisfaction among their subordinates. Top and human resource (HR) managers can also hire appropriate managers that can be encouraged to implement desired practices.

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine sales manager training approaches, methods, and instructors (as well as their perceived effectiveness, frequency, and assessment).Design methodology approach - Utilizing a survey approach, data were collected (and analyzed) from 355 members of two associations: the United Professional Sales Association and the American Society for Training and Development.Findings - First, internal training approaches and instructors are most commonly used and perceived as most effective. Second, sales managers are exposed to a wide variety of training content as part of their training activities. Third, the frequency, duration, and assessment of training vary widely among respondent organizations.Research limitations implications - The utilized sample of sales managers and trainers are employed by firms within the USA. Cultural differences could exist in training practices, training content, and perceptions of effectiveness among respondents from other countries.Practical implications - First, sales manager training activities lie on a continuum that complicates effectiveness measurement. Second, sales manager training should be provided in the field by those who are either senior to or more knowledgeable on the training topic(s) than the sales manager. Third, internet-based training methods are still in their infancy. Fourth, the complexities associated with the sales manager position lead to a need for varied training being delivered by diverse instructors.Originality value - Almost a decade has passed since the last empirical studies of the \"nuts and bolts\" of sales manager training practices were published. The current study builds on previous work by utilizing a larger sample and incorporating technology advances and new content areas (e.g. financial analysis, networking, partnering, cross-functional activities).

It's hard to believe that Oceanography is coming up on its tenth anniversary of publishing career profiles. Since 2010, ocean scientists, generally two per issue of the magazine, have been sharing their stories about how they came to their careers outside of academia, what their work entails, and advice on how to seek jobs. While the career profiles page is consistently one of the most viewed on The Oceanography Society web site, after publishing 80 profiles by the end of this calendar year, describing a wide variety of career paths, it's time to assess whether we should continue this column or find some other useful way to use the space in the magazine to address graduate student and early career information needs.