Executive Summary
A manufacturer’s success in the marketplace is contingent in part on its ability to energize its downstream channel members in support of its brands. Gaining the focused effort of the reseller’s sales personnel is particularly important, and this has become increasingly challenging as resellers broaden their brand portfolios in the wake of industry consolidation.
Looking beyond control systems, this study reveals a less formal alternative mechanism that both manufacturers and channel members can leverage to secure the allegiance of the reseller’s sales personnel: identification. Identification occurs when a person forms a psychological connection with an external entity by incorporating the attributes that he or she believes defines that entity into his or her own self-concept. Identification is a powerful motivating influence because, when it occurs, the entity’s goals and self-goals merge.
Using a multilevel analysis of a data set involving sales personnel across multiple distributors of a consumer packaged goods manufacturer, the authors demonstrate that distributor salespeople may identify not only with the company they work for but also with the brands they sell. This study explores the sometimes conflicting impact of salesperson brand identification, salesperson organizational identification, and manufacturer–reseller control system alignment on brand and reseller performance. Favorable extra-role consequences of salesperson brand identification are also examined. The results show that while organizational identification strengthens salesperson adherence to controls, brand identification can increase a salesperson’s effort behind a specific brand, which can ultimately improve brand performance, even in the face of control systems to the contrary. This suggests that suppliers can exercise influence over reseller sales personnel by strengthening the psychological connection between their brands and the reseller's sales personnel. In addition, salespeople who identify with a brand are more likely to perform positive extra-role behaviors that may benefit the brand over time. However, for the reseller (whose priorities may differ from that of a given manufacturer), the study underscores the value of engendering high levels of organizational identification because salespeople who identify with their company more closely follow the direction of management in performing their responsibilities.
Biography
Douglas E. Hughes (PhD, University of Houston) is Assistant Professor of Marketing at Michigan State University and Director of Research of the Strategic Sales Institute. Before entering academia, Doug worked as a senior executive in marketing and sales at Fortune 500 companies and has consulted for firms across multiple industries. Doug’s research focuses on substantive issues in sales and marketing management, with an emphasis on salesperson motivation, sales force performance, brand relationships, and the marketing–sales interface. Doug has published in Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, and other academic journals.
Michael Ahearne (PhD, Indiana University) is Professor of Marketing at the University of Houston and Executive Director of the Sales Excellence Institute. Mike’s research examines factors influencing the performance of salespeople, sales teams, and sales organizations. Mike is a coauthor on one of the leading professional selling textbooks, Selling Today: Creating Customer Value. The book has been translated into numerous languages and is currently used to teach professional selling in more than 30 countries. He has published in Journal of Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Management Science, Journal of Applied Psychology, and several other journals.
Journal of Marketing, Volume 74, Number 4, July 2010
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