This article investigates "growth departments," an increasingly popular governance structure in modern organizations. Using a multimethod approach, the authors examine the purpose, responsibilities, and effectiveness of these departments. In Studies 1a and 1b, the authors analyze job ads to understand the growth department. Study 2 expands this understanding via interviews with chief growth officers. Findings show that the growth department is a cross-functional unit distinct from marketing and sales departments, designed to unify and orchestrate growth throughout the organization. Studies 3 and 4 assess their impact on firm outcomes, drawing from boundary spanning and organizational ambidexterity theories. In startups, hiring a growth leader results in better advancement through funding rounds, a key proxy of startup growth, than hiring a marketing or sales leader (Study 3). In public firms, a powerful growth department improves performance metrics including Tobin's Q, cash flow, and return on assets (Study 4). The authors also identify contingency factors influencing the growth department's effectiveness, including the growth leader's past sales or marketing experience and the firm's strategic emphasis on exploration versus exploitation. Together, the findings advance theory and practice by clarifying what growth departments are, how they operate, and under what conditions they enhance firm performance.

Team and individual incentives are ubiquitous in sales, but little is known about their impact on collaboration when they are applied simultaneously. The presence of both types of incentives creates a “coopetitive” environment, where forces of collaboration and competition coexist. We examine how such environments impact the likelihood (Study 1) and the effectiveness (Study 2) of collaboration in the form of advice exchange. Exponential random graph modeling (ERGM) of network data of 540 salespeople reveals that individual incentives promote advice seeking but discourage advice giving, and team incentives stimulate advice giving but reduce advice seeking (Study 1). We also find that the effectiveness of advice depends on advice givers (Study 2). In particular, when advice givers have diverse team incentives, the advice is more effective and the need for additional advice is reduced, but when advice givers have diverse individual incentives, the advice is less effective and additional advice helps.

This investigation examines how consumer durable goods producers can leverage virtual reality for new product development. First, the authors develop a prelaunch sales forecasting approach with two key features: virtual reality and an extended macro-flow model. To assess its effectiveness, the authors collect data from 631 potential buyers of two real-world innovations. The results reveal that the new approach yields highly accurate prelaunch forecasts across the two field studies: compared with the actual sales data tracked after the product launches, the prediction errors for the aggregated first-year sales are only 1.9% (Study 1a, original prelaunch sales forecast), .0% (Study 1b, forecast with actual advertisement spending), and 20.0% (Study 1b, original prelaunch forecast). Moreover, the average mean absolute percentage error for the monthly sales is only 23% across both studies. Second, to understand the mechanisms of virtual reality, the authors conduct a controlled laboratory experiment. The findings reveal that virtual reality fosters behavioral consistency between participants’ information search, preferences, and buying behavior. Moreover, virtual reality enhances participants’ perceptions related to presence and vividness, but not their perceptions related to alternative theoretical perspectives. Finally, the authors provide recommendations for when and how managers can use virtual reality in new product development.

Although companies are increasingly deploying inside sales units, knowledge is scarce regarding how to effectively incentivize them. In addressing this neglect, this study draws on network theory to scrutinize how various unit and individual financial and non-financial incentives affect inside sales units' performance. In addition, the authors examine the contingent roles of two unit-level network measures, density and centralization. Using data from 366 salespeople working in 118 inside sales units, the authors empirically test the predicted relationships. Results reveal that unit incentives are positively related to unit performance, whereas individual incentives notably have a negative relationship with unit performance. Results further reveal that both density and centralization influence the incentive-unit performance relationships. Overall, findings indicate that the effects of various incentives in the inside sales unit context differ from those in other contexts, resulting in important implications for managers.

Negotiations today are less likely to be characterized by information asymmetry—the notion that buyers are less informed than sellers—due to the amount of information available to buyers. A number of industries have reacted to this change by shifting their attention to earning profits in aftermarkets: products and services that augment the main purchase (e.g., add-ons, insurance, financing, service and maintenance). In these aftermarkets, firms often retain an information advantage, even if information asymmetries are eliminated from the main purchase. This has given rise to an interesting setting untapped by prior research: information “symmetry” in the front end (main purchase) and information “asymmetry” in the back end (aftermarket). The authors argue that symmetry in the front end provides an opportunity to build trust, as the knowledgeable customer can verify the information disclosed by the seller. In an observational study in the automotive industry, the authors find that customers to whom the salesperson revealed the cost of a car at the beginning of the negotiation spent significantly more in the back end than others. As corroborated in subsequent studies, this effect holds only when cost is disclosed at the beginning of the negotiation and when customers can verify the cost information.

This study draws on the structural perspective of organization theory to investigate how firms can organize for cross-selling. Specifically, it analyzes how configurations of organizational structures and steering instruments are associated with cross-selling performance. Results show that mechanistic and organic organizational cross-selling structures should be closely aligned with financial and nonfinancial steering instruments: while the interactions between mechanistic cross-selling structures and non-financial steering instruments are likely to result in high levels of cross-selling performance, organic cross-selling structures should be combined with financial steering via cross-selling incentives. Findings also reveal a U-shaped relationship between cross-selling performance and firm EBITDA. These results suggest that to enhance profits, firms should either organize for very high levels of cross-selling performance or refrain entirely from investing in cross-selling structures or steering instruments.

