Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2009. / Title from title screen (site viewed February 25, 2010). PDF text: vi, 157 p. : col. ill. ; 4 Mb. UMI publication number: AAT 3386758. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in microfilm and microfiche formats.

Thesis (M.Com. (Information Systems))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, School of Economic and Business Sciences, 2013. / This research study investigated the key factors that facilitate the adoption of technology by salespeople by building on previous studies in literature that have investigated Customer Relationship Management (CRM) acceptance. The research model was adapted by introducing a new construct, System Characteristics, along with Organisational, Social and Individual Factors to explain Sales Force Automation (SFA) tool acceptance, through the mediating influences of Perceived Usefulness (PU) and Perceived Ease-of-Use (PEOU). The results from 337 end-users of the Siebel CRM system in Bank A, in South Africa, found that in addition to PU and PEOU, Personal Innovativeness and Team Leader Support are significant independent drivers of User Acceptance of SFA tools. The model had an R2 of 0.480, which showed that a considerable portion of the variance could be explained through these factors. The research contributes to the current body of research by confirming the importance of personal innovativeness and team leader support towards system acceptance. The number of years the user has been working on the system was also shown to have a significant positive influence on acceptance. Practitioners, concerned with the acceptance of SFA tools, will find that organisational and social factors can significantly influence how users perceive a system to be easy-to-use and useful. The fact that these factors are all relatively easily implementable will be welcomed by IT practitioners facing similar challenges with their sales force. Technical characteristics of the system were found to be a construct that is recommended for future research, based on the findings from this study. Identifying specific aspects of the interface that change users’ perceptions about the software’s ease-of-use can be done by possibly Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) with the e-S-QUAL model in future studies.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on December 6, 2007) Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (PhDBusinessandManagement)--University of South Australia, 2007.

This dissertation uses game theoretic models in a principal-agent framework to study how firms optimally manage long term career related incentives for their sales people. When sales people put sales effort they face incentives not only from short term incentives like commissions and bonuses but also from long term rewards associated with progression in their career. In particular, sales people are often motivated to get promoted and avoid being laid off, to get selected to managerial positions and to form stronger relationships with customers so that they can bargain for higher wages in the future, respectively. Three different essays examine each of these three career related incentives and how firms can optimally manage them. Essay 1 (Chapter 2) studies why and how firms use a type of promotion and layoff policy, called the Forced Ranking policy, to provide optimal long term career incentives to sales people. Findings from the essay suggests that when sales people are ambiguity averse and there is economic uncertainty regarding promotions and layoffs, firms are likely to commit to a promotion policy but may or may not commit to a layoff policy as part of Forced Ranking. Interestingly, it is shown that firms enjoying higher margins are more likely to commit to both promotion and layoffs, consistent with observations from industry practice. Results also suggest that in absence of costs from promoting and laying off employees, firms should use an up-or-out contract to motivate the sales force. Essay 2 (Chapter 3) investigates how career incentives associated with promotion of sales employees to sales management roles may interfere with selection of the right sales managers. The essay was motivated by the common observation that organizations often promote their best sales people to sales managerial roles but after promotion find that the sales people are not as good as they were expected to be in their new roles, a phenomenon called Peter Principle. An alternative explanation for this phenomenon of adverse selection is provided and possible solutions are analyzed as part of the essay. In essay 3 (Chapter 4) long term career incentives that sales reps face when they can form relationships with their customers are considered. Loyalty generated from customer-salesperson relationships is often "owned" by the sales person and it can be lost if the sales person moves to another firm. Therefore, firms compete for both customers as well as sales reps with the objective of poaching customers that are loyal to the sales reps. The essay analyzes how firms can deal with such a competition. Findings suggest that contrary to general beliefs, the presence of anti-employee poaching regulations like Non-Compete clauses, or tacit collusion to not poach each other's employees may hurt firm profits under some conditions. Overall, the dissertation answers how firms can manage sales force career incentives to maximize profits.

