Control Systems' Effect on Attributional Processes and Sales Outcomes: A Cybernetic Information-Processing Perspective

Abstract

Built upon a cybernetic information-processing framework, this article advances and empirically tests a conceptual model proposing the relationships between sales controls (outcome, activity, capability), salespeople's attributional ascriptions (effort, strategy, ability), attributional dimensions (internal/external, stable/unstable), and psychological consequences (job satisfaction, performance expectation Sales performance is a function of how salespeople adapt and adjust to successes and failures within their selling environments (Weitz, Sujan, and Sujan 1986). Understanding this adjustment process should be important to sales and marketing managers. Perhaps the most obvious means of management affecting a selling environment is through directing salespeople with sales control systems (Oliver and Anderson 1994). With regard to sales successes and failures, salespeople are likely to use these control systems as perceptual screens to filter their own evaluations of their sales performance (Lord and Maher 1990). For example, if the sales expectations of the firm focus on sales volume, low performance on volume may be attributed to too little effort (e.g., laggards), or by contrast, high performance may be attributed to high levels of effort (e.g., rate busters). Despite the importance of such performance attributions on sales behaviors (e.g., DeCarlo, Teas, and McElroy 1997), it is surprising that how control systems influence salespeople's attribution processes remains underresearched. While marketing research specifically addresses attribution retraining, or the coaching of salespeople to make helpful attributions (e.g., Sujan 1999), no research has been conducted to aid sales managers in understanding how salespeople's attributions are made within particular selling environments.

How sales controls affect job-related outcomes: the role of organizational sales-related psychological climate perceptions

“…In keeping with this contention, output controls have been found to increase salespeople's attributions that effort expenditures are needed for goal achievement. Control systems that emphasize end results increase salespeople's awareness of sales expectations by providing feedback showing that outcomes and effort are important (Fang et al 2005a). Hence, output controls not only provide achievement standards but instruct salespeople to increase their efforts, with the presumed result of improved sales performance.…”

ATTITUDE AND PURCHASE INTENTION TOWARDS TEMPE PRODUCERS JOINING THE PROTESTS A Study in Central Java

“…Johnson (2006) employed bibliometrics in the use of this attribution theory and found that this theory has been adapted by a number of researchers such as DeCarlo (2005); Fang et al (2005). DeCarlo (2005) adapted this theory by integrating the attribution theory with persuasion theories to examine the impact of consumers' suspicion to the motives hidden by salesperson.…”

“…Meanwhile Fang et al (2005) integrate the attribution theory with cultural theories to examine the relationship between sales control system (the outcome, activities, and capabilities), origin of sellers' attribution (attempts, strategies, and abilities), attribution dimensions (internal/external, permanent/temporary) and psychological consequences (work satisfaction, achievement expectation. They demonstrate that the control system differentially affects attribution processes across two cultures: U.S. and China.…”

Service employee adaptiveness

“…Most of the extant studies measure behaviour-based control strategies as a single construct. However, recent studies in sales control strategies show that behaviour-based control strategies comprise two different control types -activity control and capability control (Challagalla and Shervani, 1996 (Fang et al, 2005). Further, extant studies report numerous examples of how both activity control and capability control methods (e.g., D'Cruz and Noronha, 2007) are implemented in Indian call centres.…”