Professional Selling Research Paper Summary and Critique

Reginald G. Walker, J r.
November 28, 2012
Professional Selling
Dr. J iayun Wu


The Commission Game: An Ethics Activity for
Professional Selling Courses
By: Chad Milewicz
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Reginald G. Walker, J r.
November 28, 2012
Professional Selling
Dr. J . Wu

Professional Selling Research Paper Summary and Critique
Directions:
1) Please turn in this assignment to the eLearning website at least TWO DAYS before your chosen presentation
date. (up to 20 extra points in total)
2) Please email the whole class (a) the original research article and (b) your paper summary and critique at least
TWO DAYS before your chosen presentation date.
After selecting a research article associated with professional selling topic(s) and published during the past five year,
please address the following questions:
1) Develop and write up your own summary of the selected research article (about 1 -2 page for the summary; do not
copy the abstract of the article and submit it as a summary; 5 points);
2) What is the major lesson or lessons you learned (4 points)?
3) What are the major weaknesses within the research (3 points)?
4) How do the concepts/knowledge learned relate to this class and/or other classes (3 points)?
5) In any Wednesdays class, present your summary and critique covering the above four aspects, and address
questions from other students in class (5 points).
Note: a student must complete this assignment alone.
Format of Assignments
Cover/First page: Info relation to this assignment, such as assignment title/topic, student name (Last, First), class
title, etc.
Write a paper (2-4 pages) for this assignment (excluding the cover/first page, and reference page, if any)
All graded assignments designated to be performed outside of class must be submitted in the proper format used by
the University. The approved Style Guide is Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association 5th
Edition (students can choose other Style guides, such as Chicago Manual Style or J ournal of Marketing). All written
documents are to be double-spaced, spelling- and grammar-checked, typed in 12 point Times New Roman font, and
correctly margined with at least 1 inch margins.


















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The Commission Game: An Ethics Activity for
Professional Selling Courses
By: Chad Milewicz

Overall, this scholarly journal article was a phenomenal and interesting piece which
captivated my attention. However, with every article, there were bits and pieces that I thought
were strengths and weaknesses. To summarize the article, Mr. Chad Milewicz encouraged a
game in which he researched and saw was effective for marketing students looking to work in
the marketing field that allows for marketing students to make an ethical decision out of two (one
being more commission profitability for themselves [also called RED] and one being more
towards customer satisfaction which was more profitability for the company [also called BLUE].
To describe the game very briefly; its an experiment-based learning commission game which
entails whether you would place yourself above the company based upon your morals and
beliefs. I wish that we could have somehow implemented and played this game in my
Professional Selling course. The game really allowed for students to think about their own
personal code of ethics and morals because different students have different ideas and different
morals that they go by so it was pretty interesting seeing how the experiment will actually go.
Before looking at the statistics given in the article, you would probably think that most students
would go with the BLUE product since it seemed like the ideal way to go during this particular
activity; however, a lot of students went with the RED product, I would guess with more
commission, your family and self-morals will come into play.
Some strengths that I identified were---the purpose of the overall activity; I enjoyed how
it allowed students to be put in a real-world scenario to make their own decisions without the
boss (professors) assistance, I also thought that the highly detailed statistics, tables and figures
were good for me to understand precisely what was needed to construct and play this game so if I
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wanted to do it I could, and another strength would be the overall article to encourage ethical
decision making for prospective and potential employees which will make life much easier for
employers and companies. One weakness that I identified was accuracy. In my opinion, it would
be very difficult to depict accuracy from the responses of students because some students could
follow the footsteps of other students which would make statistics inaccurate. This would be a
complete tragedy and failure because it would cause for students not to use their own morals,
values and individuality. On the other hand, the concepts and knowledge displayed in this article
definitely relates to this Professional Selling course because it is a Professional Selling activity
and it allows for students to utilize morality to sell a product to a professional or in a professional
setting. All in all, this was a great article and a game like this should be played in every
Professional Selling course.