Sales management control and sales force performance has received substantial attention by researchers in the past decades. Researchers have been investigating the construct of sales control, its antecedents and its consequences on both the individual sales person and on sales force performance. This research project analyses how and why the sales control systems are implemented the way they are. The basis for this approach is drawn from the organisational or management control literature which treats behaviour and outcome approaches as dimensions rather than categories. Organisational control also treats the control system as a process which consists of a set of stages or sub processes being objective setting, planning, monitoring, feedback and correcting. With the growing importance of relationship selling and key account management it can no longer be assumed that all the sales people will operate at the same hierarchical level within an organisation nor that they will be subject to one and the same control system. Therefore an in depth analysis of how sales force control processes are implemented for different types of sales functions, ranging from customer acquisition, small to medium account management to strategic and global account management, is needed. The research project included 17 preliminary interviews across different organisations, from which one organisation was selected on the basis that it contains a large international sales force of about 2.500 people consisting of a very wide range of sales functions. The analysis of this organisation included 100 plus interviews of 66 sales managers and sales people across all types of sales functions over a two year period. The findings show that the inability to measure certain inputs and outputs does not deter a sales organisation to adopt their sales control strategy within a functional sales team. When some measures are not available or are unreliable, sales managers find other ways to measure them being it through some locally developed tools or through more qualitative approaches. The method used to obtain certain measures does impact the level of the sophistication of the actual control process or strategy. When there is a need to control sales people who operate as a team of employees from different departments the sales managers can no longer individually develop some local tools to measure inputs and outputs. The findings show that team based selling requires accurate data but also globally agreed rules and procedures in order to operate successfully. This enables us to conclude that the inability to measure certain inputs and outputs is a determining variable for the implementation of client sales teams. With regard to sales force control strategies the research uncovered that within the category of the hybrid sales control approach there are four types of sales control sub approaches. The choice of which control to use is dependent on the size of the customers or opportunities the sales people work with and the selling approach which is either hunting or farming. This shows that while farming can be relabelled as key account management, hunting remains a major sales activity requiring not only different selling approaches it also requires different types of sales control processes than for farming. All of these findings indicate that several types of sales control systems can operate across one single organisation and that the main determining variables are the sales approach and the type of accounts the sales person is managing. This challenges current beliefs or assumptions that all sales people operate at the same hierarchical level within an organisation and that they all operate under one single sales control approach. Future research on sales force control will need to take these findings into account when designing their approach to study control systems within organisations.

Sales management researchers and practitioners give considerable attention to early employment expectations, attitudes, and behaviors primarily because of a desire to specify the cognition process leading to performance and retention of salespeople. While a massive body of literature exists concerning turnover of employees and determinants of employee performance, more empirical study specific to the sales force as a research population is needed to assess the nature of turnover and performance. Because the bulk of salesperson turnover occurs in early employment, particular attention needs to be devoted to the cognitive process of newcomers to the sales force. The present work examines expectation-based and perception-oriented models of performance and retention for sales force new hires. Interests of this investigation focus on the initial expectations of newly hired sales representatives and on how the degree of fulfillment of these expectations relates to subsequent performance and retention behavior. Extant research suggests that the degree to which expectations are met positively influences mediating variables such as job satisfaction and organizational commitment, and indirectly influences outcomes such as job performance and retention of newcomers. Alternatively, some researchers contend that these results are due to improper measurement of met expectations. A longitudinal research design and alternative measurement methods are employed here to better assess the role of met/unmet expectations. The proposed study is based on theoretical research from a variety of academic disciplines, and the results of the study will have multi-disciplinary implications. Contributions include: (a) replication and extension of theoretical research concerning processes leading to performance and retention of sales force newcomers, (b) a thorough examination of met expectations as a precursor to early sales force outcomes, and (c) methodological advances in the measurement of met expectations.

