| Salesforce control systems (i.e., behavioral and outcome control) are important management tools in directing, monitoring, evaluating, and compensating salespeople (Anderson and Oliver 1987). However, to date, the direct effects of the salesforce control systems on sales personnel's key job outcomes (i.e., sales performance and job satisfaction) are inconclusive and the findings are sometimes contradictory (e.g., Challagalla and Shervani 1996; Oliver and Anderson 1994). These inconclusive findings, therefore, motivate the two research questions that serve as the basis for this study: (1) What constitutes effective salesforce control systems? and (2) What contextual factors influence their effectiveness?;This dissertation advances and empirically tests a theoretical framework integrating salesperson's intrinsic/extrinsic (I/E) motivation, adaptive selling behavior, and selling effort as key mediators. Specifically, this dissertation offers three key contributions to the sales and marketing literature. First, the framework and empirical results suggest that the effectiveness of salesforce control systems hinges on the extent to which they enhance adaptive selling behavior through salesperson's motivation. Second, drawing on the Self-Determination Theory (Deci and Ryan 2000) and recent sales literature (Miao and Evans 2007; Miao, Evans, and Zou 2007), this dissertation clarifies the role of salesperson's motivation in the sales control context by (1) demonstrating salesperson's I/E motivation as a state (cultivated on the job) as opposed to a stable trait (selected for in recruitment) and (2) by disaggregating the global I/E motivation into cognitive and affective dimensions that have distinct antecedents and consequences. Third, this dissertation found competitive intensity, salesperson experience, and selling effort to be important boundary conditions that must be considered in the effective design and deployment of salesforce control systems. The dissertation concludes with a discussion of the theoretical and managerial implications derived from the results. |
