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Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management

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Testing an Enhanced, Process-Based View of the Sales

Process
Christopher R. Plouffe, Yvette Holmes Nelson & Frederik Beuk
Published online: 23 Sep 2013.

To cite this article: Christopher R. Plouffe, Yvette Holmes Nelson & Frederik Beuk (2013) Testing an Enhanced, Process-Based
View of the Sales Process, Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, 33:2, 141-163

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 Testing an Enhanced, Process-Based View of the Sales Process
Christopher R. Plouffe, Yvette Holmes Nelson, and Frederik Beuk

This paper proposes that traditional process-based frameworks of selling may be underspecified given three realities
affecting the sales role today: (1) longer sales cycles, (2) an increased customer demand for total solutions, and (3) a shift
from a product- to a services-centric economy. An argument is offered that suggests that there are additional, plausible
phases in the modern sales process that extant frameworks of the sales process have yet to fully consider. The paper then
develops a research model to test key portions of this framework. “Downstream” sales behaviors and outcomes of these
behaviors are thus the focal point of the enhanced framework, with behavioral outcomes operationalized via the subjective
value inventory, a well-validated instrument on interpersonal negotiation style. Data collected from key account manag-
ers (n = 211) for a large services-based, consultative selling organization are used to test the model. The results show an
encouraging pattern of relationships within the model. Furthermore, a robust amount of variance in sales performance
is explained given both self-reported and objective measures. The paper concludes with a summary of contributions and
Downloaded by [University of Southern Queensland] at 22:33 15 October 2014

limitations as well as suggested directions for future research.

The sales role is a multifaceted one, affected by elements inside
the salesperson’s own organization, market-level dynamics
(e.g., competitors), as well as customer-level needs, wants,
and idiosyncrasies. In this spirit, the marketing literature has
chronicled a much more complex buyer–seller interface, with
customers now demanding more from the vendors that they
choose to do business with (e.g., Tuli, Kohli, and Bharadwaj
2007; Vargo and Lusch 2004; Weitz and Bradford 1999).
Firms that excel at managing this increasingly complex inter-
face are suggested to be those best positioned for both short-
and long-term success. Thus, one could posit that a firm’s
marketplace success is dependent on emphasizing consulta-
tive, enterprise-level selling (e.g., Rackham and DeVincentis
1999) and long-term buyer–seller relationships (Crom et al.
2003; Stevens and Kinni 2007; Weitz and Bradford 1999).
Consequently, salespeople today have necessarily evolved into
customer relationship managers who are charged with the
coordination of a wide range of inputs and the marshaling
of disparate resources in order to be successful (Plouffe and
Grégoire 2011; Steward et al. 2010).
Christopher R. Plouffe (Ph.D., University of Western Ontario–
Ivey), Associate Professor of Marketing, Fisher Institute for Profes-
sional Selling, College of Business Administration, University of
Akron, plouffe@uakron.edu.
Yvette Holmes Nelson (MBA, Florida A&M University), Ph.D.
Candidate in Marketing, College of Business, Florida State Uni-
versity, ymh09@admin.fsu.edu.
Frederik Beuk (Ph.D., University of Illinois–Chicago), Assistant
Professor of Marketing, Fisher Institute of Professional Selling,
College of Business Administration, University of Akron, beuk@
uakron.edu.
Research has also suggested that marketing’s traditional
focus on discrete customer transactions is increasingly at odds
given a shift to deeper, long-term buyer–seller relationships.
For example, the organizational buying literature has moved
away from traditional, transactional views of buying behavior.
Instead, the literature recognizes both “selling” and “buying”
as symbiotic—as a complex set of interrelated, yet often com-
peting, processes involving people, resources, and increasingly
explicit decision criteria (Morgan and Hunt 1994). The gen-
eral management and strategy literature have also contributed
to this broader discourse, arguing that economic exchange is
an increasingly social process with defined stages and specific
forms of behavior expected between parties as the exchange
unfolds (Biggart and Delbridge 2004). Even the supply chain
literature contributes by noting that the trend today is a move
away from least-cost transactions and supplier sole-sourcing
to long-term buyer–seller relationships with an emphasis on
working through conflict, win-win negotiations, and mutual
betterment (e.g., Ganesan et al. 2009; Slone 2004; Su and
Zhang 2008).
Given these trends, this paper seeks to augment the litera-
ture on the sales role in two related ways. The first intended
contribution is a practical one. Key themes that resonate in
the introduction above surround the process and behaviors and,
inherently, the outcomes (e.g., job performance) associated
with the salesperson’s evolved work role. Accordingly, the first
part of this paper reviews both the classic and the more recent
process-based frameworks of selling, and in so doing, suggests
The authors gratefully acknowledge the cooperation of the Fortune
500 firm who facilitated the collection of the data reported in this
paper.

Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, vol. XXXIII, no. 2 (spring 2013), pp. 141–163.
© 2013 PSE National Educational Foundation. All rights reserved. Permissions: www.copyright.com
ISSN 0885–3134 (print) / ISSN 1557–7813 (online)
DOI: 10.2753/PSS0885-3134330201
 142  Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management
that the current conceptualizations may be underspecified.
