2020 Q1 Research Review – edited by Jeremy Noad
28th May 2020 | Dr Jeremy Noad
The research review aims to help readers keep up to date with recently published research on sales-related topics. The review highlights short abstracts of academically peer-reviewed research. This selection of published research is from a range of academic journals. In this edition, the abstracts include three themes that focus on sales performance, customer management, and sales behavioural studies.
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Sales Performance
Clearly defining the customer’s problem enables sales success
Given the complexity (eg, digitization, customization, and scale) of modern business solutions, salespeople increasingly seek to influence the pre-planning stages of buyer decision-making to increase effectiveness. During the early stage of organizational buying, salespeople can align their firm’s capabilities and expertise by offering input on problem definition, before a solution is sought. However, surprisingly little is known about the role of salespeople in the period before a buying firm decides to officially address a problem and seek vendor solutions. Thus, our research focuses on the inclusion of both incumbent salespeople (strong ties to the buying organization) and non-incumbent salespeople (limited, or non-existent, ties to the buying organization) in pre-decision phase information-sourcing of buyers. Drawing upon theory from social network and problem-solving literature, we develop a contingency model to illustrate pre-decision phase conditions based on problem-framing, structure, and urgency that make incumbent or non-incumbent salespeople more likely to be sources of information. We test our hypotheses across a series of scenario-based experimental studies conducted with purchasing managers. Our findings suggest situations where the incumbent and non-incumbent salespeople have a greater likelihood of being positioned to engage in pre-decision stage planning with customers.
Bonney, L, Hochstein, B, Christenson, B, and Chefor, E (2019), “Incumbent and non-incumbent salesperson consultation in the pre-decision stage of organizational purchasing”, Industrial Marketing Management.
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