The authors propose a symbolic–instrumental interactive framework of consumer–brand identification (CBI) and explore its predictiveness across 15 countries. Using multinational data, they show that the negative impact of the misalignment between self–brand congruity and perceived quality...

Product variety is an important strategic tool that firms can use to attract customers and respond to competition. This study focuses on the retail industry and investigates how stores manage their product variety, contingent on the presence of competition and their actual distance from rivals....

Using book review data on Amazon.com, the authors extend current research into online consumer reviews by empirically investigating the context dependence effect in the review writing process. They find that when product quality remains constant, later reviews tend to differ from previously...

This longitudinal research examines the impact of individual differences, organizational factors, and contextual influences on intention to adopt and adoption of sales force automation (SFA) technology, and the corresponding effect of adoption on sales performance. Data were collected prior to...

This study seeks to answer the following question: Can sales representatives enhance their performance through their acceptance of information technology (IT) tools? Using data collected from two companies, we show that despite uncertain results and the frequent resistance among salespeople to...

This research focuses on the impact that salesperson knowledge and empowering leader behaviors have on salesperson working smarter and working harder behaviors. In turn, we examine the impact of working harder and smarter on customer service, customer satisfaction, and ultimately, on sales...

Sales force performance is predominant in the B2B marketing literature. This chapter reviews how sales force performance has been defined, operationalized and measured. By providing a typology of sales force performance along two dimensions - namely positive versus negative performance and...

Drawing from the social information processing approach, the authors develop a contingency framework that captures organizational identification (OI) diffusion through two key interpersonal influencers, supervisors and expert peers. In two multi-level studies in two countries, results...

There is little empirical research on internal marketing despite its intuitive appeal and anecdotal accounts of its benefits. Adopting a social identity theory perspective, the authors propose that internal marketing is fundamentally a process in which leaders instill into followers a sense of...

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...