The Influence of Sales Control Systems on Salespeople’s Adaptive Knowledge, Selling Behaviors and Sales Performance: An Investigation of Individual and Contextual Effects

Abstract

This study investigates how sales control systems influence salespeople's job performance via adaptive knowledge, adaptive selling behavior, and selling effort. We also consider individual (i.e., sales experience) and contextual variables (i.e., new account generation and service performed) as moderators. Empirical results from 198 industrial salespeople indicate that capability control has a nonlinear effect on adaptive knowledge of more experienced salespeople, whereas activity control has a more positive linear effect on adaptive knowledge of less experienced salespeople. The results also indicate that the effectiveness of selling effort is more context-specific than adaptive selling behavior: selling effort becomes much less impactful on performance when (1) more services are performed by the salesperson and (2) the selling task calls for a higher degree of new account generation. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.