The Role of Consensus in Sales Team Performance

Although team-based selling is highly prominent in practice, research on the drivers of its effectiveness is sparse. Drawing from the literature on climate consensus, the authors propose that in addition to leadership and team factors, team consensus plays a critical role in boosting sales team effectiveness. Using survey and archival data from a sample of 185 pharmaceutical sales teams, the authors find that high team consensus regarding team-level leadership empowerment behaviors (LEBs) and team interpersonal climate quality enhances team potency given high LEBs but weakens team potency given low LEBs. In turn, team potency translates into sales team performance through both extra-role (team helping behavior) and in-role (team effort) behavior. The authors discuss the implications of these findings.

[1]  Barton A. Weitz,et al.  Knowledge, Motivation, and Adaptive Behavior: A Framework for Improving Selling Effectiveness , 1986 .

[2]  G. Graen,et al.  Relationship-based approach to leadership: Development of leader-member exchange (LMX) theory of leadership over 25 years: Applying a multi-level multi-domain perspective , 1995 .

[3]  J. Hackman,et al.  The design of work teams , 1987 .

[4]  A. Bandura.  Social Foundations of Thought and Action: A Social Cognitive Theory , 1985 .

[5]  B. Schneider,et al.  Climate strength: a new direction for climate research. , 2002, The Journal of applied psychology.

[6]  Scott B. MacKenzie,et al.  The impact of organizational citizenship behavior on evaluations of salesperson performance , 1993 .

[7]  Cristina B. Gibson,et al.  A Healthy Divide: Subgroups as a Stimulus for Team Learning Behavior , 2003 .

[8]  Cheryl Burke Jarvis,et al.  A Critical Review of Construct Indicators and Measurement Model Misspecification in Marketing and Consumer Research , 2003 .

[9]  Michael C. Sturman,et al.  Does the Measure of Dispersion Matter in Multilevel Research? A Comparison of the Relative Performance of Dispersion Indexes , 2007 .

[10]  I. Steiner.  Group process and productivity , 1972 .

[11]  John E. Mathieu,et al.  A Temporally Based Framework and Taxonomy of Team Processes , 2001 .

[12]  Richard A. Guzzo,et al.  Teams in organizations: recent research on performance and effectiveness. , 1996, Annual review of psychology.

[13]  Leonard J. Parsons,et al.  Analysis of Sales Call Effectiveness , 1981 .

[14]  Daniel C. Smith,et al.  Cross-Functional Product Development Teams, Creativity, and the Innovativeness of New Consumer Products , 2001 .

[15]  R. N. Kanungo,et al.  The Empowerment Process: Integrating Theory and Practice , 1988 .

[16]  Robert A. Peterson,et al.  The Effect of Effort on Sales Performance and Job Satisfaction , 1994 .

[17]  Scott B. MacKenzie,et al.  Organizational Citizenship Behavior and the Quantity and Quality of Work Group Performance , 1997, The Journal of applied psychology.

[18]  Ko de Ruyter,et al.  Antecedents and Consequences of the Service Climate in Boundary-Spanning Self-Managing Service Teams , 2004 .

[19]  M. Lindell,et al.  Climate quality and climate consensus as mediators of the relationship between organizational antecedents and outcomes. , 2000, The Journal of applied psychology.

[20]  Chris W. Clegg,et al.  The use and effectiveness of modern manufacturingpractices: A survey of UK industry , 1999 .

[21]  Steven P. Brown,et al.  Effects of Goal-Directed Emotions on Salesperson Volitions, Behavior, and Performance: A Longitudinal Study , 1997 .

[22]  Ad de Jong,et al.  Antecedents and Consequences of Group Potency: A Study of Self-Managing Service Teams , 2005, Manag. Sci..

[23]  D. Harrison,et al.  What's the difference? Diversity constructs as separation, variety, or disparity in organizations. , 2007 .

[24]  Wynne W. Chin,et al.  Adoption intention in GSS: relative importance of beliefs , 1995, DATB.

[25]  Wynne W. Chin.  The partial least squares approach for structural equation modeling. , 1998 .

[26]  Henry L. Tosi.  A Theory of Goal Setting and Task Performance , 1991 .

[27]  Gilbert A. Churchill,et al.  The Determinants of Salesperson Performance: A Meta-Analysis , 1985 .

[28]  J. Mathieu,et al.  To Empower or Not to Empower Your Sales Force? An Empirical Examination of the Influence of Leadership Empowerment Behavior on Customer Satisfaction and Performance , 2005, The Journal of applied psychology.

[29]  Scott B. MacKenzie,et al.  Organizational Citizenship Behaviors and Sales Unit Effectiveness , 1994 .

[30]  W. Bennis,et al.  Leaders: Strategies for Taking Charge , 1985 .

[31]  Paul R. Yost,et al.  Potency in groups: articulating a construct. , 1993, The British journal of social psychology.

[32]  D. Chan.  Functional Relations among Constructs in the Same Content Domain at Different Levels of Analysis: A Typology of Composition Models , 1998 .

[33]  S. Mohammed,et al.  Team mental models in a team knowledge framework: expanding theory and measurement across disciplinary boundaries , 2001 .