Sales education programs are undergoing rapid growth and dynamic change as more business and other undergraduate students pursue sales jobs as desirable career entry points. The number of collegiate sales programs has grown dramatically over the past decade, and sales educators today are increasingly focused on teaching experientially. That is, they seek to link theory to industry practice to prepare students more effectively for in-demand sales careers. Sales knowledge and sales-related self-efficacy have been established clearly to be determinants of future sales performance in industry. This article is a first step in examining the role self-efficacy plays within the context of sales education. More than 500 students, who have completed or are currently enrolled in at least one sales course at one of approximately 20 colleges, completed an 85-item survey for this study. The responses were analyzed using structural equation modeling techniques. The authors recommend specific methods for sales educators to more effectively develop sales knowledge and sales-based self-efficacy so that students are well-prepared to "hit the ground running" in the early stages of their sales careers.
Does the strategic type of firm affect which success measures should be used for product development (PD) projects? This paper theorizes that it should and finds that it does because the PD projects undertaken are usually an expression of the strategic type of the firm. The purpose of this research is to affirm a 1996 survey of members of the Product Development & Management Association (PDMA) that proposes that firms' PD performance measures should vary by their strategic type. Thus, for example, prospectors, the strategic type most likely to introduce new products to new markets, should place greater importance on PD success measures consistent with their characteristic strategies of changing product lines and early market entry. In contrast, defenders, the strategic type most likely to maintain stable product lines for existing markets, should place greater importance on PD success measures consistent with their characteristic strategies of stable product lines and market penetration. Analyzers, a hybrid type between prospectors and defenders, should prefer measures consistent with their characteristic strategies for improving products and being early followers in newer markets. To relate strategic types to specific success measures for PD projects, this paper proposes a model of the relationship based on the degree of project newness to the firm and then catalogs measures of PD project success and groups them according to degree of project newness. The research findings are based on survey responses from 222 individuals who are employed by financial service providers, who identified their firms by strategic type and rated the importance of PD success measures to their firms. The importance of 21 performance measures is compared by strategic type to find significant differences among prospectors, analyzers, and defenders. This research finds several significant relationships. prospectors, for example, attach greater importance to customer satisfaction, launch timeliness, and product return on investment, all of which may be characterized as relating to a higher degree of project newness to the firm. defenders and analyzers, on the other hand, attach more importance than prospectors to measures of unit volume, cost reduction, and margin goals, all of which relate to a lower degree of project newness to the firm. In short, because prospectors seek to introduce new products to new markets, they consider important those measures, which accord with greater product and market newness. The major conclusion of this paper is that strategic type affects the importance of project performance measures and that all firms should not use the same success measures. Firms should contextualize their success in PD projects based on their à The authors wish to thank three anonymous reviewers for their insightful contributions to previous versions of this paper.
Chip Jahne loves the challenge of the game of golf and his career in the industry. A young executive at the Wisconsin Alliance for Golf (WAG), he has only two weeks to prepare and present well-reasoned arguments to the WAG Board for designing and implementing state golf trails. The great advantage to Wisconsin of a sponsored golf trail is that it attracts tourists to travel, to stay overnight while playing multiple days, and to spend not only on greens fees, but also on lodging, food, and beverage in the state. To prepare his case, he accesses secondary market research and conducts demographic and psychographic analyses. He realizes that extending the target market to nearby out-of-state population centers depends on funding from the state department of tourism. He preliminarily designs three golf trail options for the state and contemplates the use of social media as promotion tools. Wisconsin has three resources necessary for successful golf trails: 40 or more high-quality public access golf facilities, an excellent reputation as a state for outdoor recreation, and an interstate highway system connecting population centers to tourism destinations. The missing ingredient is a consensus by the interested stakeholders on how and when to take advantage of these resources for their mutual benefit. Chip recognizes that the economic benefits to golf trail participants will depend on his tourist projections and financial forecasts, so his design must seek to maximize them.
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