The field of sales draws a large number of marketing graduates. Sales curricula used within today's marketing programs should include rigorous discussions of sales ethics. The Personal Selling Ethics Scale (PSE) provides an analytical tool for assessing and discussing students' ethical sales sensitivities. However, since the scale fails to address many ethical issues within the personal selling process, it should be revised. The current research assessed the PSE's content validity via a content analysis of today's university sales texts, popular press sales books, and codes of ethics. Results of the content analysis were used to develop a revised scale (PSE-2) that includes new scenarios suggested by the literature search. A sample of 669 students was used to replicate the original study and test the revised PSE-2 and its new ethical scenarios. The updated scale offers marketing educators an effective tool by which to enhance sales ethics discussions.
Sales career opportunities are growing, and the number of women in sales is increasing. Educators must adequately prepare both men and women for today's ethical sales dilemmas. Using the Personal Selling Ethics Scale, the current study analyzes the impact of idealism and relativism on the sales ethics evaluations of men and women. Results indicate that women evaluate sales ethics scenarios as less ethical than males and that varying positions on these ethical frameworks partially explain the divergence. Results also imply that today's sales educators should primarily emphasize moral idealism when teaching sales ethics. Ethical codes and situation-based frameworks can aid this effort. When teaching relativistic individuals, educators can supplement idealistic methods via the use of cognitive moral development frameworks.
Technology usage is widespread across most fields of business. In sales, “back-end” technologies, such as customer relationship management or salesforce automation, offer a foundation for effective and efficient “front-line” interactions in the personal selling process (PSP). In many instances, “front-line” technology applications have replaced traditional, hard-copy sales support materials. However, do these technology-based sales support materials (TSSM) offer meaningful utility in the PSP? Using a randomized field experiment, the current study answers the question through examining the use of TSSM within the PSP and across genders. Results indicate that the use of TSSM offers utility during the presentation and objection-handling stages of the PSP. There are no gender effects associated with technology use. The study offers educators pedagogical recommendations regarding the use of TSSM within the PSP. The study also validates the PSP scale.
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