Specifically, it will be argued that in order to be congru-
ent with what is observed in practice, extant process-based
perspectives of selling should include two additional phases:
(1) “Downstream Deal-Level Selling-Related Behaviors” and
(2) the “Outcomes” of those behaviors. In the more granular
view of the sales process that follows, a critical differentiat-
ing point is made between the discrete sales call (e.g., Dixon,
Spiro, and Jamil 2001) as the primary unit of analysis (as per
Klein, Dansereau, and Hall 1994) and the “sales cycle.” The
paper’s second contribution is therefore an empirical one in
that significant portions of the proposed theoretical framework
will be empirically tested.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. We describe
an evolved customer-level interface where trends in the macro-
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and micro-level business environments create an impetus for
reconsidering extant, process-based approaches to model-
ing the sales process. Next, we review both the seminal and
emerging process-oriented perspectives of the sales role. As an
outcome of this discussion, an enhanced five-phase framework
of the sales process and drivers of performance is offered (Fig-
ure 1). Building from this general framework, a research model
and related hypotheses are tested (Figure 2) with self-reported
(survey) data from key account managers at a Fortune 500 firm
operating in the services arena as well as multiple measures of
salesperson job performance. Ultimately, the results offer some
important insights regarding how salespeople perform their
jobs today and how this in turn affects their job performance.
After a broader discussion of managerial implications, the
paper concludes by acknowledging the limitations of both
the developed framework and the empirical study that was
reported to test it, while simultaneously proposing several key
areas for additional work.
liTeraTUre reView and
fraMeworK deVeloPMenT
Emergent Trends Affecting the Sales Role
Three emergent trends have radically affected the sales role
in recent years, thus suggesting that a renewed inspection of
the sales process and the drivers of high performance may be
prudent. First, in most industries, there has been an increase
in the total length of time required to complete deals. This
suggests that sales cycles today often result in buyer–seller
relationships that can persist over multiple sales campaigns,
ultimately creating years- and even decades-long buyer–seller
interactions (Dwyer, Schurr, and Oh 1987; Stevens and Kinni
2007; Vargo and Lusch 2004). Second, firms are replacing
product portfolio-based delivery models with solutions-
oriented approaches in hopes of generating greater revenues
(e.g., Foote et al. 2001; Sawhney 2006). Such a strategy
requires that salespeople seek ways to identify the complete
array of customer needs and then integrate various products
and services to meet those needs (Reinartz and Ulaga 2008;
Tuli, Kohli, and Bharadwaj 2007). Lastly, the shift from
product-only sales industries to those that revolve around
the delivery of services (e.g., Heskett 1987; Schlesinger and
Heskett 1991; Thomas 1978) has had a profound impact
on the marketing function at large (see Fang, Palmatier, and
Steenkamp 2008; Reinartz and Ulaga 2008; Vargo 2008;
Vargo and Lusch 2004).
The three preceding trends all significantly affect how selling
is done in both business-to-business and business-to-consumer
settings (e.g., Hempel 2008; Mittal, Sarkees, and Murshed
2008; Stevens and Kinni 2007), and taken together, they sug-
gest that a reinspection of (1) the traditional perspectives of the
sales role, (2) the extant views of the sales process, and (3) the
salesperson’s job functioning/behavior may all be prudent.
Consistent with the just-reviewed trends, a critical boundary
marker that guides the present research is that the type of selling
(or the phenomenon of interest) here is purely the longer-term,
“consultative”-type sale associated with complex, “nontransac-
tional” sales (Rackham and DeVincentis 1999). Put differently,
simpler sales situations where all key facets of the sale, such as
needs identification, the presentation, and closing, all handled
within the context of a single, discrete customer encounter (or
“sales call”), are not the focus of this work.
Literature Review
We offer Figure 1 as both a high-level guide as to what the
extant literature has examined as well as a summary of key gaps
that persist. One important caveat with Figure 1 is that it is cast
within the tradition of general marketing frameworks (Bagozzi
1984; Hunt 1983). Another caveat is that sales—both as a
process and as a profession—will always have more granular
idiosyncrasies associated with it in terms of specific industries
(Williams and Plouffe 2007) or even national cultures, for
example. Therefore, prior to unpacking the proposed stages of
the framework, we first take stock of the origins and evolution
of process-based sales frameworks in more general terms.
Holistic Perspectives of Salesperson Job Functioning and the
Sales Role
There have been several notable attempts to articulate the
broad domain of salesperson behavior and job functioning.
One of the pioneering contributions was that of Walker,
Churchill, and Ford’s (1977) behavioral model of salesperson
performance. This model suggests two phases, or a salesper-
son aptitude  → performance relationship. Implicit in this
notion of selling aptitudes was the idea of specific behaviors
being germane to the sales role. Weitz (1981) also offered an
 Spring 2013  143

Figure 1
Traditional Process-Based Approach to Modeling Salesperson Job Performance (3 Stage)
Versus Proposed Model (5 Stage)
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Figure 2
Research Model

important view of salesperson effectiveness within the context
of a contingency-based framework that proposed that effective
selling is behavior shaped by factors such as the resources of
the salesperson, the characteristics of the buyer–seller rela-
tionship, and the nature of the buying task. Weitz’s model
again espoused as a two-phased sequence, this time between
salesperson behaviors (i.e., phase 2 in Figure 1) and selling
effectiveness (i.e., performance; phase 5 in Figure 1).