Marketing excellence is a foundational principle for the discipline that is gaining increasing attention among managers and investors. Despite this, the nature of marketing excellence and its effectiveness remain unclear. This research offers insight by addressing two questions: (1) How do managers understand and exercise marketing excellence? and (2) How do investors evaluate marketing excellence? Study 1 merges insights from 39 in-depth interviews with senior executives and secondary data from 150 firm strategies to find that marketing excellence is a strategy type focused on achieving organic growth by executing priorities related to the marketing ecosystem, end user, and marketing agility. Study 2 quantifies the impact of marketing excellence on firm value by using a machine learning algorithm and text analysis through an original dictionary to classify the text from 8,317 letters to shareholders in 1,727 U.S. firm annual reports. Calendar-time portfolio models reveal abnormal one-year returns of up to 8.58% for marketing excellence—returns that outpace those associated with market orientation and marketing capabilities. Findings offer guidance to managers, educators, and investors regarding how marketing excellence manifests—paving the way for the allocation of firm resources to ensure that marketing drives organic growth.

Drawing on fit theory and the revised achievement goal theory, this study investigates supervisor–sales rep fit for innovation commercialization according to three goal orientations: learning, performance, and failure avoidance orientation. Two large-scale dyadic studies of a total of 387 supervisor–sales rep dyads revealed that supervisor–sales rep fit strongly affects the sales success of innovations but only negligibly influences the sales success of established solutions. Further investigations showed that this difference occurs because both supplementary and complementary relationships between supervisors' and sales reps' goal orientations can alter reps' role stress regarding innovation selling. Moreover, results reveal that firms can magnify the effects of supervisor–sales rep fit on innovation sales success by tying sales reps' variable compensation more closely to innovation sales. Results also show that firms interested in reducing the negative consequences of a problematic supervisor–sales rep match should facilitate and encourage supervisors' appreciative communication with the sales reps.

Drawing on goal-setting theory, this study develops a new self-selected incentive scheme. Within this scheme, a sales employee chooses an individualized goal–reward level combination from a menu the firm proposes given the employee's past performance. To test the effects of the self-selected incentive scheme, the authors conducted two field experiments at two Fortune 500 companies. Results of both experiments show that, compared with two equivalent quota systems, sales employees’ performance increased substantially under the self-selected incentive scheme. In addition, findings reveal that the performance increase induced by this scheme is substantially greater for sales employees with a high variation in past performance and for employees with a low past-performance level. Moreover, the authors find that the effects of the self-selected incentive scheme not only are durable when offered again but also persist after the scheme is discontinued. Through two additional online experiments, the authors extend the findings of the field studies, isolate the self-selected incentive scheme's three underlying mechanisms, and examine each mechanism's relative strength.

This study investigates how to direct and assemble the sales force for new product selling. In a first step, the authors draw on self‐determination theory to explore and empirically test a threefold conceptualization of motivation. Results provide insights into why sales force steering works differently in the new product selling context. Specifically, results show that for new products’ financial performance, internalized new product selling motivation is more important than intrinsic and controlled motivation. In a second step, the authors show how firms can motivate different sales reps to achieve higher financial performance of new products. In doing so, they examine the interaction effects of sales reps’ predispositions and widespread firm‐steering instruments on new products’ financial performance. Results reveal that the new product sales orientation of the bonus strengthens the positive relationship between sales reps’ performance predisposition and new product financial performance but weakens the relationship between sales reps’ learning predisposition and financial new product performance. Moreover, results reveal that the new product sales orientation of the periodic review strengthens the positive relationship between sales reps’ learning predisposition and financial new product performance. A post hoc analysis shows that a differentiated steering approach that matches appropriate steering instruments with sales reps’ varying predispositions substantially enhances reps’ financial new product performance.

Sebastian Hohenberg konzeptualisiert einen Ansatz zur mitarbeiterorientierten Vertriebssteuerung, der individuelle und interkulturelle Unterschiede zwischen den Mitarbeitern explizit berucksichtigt. Zudem werden die Erfolgsfaktoren und Gestaltungsmoglichkeiten der mitarbeiterorientierten Steuerung anhand von zwei empirischen Studien analysiert.Das Institut fur Marktorientierte Unternehmensfuhrung (IMU) wurde 1999 an der Universitat Mannheim neu konstituiert. Es versteht sich als Plattform fur anwendungsorientierte Forschung sowie als Forum des Dialogs zwischen Wissenschaft und Praxis. Ziel dieser Schriftenreihe ist es, wissenschaftliche Erkenntnisse zu publizieren, die fur die marktorientierte Unternehmensfuhrung von Bedeutung sind.

Die erfolgreiche Vermarktung von Innovationen ist fur Unternehmen mehr denn je uberlebenswichtig Als Schnittstelle zwischen Unternehmen und Kunden kommt dem Vertrieb hierbei eine masgebliche Rolle zu Unternehmen sollten daher ihre Vertriebsmitarbeiter im Hinblick auf die Innovationsvermarktung steuern und motivieren

Innovation commercialization, an important managerial challenge, depends heavily on the sales force for its success. However, little empirical research has examined how firms should direct sales reps in this task in a global, multicultural context. Drawing on self-determination theory, this study investigates how to motivate sales reps for innovation selling in different cultures with various financial and nonfinancial steering instruments. The authors collected data in two waves from sales reps in 38 countries on four continents, making this study one of the largest international investigations in sales research. Results reveal that steering instruments should correspond closely with reps’ national culture in terms of power distance, individualism, uncertainty avoidance, and long-term orientation. For example, findings show that whereas individualism strengthens the positive relationship between variable compensation for innovation-sales results and financial innovation performance through innovation-selling motivation, power distance and uncertainty avoidance weaken this relationship. Results also reveal that long-term orientation strengthens the positive relationship between supervisor appreciation for innovation-sales results and financial innovation performance through innovation-selling motivation.

Cross-Selling verbessert den wirtschaftlichen Erfolg, starkt die Wettbewerbsposition und ist ein wichtiger Wachstumsfaktor. Unternehmen sollten Cross-Selling deshalb systematisch steuern.