A participação do mercado imobiliário na economia brasileira é bastante relevante, tanto em montante financeiro quanto na complexidade dos processos inerentes às suas transações. O corretor, profissional que faz a intermediação de compra e venda de imóveis, é uma figura-chave desse mercado e portanto, importante de ser pesquisado. O presente estudo almeja examinar a preparação do profissional atuante no mercado imobiliário, o corretor de imóveis, mediante a realização de um estudo de caso com uma empresa líder do setor no mercado de São Paulo, utilizando o instrumento de coleta de dados de questionário por email com os líderes de sua força de vendas e da área de recursos humanos. A empresa-caso está inserida em um contexto de forte aquecimento de negócios conhecido como boom imobiliário, caracterizado por uma combinação de fatores como queda de juros, déficit habitacional e captação de recursos para o setor em bolsa de valores. Este forte crescimento influenciou na definição do escopo do trabalho, já que o corretor de imóveis tem papel fundamental no contexto de aumento do volume de transações e na valorização dos bens imóveis. Para tanto, esta dissertação tem por objetivo compreender como se prepara o corretor de imóveis para atuar no mercado imobiliário brasileiro. A revisão da literatura nas áreas de Gestão de Força de Vendas, Treinamento e Teoria da Agência, orientou a realização de uma pesquisa qualitativa com os objetivos de (i) identificar o tipo de treinamento que o corretor de imóveis recebe por parte das Imobiliárias, no Brasil e (ii) avaliar os temas e conhecimentos relevantes para o treinamento dos corretores de imóveis. Na seqüência, realizou-se uma análise de dados secundários, levantando os assuntos de importância para o ensino específico de mercado imobiliário oferecido nas melhores escolas de negócios dos Estados Unidos. Associada ao referencial teórico essa análise de dados secundários possibilitou a realização de um estudo de caso. Por meio de um questionário, foi possível verificar se o conteúdo encontrado na fundamentação teórica e o ensinado nas melhores escolas dos Estados Unidos estão presentes na preparação que a empresa-caso oferece à sua força de vendas, composta pelos corretores de imóveis. Por último, através do mesmo instrumento de coleta, foram levantadas as dificuldades que os gestores da empresa de comercialização e imóveis do Brasil encontram no treinamento de seus corretores. Algumas considerações finais foram tecidas com base na análise do material de pesquisa e nas respostas fornecidas pelo responsável pela área de vendas e recursos humanos / The participation of the property market in the Brazilian economy is highly relevant, both in financial amount and in complexity of processes involved in your transactions. The real estate broker, professional who intermediates the property buying and selling processes, is a key figure in that market and, therefore, important to be researched. This study aims to examine the preparation of professional working in the real estate market, the realtor, through a case study with a leading company in the market of São Paulo, using the data collection instrument through a questionnaire by email to the managers of its sales force and the area of human resources. The case-company is inserted in a context of strong heating business which became known as real estate boom, characterized by a combination of factors like fall in interest rates, the housing deficit and fund-raising for the sector on the stock exchange market. This strong growth has influenced the definition of the scope of work, since the realtor has a fundamental role in the context of increased volume of transactions and the valuation of property. Thus, the present work aims to understand how to prepare the real estate broker to act efficiently in the Brazilian property market. A review of the literature in the areas of Sales Force Management, Training and Theory of Agency, directed the implementation of a qualitative research with the objectives of (i) identify the type of training that the estate agent receives from the company to which he is associated and (ii) assess the issues and knowledge relevant to the training of the real estate agent. In sequence, a secondary data analysis was held, raising the important subjects to the teaching of specific real estate market offered by the best business schools in the United States. Associated with the theoretical framework, such analysis of data enabled a case study. Through a questionnaire, it was possible to verify that the content found in the theoretical basis and the knowledge taught in the best schools in the United States are present in the preparation that the company offers to its sales force. Finally, using the same data collection instrument, the study raised the difficulties that the managers of case study company face in the training of its brokers. Some final considerations were made on the basis of the material researched and the answers given by the persons in charge of sales and human resources.