Later, Plank and Reid (1994) sought to marry two of the
dominant perspectives in the sales literature that both purport
to explain salesperson performance: (1) the Walker, Churchill,
and Ford model (1977) and (2) the various perspectives that
emerged from Weitz’s work (1978, 1981). Plank and Reid’s
(1994) model posits that salesperson behaviors (i.e., phase 2
in Figure 1) play a mediating role and reside in a nomological
chain between traits of the salesperson (i.e., phase 1 in Fig-
ure 1) and his or her achieved selling effectiveness (i.e., phase 5
in Figure 1). While there have been a few exceptions (e.g.,
Plouffe, Sridharan, and Barclay 2010), little has been done to
test the efficacy of this broadened perspective of the sales role in
the intervening years since Plank and Reid’s publication. Thus,
the bulk of sales research and empirical studies tend to focus on
either the traits–behaviors relationship (e.g., Deeter-Schmelz
and Sojka 2007) or the behaviors–performance relationship
(Plouffe, Hulland, and Wachner 2009), but seldom the entire
nomological pathway.
 144  Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management
Because the extant literature has, to-date, focused most on
Traits (phase 1), Selling Behaviors (phase 2), and Performance
Outcomes (phase 5), we offer only a cursory review of these
areas. Instead, we focus more attention on the two key phases
of the modern sales process that extant frameworks have yet to
fully consider or test (i.e., phases 4 and 5 of Figure 1).
Salesperson Traits and Individual Predispositions
Research (Phase 1)
The sales literature has proposed that various individual-
specific traits can potentially affect a salesperson’s performance
(e.g., Deeter-Schmelz and Sojka 2007). And in many cases,
these traits have been shown to be significant predictors of
performance (i.e., generally with R 2 values in the 10+ percent
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range, and more frequently modeled with subjective/self-
reported measures of performance (see Churchill et al. 1985;
Rich et al. 1999; Vinchur et al. 1998; Wang and Netemeyer
2002). Traits frequently examined in the sales literature include
trait competitiveness (e.g., Brown, Cron, and Slocum 1998;
Plouffe, Sridharan, and Barclay 2010), self-efficacy (e.g., Wang
and Netemeyer 2002), and communication style (Boorom,
Goolsby, and Ramsey 1998).
Salesperson Behaviors Research (Phase 2)
Given the trends that affect the sales role highlighted earlier, a
limitation of much of the extant work on salesperson behaviors
is that such work has tended to focus on the discrete sales call as
its unit of analysis (see Dixon, Spiro, and Jamil 2001; Johnson
2006; Sujan 1986). Historically speaking, this approach has
served marketing well, as there is much to learn about what
goes on in a specific sales encounter (e.g., adaptive selling, or
ADAPTS; see Spiro and Weitz 1990). Another reason past
work has perhaps rightly focused on the individual sales call
as the unit of analysis is because consumption decisions were
often made by the buyer in a single buyer–seller interaction
(e.g., in the retailing sector; Beatty et al. 1996). However,
the evolution to long-term buyer–seller relationships and
consultative selling noted earlier imply that the sales process
likely continues after the salesperson has “closed” (which we
define for the purposes of this paper and stage 2 of our guiding
framework [Figure 1] as “asking for the business”). Indeed,
tasks enacted via other behavioral forms, such as negotiations
(e.g., Curhan, Elfenbein, and Kilduff 2009) and the coordina-
tion of specifics pertaining to the deal in question (Steward et
al. 2010), also occur after the sale has been asked for and the
buyer has agreed to proceed with the seller.
So, while past research has had a predominant focus on
the individual sales call as the predominant unit of analysis, a
key intent of Figure 1 is to make a distinction between selling
behaviors that happen within the context of a specific sales
call (e.g., asking questions, making a presentation, or closing)
and those likely to occur at a later time (e.g., negotiating a
long-term purchasing agreement after the flow of business with
a customer has commenced). Therefore, we label phase 2 of
Figure 1 as Traditional, “Sales Call”–Level Selling Behaviors.
Performance Outcomes (Phase 5)
The study of salespeople’s performance has been a widely
examined dependent variable in marketing research (Churchill
et al. 1985; Williams and Plouffe 2007). While there are
several measurement-level options for operationalizing sales
performance, past work has shown that subjective (i.e., self-
reported) and objective (e.g., archival) measures of salesperson
performance each possess relative strengths and weaknesses
(e.g., Bommer et al. 1995; Rich et al. 1999). Plouffe, Hulland
and Wachner (2009, pp. 428–431) found that an overreliance
on subjective measures of performance may actually lead to
an overstatement of true, “in-the-field” effects and empirical
findings, whereas objective measures of sales performance offer
a more conservative test of theory while tending to provide
more relevant prescriptions for managerial practice (see also
Bommer et al. 1995). Thus, multiple measures of performance
are employed in the design of the present study, including
both objective/archival measures as well as self-reported/
perceptual ones.
