The Personal Selling Ethics Scale: Revisions and Expansions for Teaching Sales Ethics

Based on the industry need to hire qualified salespeople, a call to expand sales education at universities has been continuously echoed. This article provides an updated overview of the sales education landscape in the United States and offers insight into both the curriculum offerings and the practices of marketing educators who teach sales courses at colleges and universities with sales programs. This research assesses the current state of sales education by critically evaluating recently published sales education literature, reviewing university websites of the University Sales Center Alliance members located in the United States, surveying professors who are members of the Sales Educators Foundation and/or the University Sales Center Alliance, and examining sales course syllabi of sales faculty. This article describes the findings of these research investigations. Understanding the pedagogical choices, teaching practices and perspectives on curriculum of the educators of leading sales programs is valuable to those educators contemplating launching a sales program at their respective universities.

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sales Education in the United States: Perspectives on Curriculum and Teaching Practices

Spiller

Kim

Aitken

2019

“…The new scale is referred to as PSE-2 (Donoho & Heinze, 2011). Second, a modified version of Forsyth's (1980) EPQ was used to test whether idealism and relativism may influence gender evaluation differences.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The first questionnaire included the PSE-2 (Donoho & Heinze, 2011) and an array of demographic questions. The PSE-2 (see the appendix) is composed of 20 ethical sales situations which participants evaluate using a 7-point semantic differential scale (1 = very unethical, 7 = very ethical).…”

Section: Data Collection and Sample Characteristicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender Differences in Personal Selling Ethics Evaluations

Donoho

Heinze

Kondo

2012

Self Cite

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.

“…Instructor or student teams determine a real life case in the courts or media that centers on one or more categories of sales ethics. A useful categorization of today's sales ethics issues is provided by Donoho and Heinze (2011). 2.…”

Section: Implications For Sales Pedagogymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Even fewer have explicitly studied cross-cultural gender-based evaluation differences. Donoho and Heinze’s (2011) updated version of the Personal Selling Ethics Scale (PSE-2) has been used to assess ethical sensitivity in the United States, but it has never been tested internationally. We seek to fill these holes in an effort to provide the foundation for a cross-cultural, cross-gender sales ethics pedagogy.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

An International Study of Culture, Gender, and Moral Ideology on Sales Ethics Evaluations: How Should Educators Respond?

Lee

Heinze

Donoho

et al. 2018

Self Cite

While international demand for sales positions is growing, negative sales stereotypes, partially fueled by ethical abuses in the sales arena, are prevalent and may dissuade students from pursuing sales careers. To help combat the situation globally, educators must develop and utilize effective sales ethics pedagogies. The first step involves understanding crosscultural sales ethics perspectives. A convenience sample is drawn from five countries (United States, France, Germany, Indonesia, and New Zealand), and the Personal Selling Ethics Scale (PSE-2) is successfully used to examine culturally specific and gender-based evaluation differences. Gender-based ethical perspectives are of particular interest due to the growing gender diversity within sales professions. The study finds that cultural traditionalism/secularism and individualism/collectivism affect sales ethics evaluations. Likewise, gender and moral ideology affect evaluations. Women are more sensitive to ethical misconduct than men, and absolutist are more sensitive than exceptionists, situationists, and subjectivists. Specific pedagogical recommendations are provided.