Sales Teams or Salespersons: Performance Implications for Embracing Individualistic and Collectivistic Cultural Values in a Global Marketplace

Abstract

Th e development of pragmatic predictors of sales force performance typically focuses on factors such as extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, performancebased compensation, selection and training procedures, personality characteristics such as extroversion, and job satisfaction (Baldauf, Cravens, & Piercy, 2001;Frino, 2010). DeCarlo, Rody, and DeCarlo (1999) concluded that "incorporating culture as a moderating factor into global models of management practices allows easier prediction of expected behaviors in other cultures than examining many idiosyncratic models" (p. 2). Th e resulting correlations are typically weak and the conclusion is often drawn that there are too many auto-correlated variables preventing investigators from identifying discrete and signifi cant relationships (Churchill, Ford, Hartley, & Walker, 1985). Autocorrelation is the cross-correlation of a variable with itself. Informally, it is the similarity between observations as a function of the time separation between them.Salesperson performance and sales performance, in general, are topics of great interest in the sales management research fi eld (Jaramillo, Mulki, & Marshall, 2005) due to their direct infl uence on organizational profi tability. Similarly, in the intercultural Identifying antecedents of salesperson performance is a long-standing objective in the sales management research fi eld. The purpose of this article is to outline how the practical understanding of, and the willingness to embrace, sales employees' cultural value-systems adds value while considering performance drivers, individualistic versus collectivistic values, and performance outcomes. The cultural dimensions under consideration, individualism and collectivism, cannot be approached as a dichotomy. As is the case for all cultural dimensions, they represent a continuum and not absolutes. In this study, the work preferences and predispositions of participants were compared using an international data set.Respondents were culturally classifi ed based on research (i.e., Americans and Australians as individualists and Japanese and South Koreans as collectivists). Specifi cally, it was found that individualists were less attached to their current work situation; collectivists indicated less work/family confl ict; and individualists valued independent work more while collectivists valued deciding work time. This is important because of the need to understand how to eff ectively connect with the values of people to encourage positive performance outcomes. The reality is that value holds diff ering degrees of emphasis; the performance formula is the theoretical framework to guide this research. The implications of the results for sales management professionals are discussed.

The Moderating Effect of Supervisory Social Support on the Relationship between Second Generation Latinos’ and Asians’ Assimilation Level and Work-Family Conflict

“…Ross et al (2014) compared two individualistic countries (Australia and the United States) with two collectivistic countries (Japan and South Korea) on WFC. They expected collectivists to experience more WFC than individualists, yet they found that individualists experienced more WFC than collectivists.…”