Section 1 reports findings regarding the expense and revenue management requests that sales leaders are asked to implement. Through a 2012 Strategic Account Management Association (SAMA) survey, we find that customers and strategic accounts are often shielded from these myopic forms of...

We surveyed 1,638 sales executives across 40 countries regarding their companies' likelihood of asking sales to perform real earnings management (REM) actions when earnings pressure exists. Using this information, which we refer to as companies' REM propensities, we study how company...

This paper investigates the sales force socialization process, wherein newly hired salespeople often face failure-prone environments. Drawing from the learned helplessness paradigm, the authors hypothesize that cumulative periods of sales performance failure are associated with sales-oriented...

Firms often utilize salesperson intelligence in marketing strategies to improve sales performance. However, this approach is problematic if the information is based on inaccurate perceptions. In light of this, the authors introduce a theoretical model to study the antecedents and profit impact...

Sales leaders often use threats of punishment to manage poor performers (i.e., laggards), but little research has examined the effect of these threats. The current research addresses this gap by investigating an intervention termed the “bench program” with a field-based quasi experiment and...