A força de vendas ocupa papel importante no desempenho das organizações, e em especial naquelas do mercado industrial. As decisões que envolvem a gestão da força de vendas, principalmente as referentes à remuneração, revestem-se de importância, dado seu potencial impacto no desempenho desses profissionais. Esta dissertação, embasada na teoria da contingência, pressupõe que não há um sistema de remuneração ?ótimo ou ideal? e, sim, aquele que melhor se ajusta ao contexto e objetivos organizacionais. Deste modo, a efetividade da estratégia de remuneração depende da existência de ajuste a certos fatores contingenciais aos quais a organização está sujeita com potencial de afetar o sistema. O construto de estratégia de remuneração foi operacionalizado através do repertório de escolhas a disposição dos gestores que têm impacto no desempenho da organização e no uso efetivo de seus recursos humanos. Especificamente quanto à estratégia de remuneração de vendas, a composição da remuneração é uma das escolhas relevantes, por se tratar de escolha na qual reside grande variabilidade entre as empresas, eventualmente de mesmo setor, o que sugere ser fortemente influenciada por fatores contingenciais. Esta dissertação objetiva então, expandir o conhecimento acerca do sistema de remuneração da força de vendas, suas especificidades, escolhas estratégicas envolvidas e fatores contingenciais. Para responder ao problema de pesquisa, optou-se pela realização de estudo exploratório e pelo método qualitativo, mais especificamente pelo estudo de caso, para ampliar o conhecimento sobre o fenômeno estudado, com uso de entrevistas em profundidade semi-estruturadas para levantamento das informações. Sumariamente, as contingências culturais e relacionadas ao macro-ambiente e ao ambiente de negócios se mostraram relevantes nas escolhas corporativas de remuneração nos casos estudados, corroborando os pressupostos teóricos da teoria da contingência e da nova economia institucional. De outro lado, as contingências que afetam as decisões relativas à composição de remuneração são de todos os planos ? do macro-ambiente, do ambiente de negócios, do processo de vendas, papel e, provavelmente, do indivíduo. Alguns fatores se destacaram nas organizações pesquisadas: o grau de incerteza do mercado e do ambiente; a competitividade e estabilidade do mercado; à estratégia competitiva; o ciclo de vida da organização e a cultura organizacional; características do ciclo de vendas, autonomia e supervisão recebida. Pode-se concluir que as decisões relativas à composição devem partir de análise cuidadosa dos ambientes externo e interno, procurando-se observar o seu impacto na reconfiguração do papel da força de vendas. Os resultados apontam para possíveis pontos de atenção na tomada de decisão acerca de sistemas de remuneração de profissionais de vendas, tendo em vista a sua efetividade. / Sales force management presents an important strategic decision to many firms. It has been widely acknowledged that the compensation of the sales force may be used to enhance sales, control sales force activities and improve customer relationships.Despite the ackowledged importance of sales compensation, the literature on the topic is rather limited and esparse. Based on contingency theory, it is proposed that the effectiveness of the type of compensation cannot be adequately assessed without consideration of these factors. It is hypothesized that the effectiveness at realizing intended pay strategies depends significantly on the existence of a match between compensation strategies, organization and the environment. To date, vey little work has been done in development a contngency theory that ties the pay system to the organization`s operating objetives and strategies. This study seeks to expand the emerging compensation strategy literature and examines the various dimensions that may be used to study this construct. Compensation strategy is the repertoire of pay choices available to management, that may, under some conditions, have an impact on the organization`s performance and the effective use of its human resources. Pay mix (the split between fix and variable pay) was assumed to be the most important pay choice for the sales force. Besides that, pay mix is one of the pay strategies that presents great variability between the companies, even from the same economic sector, suggesting that it is influencied by contingency factors. Thus, this study adresses the following key research question: What are the contingency factors that moderate the pay choices (pay strategy)? The contingency fators were studied beyond two major categories: external environment and internal environment. To answer the proposed question, an empirical study was conducted. The study was employed was a case study methodology. Primary data was obtained by in deep interviews .The study offer empirical support for the contingency theory. In particular, macrolevel factors like uncertainly and risk, as well as organizational factors ? corporate culture seemed to be relevant for the corporate pay strategies. On the other hand, ?pay mix? was the pay choice that seems to be influencied by multi-level factors. Some factors appeared to have more influence in the pay mix choices in the searched organizations: the degree of uncertainty of the market and the environment; the competitiveness and stability of the market; the competitive strategy; the organization life cicle and culture; characteristics of the sales cycle autonomy and received supervision. It can be concluded that strategic decision on pay mix must take careful analysis on contingency factors related to external and internal environments, because they tend to shape the sales process and the sales force role. The findings suggests some possible points of attention in the decision concerning to compensation of sales force towards effectiveness and could help practitioners manage the relationship between reward processes and strategy in organization.

Abstract How the securities broker company faces the globalization financial situation changing and holding law of the finance of Taiwan one to implement , make the large-scale securities broker company fall into the predicament of managing , the securities broker company is looking for keeping the close relation method with the customer even more Large-scale securities broker company introduces Customer Relationship Management, expect to let Securities Salesmen make use of the scientific and technological tool of information with the intact systematic construction, serve more customers .The securities broker company makes the customer more satisfied, have more competitive power¡C The security market has already transferred to by way of customer's management on foundation, the securities broker company pays close attention to only really understand customer's demand, maintain good customer's relation, and make the best of the information system management tool, Can Find the business opportunity in Security market of saturation competition. This thesis takes securities Broker Company as an example, while channeling into Sales Force Automation system of Customer Relationship Management, to The Influence on Behavior of Securities Salesmen dependence and degree of securities Broker Company are studied There are the following three items in the research conclusion received in this research ¡G 1.Scientific and technological ability of information, to Professional that is channeled into Sales Force Automation system Behavior of the stock broker has apparent influence. 2.The cognitive degree in customer's relation Management is channeled into behavior of Sales Force Automation system the stock broker has Apparent influence 3.Different personal backgrounds are in Scientific and technological ability of information, Knowledge of customer's relation management, Professional behavior of the stock broker has apparent influence.