The authors hypothesize that customer presence in the boardroom of business-to-business (B2B) firms brings customer orientation and customer knowledge to the board of directors and thereby enhances B2B firm performance. Using an objective measure of customer presence in the boardroom and a sample of 329 B2B firms over a nine-year period, the authors find support for this hypothesis. Moreover, relying on the resource-based view, they hypothesize that the performance benefit of customers in the boardroom is contingent on the value, rarity, inimitability, and organizational fit of customer resources. Specifically, they find that a customer on the board is more effective when demand uncertainty is high but is less effective when the firm is highly diversified. Moreover, a board member who is an independent director of the customer firm is less effective than a board member who is an executive at the customer firm. The authors also find that research and development intensity partially mediates the relationship between customer presence on the board and firm performance.

This research draws from the psychodynamic perspective of social identity theory to examine the causal effect of mergers and acquisitions involving a mismatch of external images on the sales force. Study 1, a natural longitudinal experiment, shows that a merger with a poorer-image firm immediately dilutes salespeople's organizational identification (OI), which in turn impairs their performance. As sense makers, salespeople who are more tenured experience stronger OI dilution, whereas those who perceive a high level of social inclusion experience weaker OI dilution. As sense givers, managers who emphasize the firm's strategic intent in their communication buffer the OI-dilution effect, whereas those who emphasize the firm's organizational culture aggravate the effect. Study 2, a scenario-based experiment, further demonstrates that the OI-dilution effect is stronger than the OI-enhancement effect from merging with a better-image firm. Furthermore, both studies confirm that the adverse effect of mergers and acquisitions that involve a mismatch of external image stems from image uncertainty rather than job uncertainty.

Drawing on goal-setting theory, this study develops a new self-selected incentive scheme. Within this scheme, a sales employee chooses an individualized goal–reward level combination from a menu the firm proposes given the employee's past performance. To test the effects of the self-selected incentive scheme, the authors conducted two field experiments at two Fortune 500 companies. Results of both experiments show that, compared with two equivalent quota systems, sales employees’ performance increased substantially under the self-selected incentive scheme. In addition, findings reveal that the performance increase induced by this scheme is substantially greater for sales employees with a high variation in past performance and for employees with a low past-performance level. Moreover, the authors find that the effects of the self-selected incentive scheme not only are durable when offered again but also persist after the scheme is discontinued. Through two additional online experiments, the authors extend the findings of the field studies, isolate the self-selected incentive scheme's three underlying mechanisms, and examine each mechanism's relative strength.

Endowed with significant firm-specific knowledge, inside directors can contribute to the decision-making processes of the boardroom. However, regulatory changes, focusing primarily on the monitoring function of the boards, have driven inside directors out of the boardroom. This article argues that suppliers with firm-and industryspecific knowledge are uniquely positioned to fill a critical void in boardrooms. It also suggests that the value of having a supplier on the board (SOTB) is influenced by environmental contingencies faced by a firm: operational efficiency, diversification, and demand uncertainty. Using an objective measure of supplier presence in the boardroom, the authors find that a supplier's presence enhances firm performance. They also find that the value of an SOTB in enhancing performance is greater in firms with lower operational efficiency and higher demand uncertainty and, is lower in firms with higher diversification. These results are robust to potential endogeneity issues, alternative estimation methods, and measures of moderator and outcome variables.

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 a randomized lab experiment. In the field, the company under study told salespeople in treatment districts that a trainee would replace them at the end of the year if they failed to hit their quota and placed last in their district. Difference-in-differences analyses of matched treatment and control groups show that the bench program had an immediate and sustained impact on performance. Moreover, laggards improved their performance more than higher performers, and salespeople with larger advice networks improved their performance more than salespeople with smaller advice networks. A lab experiment compares the bench program with a program that had the same threat of firing but did not have replacements in sight. Performance in the bench program exceeded that in the firing condition, indicating that the vividness of a threat can increase its deterrent value.