M.Comm. / A review of literature reveals that salespeople may have misperceptions of their own role and these misperceptions may influence their performance. Selling has also become more complex and scientific in these tough economic times, and more salespeople are involved in selling teams that provide customised solutions to customers’ needs. Salespeople often need to depend on other types of salespeople within the supply chain to be able to successfully perform their own role. Therefore, salespeople may have misperceptions of the roles of other salespeople with whom they work and on whom they depend. These misperceptions may influence the performance of salespersons. Salespeople play an important part in the successful selling of an organisation’s products and the eventual success of the business itself. This study aims to contribute to improving the performance of salespeople by investigating the role perceptions and possible role misperceptions, of mutually dependent Key Account Managers and Sales Agents. Taking into consideration the identified research problem, the primary objective of this study was to investigate the role perceptions of salespeople regarding their own, and their mutually dependent counterparts’ role in the supply chain of a fast-moving consumer goods organisation, and the impact that such perceptions may have on performance. The study employed a mixed method approach to measure the role perceptions of mutually dependent salespeople within the supply chain of a fast-moving consumer goods organisation. The researcher used an exploratory mixed method design. The first phase comprised the collection of qualitative data, and the quantitative phase was then based on the learning’s from the first phase. An exploratory design was ideal for exploring relationships as the study variables were unknown, and a new instrument needed to be developed based on a preliminary qualitative inquiry. Therefore, the research was divided into two phases with the first phase facilitating the design of the instrument for the quantitative second phase of the study. The data collected with the questionnaire was coded, and aside from the normal descriptive statistical analysis such as frequency percentages and standard deviations, hypotheses testing using Pearson product correlations was conducted. For the two smaller groups of respondents a Spearman rank was used, and a Parametric test was employed for the larger group as the variables were normally distributed.

Submitted by Sandra Pereira (srpereira@ufrrj.br) on 2016-09-20T16:57:48Z No. of bitstreams: 1 2011 - Raphael Rossi Rodrigues.pdf: 1927039 bytes, checksum: d62f71cc9d072958cd804d56ebe97f8a (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-09-20T16:57:48Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2011 - Raphael Rossi Rodrigues.pdf: 1927039 bytes, checksum: d62f71cc9d072958cd804d56ebe97f8a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-02-17 / This survey was conducted in a multinational company that operates in the sector of nondurable consumer goods in the international context through the licensing of its brands. Companies that have the right to produce and distribute licensed products are named bottlers. The aim of this study was to measure 13 bottlers in the level of development of logistics Customer Service activities for Key Accounts clients, for it was developed a diagnostic tool based on the available literature on the subject. This diagnostic tool was used in three rounds of assessment in order to check the evolution of the bottlers maturity level of logistics Customer Service activities. They also identified and discussed a series of logistic activities of Customer Service based on a visit in a multinational food industry considered benchmarking in these activities. The diagnostic results show that there was an evolution of the maturity level of logistics Customer Service activities over time, however this trend was not uniform, resulting in a higher variance when comparing the levels of development of all bottlers in the first assessment with the levels obtained in the third and final evaluation. / Esta pesquisa foi realizada em uma empresa multinacional que atua no setor de bens de consumo n?o dur?veis no contexto internacional atrav?s do licenciamento de suas marcas. As empresas que possuem o direito de produzir e distribuir os produtos licenciados s?o denominados fabricantes. O objetivo desta pesquisa foi mensurar em 13 fabricantes o n?vel de desenvolvimento das atividades de Customer Service log?stico para clientes-chave, para isso foi desenvolvida uma ferramenta de diagn?stico com base na literatura dispon?vel sobre o tema. Esta ferramenta de diagn?stico foi utilizada em tr?s rodadas de avalia??o com o objetivo de verificar a evolu??o do n?vel de maturidade das atividades de Customer Service Log?stico nos fabricantes. Tamb?m foi identificada e comentada uma s?rie de atividades de Customer Service log?stico com base em uma visita realizada em uma multinacional do setor de alimentos considerada benchmarking nestas atividades. Os resultados do diagn?stico mostram que houve uma evolu??o do n?vel de maturidade das atividades de Customer Service log?stico ao longo do tempo, entretanto esta evolu??o n?o foi uniforme, o que resultou em uma maior vari?ncia quando comparamos os n?veis de desenvolvimento de todos os fabricantes na primeira avalia??o com os n?veis obtidos na terceira e ?ltima avalia??o.