Downstream, “Deal-Level” Selling-Related Behaviors and
Associated Outcomes (Phases 3 and 4)
The focus of this review of the literature now switches to the
identification of significant knowledge gaps that persist given
the emergent “street-level” realities that affect the sales role
highlighted earlier. The path pursued here (as per the top half
of Figure 1) suggests that the common three-phased, process-
oriented approach to modeling salesperson job functioning
and performance—that is, (1) Traits → (2) Traditional, “Sales
Call”–Level Selling Behaviors → (5) Performance—may be
underspecified owing to the omission of two key phases, whose
origins and role are now characterized.
In framing the need for phases 3 and 4 of the expanded
process-based view of selling proposed in Figure  1, three
sources of support are leveraged: (1) anecdotal and manage-
rial accounts, (2)  teaching materials and case studies, and
(3) extant frameworks and perspectives.
First, and importantly, there is abundant evidence from the
ranks of practicing salespeople, the managers that supervise
them, and the consultants that study and work with them
that the traditional three-phased view of the sales role cannot
accommodate some of the realities salespeople confront in
the field today (e.g., Rackham and DeVincentis 1999). Rosen
(2008, pp. 45–49), for example, argues vigorously that selling

today is a more complex process than ever before, which only
“begins to end” with final buyer–seller negotiations that arise
after the seller has asked for the sale, and the buyer has agreed
to move in the seller’s direction. And, like many practitioners,
Crom et al. (2003) suggest that the sales process is comprised
of as many as seven distinct steps. Moreover, from an analysis
of over 300,000 salespeople across a host of industries dur-
ing a three-decade period, Stevens and Kinni’s work (2007,
pp. 4–42) concludes that sales cycles have gotten longer and
that specialized forms of behavior (e.g., negotiations) germane
toward the end of the sales process are becoming critically
important.
Second, we draw support for an enhanced, more granular
process-based view of the sales role from the realm of best-in-
class teaching materials and marketing cases on selling. Weitz,
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Castleberry, and Tanner’s (2009, chs. 4, 7) text, for example,
espouses a process-based view that includes additional “phases”
deep in the sales and buying process that extant research-
oriented frameworks cannot accommodate (see also Manning,
Ahearne, and Reece 2011). Furthermore, rich marketing cases,
such as Deighton and Narayandas’s (2002) “Siebel Systems:
Anatomy of a Sale,” characterize the concluding portion of the
sales process in terms of deep negotiations between the buyer
and seller prior to the final purchasing decision. As such, we
suggest the need for examining salesperson behavior(s) further
“downstream” in the sales cycle, well past the point of “adapt-
ing” to the customer or tailoring one’s presentation (e.g., Spiro
and Weitz 1990).
Third, while the marketing literature informs us little in
terms of salient perspectives and measurement instruments
that can speak to these types of additional, late-in-the-selling
process behaviors, the management and organizational behav-
ior literature do provide such insights. More specifically, these
literatures offer a rich discourse and much empirical work on
negotiations between buyers and sellers (Curhan and Pentland
2007; Curhan, Elfenbein, and Xu 2006). Adair and Brett
(2005), for example, posit that exchange relationships in busi-
ness today “wax and wane” across a much longer time horizon
and have more intervening steps than in the earlier periods of
modern business history. In particular, they suggest that the
concluding stages of the business relationship are probably the
most pivotal, particularly in terms of the behaviors and processes
employed in coming to terms on a final agreement of mutual
satisfaction to both the buyer and seller (i.e., negotiations). It
is therefore suggested that much of the work on negotiations
in the management and organizational behavior literature is
germane to the concluding phases of the modern sales process
(i.e., phases 4 and 5 in Figure 1).
To summarize, it is beyond the scope of the present paper
to create an exhaustive inventory of all the possible forms of
“downstream” behaviors and outcomes associated with the
modern sales process. We suggest that Figure 1 makes a timely
Spring 2013  145
contribution in getting marketing researchers to think differ-
ently about a broader range of behaviors and related outcomes
that might ultimately affect salesperson’s performance. Sug-
gestions for other forms of downstream behaviors (phase 3)
and outcomes of those behaviors (phase 4) are offered in this
paper’s conclusion, which we hope will stimulate more work
on the overall framework that has been presented. However,
in the interest of testing both the utility and efficacy of the
enhanced, five-phased framework of selling (Figure 1), we elect
to focus on a key theme that emerged in the previous review.
We now briefly review the negotiations literature, using this as
a proxy to test the enhanced process-based model of selling.
Downstream Behavioral Outcomes: The Negotiations and
Management Literature
To date, the bulk of attention in the marketing literature on
negotiations has focused on international marketing and the
import-export arena, or on the negotiation of advertising or
channels of distribution contracts (e.g., Dukes and Gal‑Or
2003; Mintu-Wimsatt and Graham 2004; Srivastava and
Chakravarti 2009). Although Weitz’s (1981) pioneering frame-
work tangentially acknowledges that “bargaining outcomes”
(i.e., negotiations) affect the sales process, there is little work
in marketing that speaks to negotiations purely from a sales
perspective and just a scant amount that examines negotiations
from the buyer’s perspective.
