Wirtschafts- und Wirtschaftsjournal

Salesforce Control Systems as Direct Antecedents of Salesperson and Sales Unit Performance: A Literature Review

Abstract

Benet-Zepf A, Marin-Garcia JA and Küster I

The impact from sales control systems on individual and organizational effectiveness has been a major issue for scholars since these systems were conceptualized by Anderson and Oliver and Jaworski. Salesperson behavioral performance appears as an antecedent of outcome performance, and both are connected to sales unit effectiveness. This paper focuses on a deep literature review during the period 1983-2014, based on the control systems’ typologies found, and summarizes the multiple evidences found, connecting this systems with the salesperson behavioral performance and the outcome performance –and between them-, and both individual results with the sales unit effectiveness, including its managerial implications. After the review of the 142 articles in the field, a cluster of four research directions are identified, namely: (1) the impact of the different variables and activities on the control systems and the performance levels, (2) the methodological variables, (3) the measures of the level control system or performance, and (4) the multisectorial, multicultural and multinational sales environment.