The Role Of The Sales Force In Value Creation And Appropriation: New Directions For Research

Recent research in marketing strategy emphasizes the dual processes of creating and appropriating value in exchange relationships. In business-to-business markets, salespeople have unique opportunities to translate customers' desired value back into their firms as well as understand and influence how the value that has been cocreated can be fairly appropriated in the form of revenue and other strategic benefits. Yet surprisingly little research examines the role of the sales force, compared to overall firm strategies, for shaping these key processes. Against this background, this paper offers an integrative framework that delineates how the sales force creates, sustains, and appropriates value in buyer- seller relationships. The framework integrates relevant theories and paradigms from a variety of disciplines and elaborates on a set of boundary conditions (e.g., relationship life cycle and globalization) that influence the role of the sales force in value creation and appropriation. The paper concludes with a discussion of opportunities that provide fertile areas for future research in the area