Drawing from the management and strategy literature,
researchers have characterized the negotiation process and
specific approaches to it in a variety of ways. In simple terms,
this literature tends to view buyer–seller negotiations as either
competitive or cooperative, where the former is defined as a
zero-sum game of wins and losses, whereas the latter empha-
sizes the development and formulation of integrative, win-
win bargaining solutions, all in the name of an enhanced,
long-term relationship (for an excellent review, see Lewicki,
Saunders, and Barry 2009).
As it relates to the possibilities inherent in empirically test-
ing the five-phased selling process outlined in Figure 1, there
is an issue. Across several literature bases, including marketing,
management/strategy, organizational behavior, and industrial/
organizational psychology, the focus has primarily been on the
outcomes of the negotiations process (i.e., phase 4 of Figure 1),
with minimal attention paid to actual negotiation behaviors
(i.e., phase 3 of Figure 1). Furthermore, negotiations behaviors
tend to be operationalized as video or audio coding of actual
negotiations (e.g., Curhan et al. 2008; O’Connor, Arnold,
and Burris 2005) or examinations of choices negotiators make
in experimental situations (e.g., Curhan, Elfenbein, and Xu
2006; Velden, Beersma, and De Dreu 2007). As such, virtu-
ally no measurement instruments with validated scales exist
to capture the domain outlined in phase  3 of Figure  1, or
 146  Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management
“downstream” behaviors germane to selling in terms of actual
negotiations behaviors.1 What does exist, though, are validated
measures of negotiations outcomes (e.g., Curhan, Elfenbein,
and Kilduff 2009; Curhan, Elfenbein, and Xu 2006). This has
important implications in terms of the scope of the empirical
study conducted here, details of which are now offered.
research MODEL DEVELOPMENT
We now test the efficacy of the enhanced, process-based
view of selling outlined in Figure 1. In terms of boundaries
and scope-setting, the research model (see Figure 2) seeks to
explore the relationship between selected proxy constructs, or
solid candidates, for (phase 1) Salesperson Traits → (phase 2)
Traditional, “Sales Call”–Level Selling Behavior → (phase 4)
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Downstream, and “Deal-Level” Behavioral Outcomes (mani-
fested in the present study as negotiations outcomes)  →
(phase 5) Performance Outcomes.
We pursue this approach in structuring the research model
for several reasons. First, and consistent with long-standing
recommendations scholars have made for the generation
and testing of new theory in marketing (see Bagozzi 1984;
Hunt 1983), enhanced perspectives should build on what
is known. Second, as the prescriptions set forth for model-
ing and testing process-based frameworks delineate (as per
Mackenzie 2000), if the outcomes of antecedents further
“upstream” in a process-based nomological chain cannot
exhibit significant effects on the endogenous or intervening
variables they are hypothesized to have relationships with,
then neither ultimately matter. Therefore, in the case of
the research model proposed in Figure 2, a logical starting
point is to first assess whether or not outcomes of downstream
selling-related behaviors have an effect in terms of (1) their
ability to be predicted and (2) their ability to predict (i.e.,
in this case, selling performance). Third, the nomological
order of the constructs tested here are theoretically consistent
with the process-based view of the sales role offered in the
extant literature (see Plank and Reid 1994; Weitz 1981).
With these considerations in mind, we now deliberately
unpack the research model (Figure 2) and then discuss the
hypothesized relationships in the model.
Salesperson Traits (Phase 1) as Antecedents of
Deal-Level Sales Behavior (Phase 2)
The objective of the research model is to test its efficacy as an
expanded and enhanced view of the sales role on performance.
Therefore, we set out to identify salient individual-level traits
to test as proxies for phase 1 of the framework. While the lit-
erature does offer a number of germane traits to employ here,
two solid candidates for antecedents of salesperson behavior
in performance-oriented frameworks are self-efficacy (e.g.,
Wang and Netemeyer 2002) and trait competitiveness (e.g.,
Brown, Cron, and Slocum 1998; Plouffe, Sridharan, and
Barclay 2010). Both gel with the proposed research model,
are theoretically complementary, parsimonious, and have
been previously identified as traits that have a very strong and
significant influence on work-related performance (Stajkovic
and Luthans 1998; Wang and Netemeyer 2002).
Self-Efficacy
Personal self-efficacy represents an individual’s confidence in
his or her ability to perform specific tasks—especially those
that are new or otherwise unfamiliar (Krishnan, Netemeyer,
and Boles 2002; Verbeke, Belschak, and Bagozzi 2004). Indi-
viduals high in self-efficacy evaluate information about their
abilities, make their choices, and then assign effort accordingly
(Bandura 1997; Bandura et al. 1980). Among others, Dixon,
Spiro, and Jamil (2001) argue that self-efficacy is a relevant
personal construct in the task- and goal-oriented context of
personal selling (see also Paulhus 1983). Moreover, self-efficacy
has been theoretically linked to adaptability (Spiro and Weitz
1990) and sales performance, which are both important place-
holders for different phases in the model being tested. We
therefore include self-efficacy as one of two traits in the exami-
nation of the present study’s research model (Figure 2).
