12.2 Salespeople
(Sunder et al. 2017) own and peer effects on salesperson turnover behavior
Objective: Delve into the factors influencing salesperson turnover, emphasizing personal performance and peer effects.
Background: Prior studies mostly focused on the repercussions of voluntary turnover. The direct causes, especially the role of personal achievements and peer influences, have been less explored.
Key Insights:
Framework Proposal: Introduces a model assessing the impact of individual factors (via identity theory) and peer factors (via social identity theory) on turnover.
Data Analysis: Used data from 6,727 salespeople over two years.
Findings: Alongside personal performance metrics, peer behaviors, especially peer turnover, significantly affect a salesperson’s likelihood to leave.
Peer vs. Own Effects: Peer influences have a more pronounced impact than individual factors on turnover.
(V. Kumar, Sunder, and Leone 2014) Measure saleperson’s future value
Objective: Introduce a forward-looking metric for sales force evaluation, emphasizing the impact of training and incentive types on future salesperson value.
Background: Traditional sales evaluations focus on retrospective metrics like sales volume. With businesses shifting towards customer-centric views, there’s a need for sales strategy adaptation.
Key Insights:
New Metric Proposal: A profit-oriented, forward-looking metric is presented to assess salesperson value.
Method: Uses a latent class modeling approach to identify different sales force segments.
Findings: Sales force segments respond differently to training and incentives, suggesting a universal approach might not be effective.
Time Horizon Analysis: The impact of training and incentives can vary based on whether short-term or long-term effects are considered.