Academy of Marketing Science

This research examines the nature of logistics performance and the contribution of logistics to the firm by empirically investigating the impact of logistics performance on organizational performance. Logistics performance is tested as a second‐order formative construct comprised of three dimensions: logistics efficiency; logistics effectiveness; and logistics differentiation. Results indicate that logistics performance positively impacts organizational performance. Theoretical and empirical support is also provided for measuring logistics performance as a second‐order formative construct, indicating that efficiency, effectiveness, and differentiation are not necessarily trade‐offs, but rather are complementary. Importantly, perceptual measures for organizational performance collected from managerial respondents were strongly correlated with secondary financial data for participating organizations obtained from Compustat, lending empirical credence to the logistics performance–organizational performance relationship.

A management construct cannot be used effectively by practitioners and researchers if a common agreement on its definition is lacking. Such is the case with the term “supply chain management”—so many definitions are used that there is little consensus on what it means. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to examine the existing research in an effort to understand the concept of “supply chain management.” Various definitions of SCM and “supply chain” are reviewed, categorized, and synthesized. Definitions of supporting constructs of SCM and a framework are then offered to establish a consistent means to conceptualize SCM. Antecedents and consequences of SCM are identified, and the boundaries of SCM in terms of business functions and organizations are proposed. A conceptual model and unified definition of SCM are then presented that indicate the nature, antecedents, and consequences of the phenomena.

This study examines the relationships among salesperson performance outcomes, causal attributions, and expectancy estimates. The authors extend the conceptual work of Teas and McElroy (1986) and the empirical work of Johnston and Kim (1994) by deriving and testing a more parsimonious attribution process model. The survey findings suggest that performance and skill/knowledge attributions have a direct relationship with salesperson expectancy estimates. In addition, the findings suggest organizational support attributions moderate the linkage between performance and salespeople's expectancies. Implications for research and practice are developed that recognize the importance of salesperson performance and cognitive processing on the motivation of sales personnel.

While students' attitudes and perceptions toward personal selling as a career have been discussed at length, the literature reflects remarkably little effort to understand students' preferences for sales careers. The authors synthesize extant knowledge on the subject and extend the knowledge base by conducting a time-series replication of an earlier study and by examining the relative importance of marketing-related career characteristics. Managerial implications of this research are discussed.

Despite an awareness of the inverse relationship between stress levels and job performance, researchers have not addressed the specific coping strategies used by salespeople in their efforts to cope with sales-related stress. A framework is developed that suggests dispositionally optimistic salespeople may employ different coping strategies than do pessimistic salespeople. Support for hypotheses that have been grounded in this broad proposition was developed in a study that employed a multi-firm sales sample. Optimists were found to employ more problem-focused coping tactics, while pessimists used more emotion-focused coping. Issues relating to why problem-focused coping tactics are preferable as well as how greater use of problem-focused coping may be promoted within a sales organization are discussed.

One way to address the problem of physician supply imbalance is to do so early in the game-in medical school. By understanding when and why students decide to become physicians and to specialize in a particular area, recruiters and policy makers may be able to influence students to get more of them into areas of need and fewer into areas of oversupply.

Abstract In a factorial experiment, subjects, most of whom possessed managerial experience, were given information about a salesperson and asked to rate his ability on the job. As predicted, the subjects tended to overutilize effort information and underutilize task difficulty information in making their evaluations. The research reveals that cognitive biases in information processing may influence a crucial sales management responsibility. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for employee promotions and the application of attribution theory to sales personnel evaluations.