Trait Competitiveness
Trait competitiveness represents an individual’s “enjoyment of
interpersonal competition and the desire to win and be better
than others” (Spence and Helmreich 1983, p. 41). As Brown,
Cron, and Slocum (1998) suggest, this definition is consistent
with the concept of intentional competitiveness proposed by
Kohn (1992), which is the predisposition to be “number one”
at most (if not all) tasks and activities the individual engages
in. Both logic and past work suggest that a strong competi-
tive instinct is a positive attribute for salespeople to possess
(Krishnan, Netemeyer, and Boles 2002; Olson, Cravens,
and Slater 2001). Moreover, as an achievement motivation
characteristic, trait competitiveness is an individual-level trait
that generally demonstrates a strong relationship with sales
performance (Wang and Netemeyer 2002).
Sales Call–Level Selling Behaviors
To better understand which salesperson characteristics trig-
ger and support selling success, marketing researchers have
proposed and tested various behavioral perspectives over the
past 25 years (see Plouffe, Hulland, and Wachner 2009 for
a review). Mainstream sales textbooks, sales consultants, and
successful salespeople readily acknowledge that salespeople
who have a strong ability to perceive situational differences

and adjust their customer interactions in different selling
situations will achieve greater success.
Adaptive Selling
Spiro and Weitz (1990) augmented the literature in this area in
a significant way by offering the “adaptive selling” (ADAPTS)
construct as a key selling behavior in the classic “behavior →
performance” nomological chain. At that time, they offered the
field the 16-item ADAPTS, which consisted of five subdimen-
sions. Later, work on the ADAPTS scale by Marks, Vorhies,
and Badovick (1996) and Robinson et al. (2002) identified
psychometric issues with the original scale, as it contained
just four of the underlying five scale subdimensions that were
originally suggested.
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The original definition of ADAPTS notes that this sell-
ing behavior occurs “within and across sales interactions.”
Our interpretation of this critical distinction sides with the
camp of marketing scholars that largely view ADAPTS as
a “sales call”–level behavioral form. Thus, adaptive selling
fits into phase 2 of our proposed theoretical framework (see
Chakrabarty et al. 2004; Franke and Park 2006; McFarland,
Challagalla, and Shervani 2006; Robinson et al. 2002). This
is because the salesperson might either adapt within a specific
sales call or across various sales calls with other prospects and
customers—but not across sales calls and a sales “cycle” with
the same prospect/customer.
Adaptive selling has been empirically linked to salesper-
son performance, however, the results have been somewhat
inconsistent and were almost always based on self-reported/
subjective measures (e.g., Franke and Park 2006; Giacobbe
1991; Spiro and Weitz 1990, p. 66). Therefore, a high-upside
research opportunity remains in this area of marketing, in
terms of further exploring the adaptive selling–job perfor-
mance relationship with operationalizations of performance
that are not solely predicated on self-reported measures (see
Plouffe, Hulland, and Wachner 2009, p. 433). Granted, other
selling behaviors could have been examined in this research,
for example, the “selling skills” perspective of Rentz and his
colleagues (2002). However, because ADAPTS is (1) a single
construct (as opposed to several, in the form of an inventory),
(2) prevalent within the sales literature (e.g., Franke and Park
2006), and (3) has a demonstrated ability to predict perfor-
mance over other “sales call”–level behavioral perspectives
(see Plouffe, Hulland, and Wachner 2009), it is deployed in
this research as the focal selling behavior to test phase 2 of the
research model (i.e., “sales call”–level behaviors).
Therefore, the two phase 1 traits were selected based on
their theoretical relevance for the behaviors and outcomes in
the consecutive phases of the research model. Self-efficacy is
rooted in theories regarding an individual’s locus of control
(Paulhus 1983) and is thereby related to the extent that sales-
Spring 2013  147
people adapt their approach during sales interactions (Spiro
and Weitz 1990). In this regard, highly self-efficacious sales-
people perceive more latitude to adjust their sales behavior to
the demands of the sales interaction (Ahearne, Mathieu, and
Rapp 2005). In addition, high levels of self-efficacy probably
instill a sense of competence and capability in work-related
endeavors, leading to the salesperson believing he or she pos-
sesses a degree of control over the sales interaction and that
his or her customer adaptations will be successful (Krishnan,
Netemeyer, and Boles 2002; Wang and Netemeyer 2002). As
such, the more self-efficacious the salesperson, the greater the
degree of adaptive selling he or she engages in. Hence,
Hypothesis 1: The greater the salesperson’s self-efficacy, the
greater his or her adaptive selling behavior.
Trait competitiveness also plays an important role in deter-
mining sales-related behaviors (Spence and Helmreich 1983).
Because of its achievement-oriented nature, trait competitive-
ness complements the predictive effect that the more control-
oriented self-efficacy trait has on adaptive selling behavior.
