Several papers in the recent marketing literature have suggested that delegation in distribution (e.g., the use of independent middlemen) helps manufacturers to precommit strategically to profit-enhancing competitive actions. Further, the literature suggests that the profitability of such...

We study a channel relationship in which manufacturer(s) use independent sales representatives (rep firms), which employ salespeople to do the actual selling. We show that commission-only payments by manufacturers to rep firms lead to suboptimal outcomes for the manufacturer relative to those...

This paper discusses recent advances in the study of salesforce motivation and compensation. Special emphasis is given to quantitative approaches from the economics, finance, and marketing literatures. The paper summarizes the findings in this analytical work in the context of some examples of...

This paper discusses the problem of choosing a vertical marketing channel in a product-differentiated duopolistic market. Firms choose product price and the form of the marketing channel to maximize profits. It is shown that integration of the marketing function results in greater price...

In this research, we show that the interaction between territory allocation and sales force compensation—two key drivers of sales productivity—strongly affects the firm's profitability. We analyze an agency-theoretic model that jointly considers the degree of negative or positive correlation...

In this research, we investigate the behavior of Cronbach’s coefficient alpha and its new standard error. We systematically analyze the effects of sample size, scale length, strength of item intercorrelations, and scale dimensionality. We demonstrate the beneficial effects of sample size on...

Price-matching guarantees (PMGs) are offers to match a competitor's price on a specific item. Such guarantees are extremely common in U.S. retail practice, and their impact has been studied in several published papers. The existing analytic literature models each retailer as a single-product...

Consumers often return a product to a retailer because they learn after purchase that the product does not match as well with preferences as had been expected. This is a costly issue for retailers and manufacturers--in fact, it is estimated that the U.S. electronics industry alone spent $13.8...