Furthermore, according to social cognitive theory, greater trait
competitiveness should result in salespeople exerting more
learning effort, as learning about the product and the customer
allows them to ultimately enhance their performance relative
to others (Wang and Netemeyer 2002). In this sense, trait
competitiveness is congruent with a greater propensity toward
adaptive selling behaviors (as per Spiro and Weitz 1990). Dif-
ferent from self-efficacy, where the salesperson’s desire and
ability to control the sales situation drives adaptive behaviors,
the main reason for high trait competitiveness salespeople to
adapt their selling behavior is to gain a competitive edge. We
therefore propose:
Hypothesis 2: The greater the salesperson’s trait competitive-
ness, the greater his or her adaptive selling behavior.
“Downstream,” Deal-Level Behavioral Outcomes:
The Subjective Value Inventory
As highlighted in the review of the negotiations literature,
we focus here on outcomes associated with the negotiations
process. In particular, we explore (1)  whether “upstream”
sales call–level selling behaviors (e.g., ADAPTS) act as an
antecedent to components of the research framework further
“downstream” (i.e., “deal-level” behavioral outcomes), and
(2) whether these “downstream” behavioral outcomes, in turn,
exhibit a significant effect on performance.
In seeking insights to these questions, we turn again to the
management and psychology literature. Developed by Curhan
and his colleagues, the subjective value inventory (SVI) is a
mechanism for understanding the range of social and psy-
chological outcomes that emerge from negotiations (Curhan
 148  Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management
and Pentland 2007; Curhan, Elfenbein, and Eisenkraft 2010;
Curhan, Elfenbein, and Kilduff 2009; Curhan, Elfenbein, and
Xu 2006; Curhan et al. 2008). This stream of work posits that
negotiators’ feelings and attitudes have a lasting effect on the
negotiation process and its outcomes, and importantly, that
the outcomes of negotiations can be captured with a fourfold
structure: (1) feelings about the instrumental outcome associ-
ated with a completed negotiation, (2) feelings about one’s self
as a result of the negotiation, (3) feelings about the negotiation
process itself, and (4) feelings about the present and future
relationship with the other party as a result of completing
a negotiation (see Curhan, Elfenbein, and Kilduff 2009;
Curhan, Elfenbein, and Xu 2006; Curhan et al. 2008).
Existing research and theory suggest that current negotia-
tions episodes generally have future implications because of
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subsequent interactions and relationship-building opportu-
nities between the negotiating parties (Lewicki, Saunders,
and Barry 2009). More importantly, objective performance
is typically first experienced indirectly through introspective,
subjective perceptions (Eagley and Chaiken 1998). Therefore,
because of its acknowledgment of the social, perceptual, emo-
tional, and relationship-level consequences of negotiations,
the SVI is a well-equipped perspective to determine the shape
and direction of phase 4 in the proposed process-based frame-
works of selling (see Figures 1 and 2). In addition, Curhan,
Elfenbein, and Eisenkraft (2010) and Curhan, Elfenbein,
and Xu (2006) argue that the SVI is especially relevant in
relationship-driven contexts, such as personal selling. This
makes the instrument gel well with the ADAPTS construct
used earlier as the placeholder for phase 2, which also par-
ticularly depends on customer information that becomes
more available in longer-term relationship contexts (Spiro
and Weitz 1990). Finally, recent research demonstrates that
the SVI predicts various outcomes, including compensation/
pay satisfaction, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions (see
Curhan, Elfenbein, and Kilduff 2009). To this point, however,
the SVI’s efficacy as a predictor of employee job performance
has not been tested, so this remains an intriguing possibility
(as per Campbell et al. 1993). Taken together, the preceding
suggests that the SVI is an appropriate measurement tool to
determine if “downstream,” deal-level outcomes associated
with the sales process might affect selling performance (i.e.,
phase 4 of Figure 1).
Although ADAPTS specifically taps what the present study
has framed as “sales call”–level selling behavior, given its con-
ceptual origins and broader content domain (Spiro and Weitz
1990; Weitz 1981), it seems plausible that relatively high levels
of ADAPTS behavior should serve a salesperson well in terms
of other selling behaviors further “downstream” in the sales
cycle (e.g., negotiations). This is because the ability to adapt,
at its core, also represents an overall agility in navigating phases
further “downstream” in the buyer–seller relationship, or as
the sales cycle more generally moves toward closure (Campbell
et al. 1993; Morgan and Hunt 1994; Walker, Churchill and
Ford 1977; Weitz and Bradford 1999). Kenny’s (1994) social
relations model suggests that the (objective) outcome of a sales
interaction depends on both the salesperson and the buyer.
A salesperson may “click” better with some buyers than with
others, thereby influencing negotiations outcomes (Elfenbein
et al. 2008). Similarly, a salesperson who is better at adapting
to the specifics of the sales situation (Spiro and Weitz 1990)
as well as the idiosyncratic characteristics of the buyer will
experience more and better “clicks” with that buyer, thereby
improving his or her own sales performance. In other words, a
better mastery of the individual sales call (phase 2) and discrete
selling encounters as the sales cycle evolves should correlate
with more positive outcomes at the aggregate or “deal”-level
(phase 4), such as the outcomes of negotiations that occur
after the buyer and seller come to agree to do business with
one another (see Franke and Park 2006; Jaramillo et al. 2007;
McFarland, Challagalla, and Shervani 2006).
Given the preceding, the impact of ADAPTS on the
SVI is expected to manifest itself in two ways. First, and as
characterized above, higher ADAPTS should result in higher
sales performance. This is expected to primarily affect the
SVI–instrumental dimension, as this facet of the SVI is most
closely related to perceived objective sales (i.e., performance)
outcomes (as per Campbell et al. 1993). However, and as
argued above, ADAPTS also affects the extent to which the
salesperson “clicks” with the buyer, which is reflected in the
SVI–relationship dimension. Second, greater ADAPTS is
associated with perceptions of greater control over the sales
call and the overall sales process (Spiro and Weitz 1990). This
greater perceived control for the sales process is expected to
be reflected in the SVI–process dimension. In other words,
salespeople who are better able to shape sales call(s) within
the sales cycle (i.e., ADAPTS) are also expected to “value” the
resultant process more. Finally, because of the transparency
and centrality of sales outcomes and relationships to the sales-
person (Rackham and DeVincentis 1999; Stevens and Kinni
2007), we also expect to find a positive effect of ADAPTS on
how the sales process/cycle shapes the salesperson’s self-image
(see Bagozzi 1980).
To test the efficacy of the espoused framework (Figure 1)
and research model (Figure 2), we therefore assess the salience
of the direct effects paths from phases 2 to 4. Formally, then,
the following relationships are tested:
Hypothesis 3a: The greater the salesperson’s adaptive selling
behavior, the greater the “instrumental” outcomes he or she
garners in his or her negotiations with customers.
Hypothesis 3b: The greater the salesperson’s adaptive selling
behavior, the greater the “self-focused” outcomes he or she
garners in his or her negotiations with customers.

Hypothesis 3c: The greater the salesperson’s adaptive selling
behavior, the greater the “process-related” outcomes he or she
garners in his or her negotiations with customers.
Hypothesis 3d: The greater the salesperson’s adaptive selling
behavior, the greater the “relationship-oriented” outcomes he
or she garners in his or her negotiations with customers.
In addition, we leverage the long-studied relationship
between ADAPTS and selling performance itself (see Franke
and Park 2006; Plouffe, Hulland, and Wachner 2009), expect-
ing to find a similar (i.e., positive) direct effect relationship.
It is important to model this relationship because the direct
path between phase 2 and phase 5 approximates the current,
predominant way of examining the sales behaviors–sales per-
formance relationship in the literature. Given this,
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Hypothesis 3e: The greater the salesperson’s adaptive selling
behavior, the greater his or her sales performance.
Effects on Sales Performance
Consistent with the previously reviewed work on negotiations
behaviors and outcomes, the final set of relationships in the
research model posit that if the outcomes of negotiations
with customers have been fruitful (as per Curhan, Elfenbein,
and Kilduff 2009; Curhan, Elfenbein, and Xu 2006), other
related outcomes germane to performing in the sales role have
also probably been achieved (e.g., becoming the preferred
vendor; having a specific sales cycle/opportunity decided
in one’s favor). This is suggested to be the case because the
types of outcomes associated with these “downstream,” sales-
related behaviors (i.e., outcomes of negotiations behaviors)
would generally enhance the buyer–seller relationship (e.g.,
Palmatier, Scheer, and Steenkamp 2007; Palmatier et al.
2008), especially over time and multiple sales cycles (Chonko
et al. 2000; Dwyer, Schurr, and Oh 1987). For example, if a
salesperson reports (as per the measures in the SVI) that he or
she (1) has relatively high satisfaction with the outcomes of
his or her negotiations, (2) did not “lose face,” and/or (3) has
built a solid foundation for a future relationship with his or
her customers, then presumably, these elements would mean
more business, more orders, and thus a higher overall level of
sales performance. This, in turn, suggests:
Hypothesis 4a: The greater the salesperson’s “instrumen-
tal” negotiations outcomes, the greater his or her sales
performance.
Hypothesis 4b: The greater the salesperson’s “self-focused”
negotiations outcomes, the greater his or her sales
performance.
Hypothesis 4c: The greater the salesperson’s “process-
related” negotiations outcomes, the greater his or her sales
performance.
Spring 2013  149
Hypothesis 4d: The greater the salesperson’s “relationship-
oriented” negotiations outcomes, the greater his or her sales
performance.
METHOD
Overview and Sample
A survey questionnaire was developed to include measures
for all of the constructs and variables in the research model
(Figure  2) as well as a commonly-used, self-reported (i.e.,
subjective) sales performance scale. The survey was then
administered to branch-level key account managers at a
Fortune  500 firm labeled “RentCar” (this firm’s identity is
disguised as per confidentiality agreements signed with the
organization in question).
RentCar is one of the world’s largest car rental agencies.
All of the branch locations included key account managers
(typically one, but sometimes two or more), who are quota-
carrying, commissioned salespeople responsible for developing
new business as well as growing existing customer accounts.
These key account managers typically call on businesses and
organizations such as government agencies at all levels (i.e.,
municipal through federal), automobile dealerships, mainte-
nance shops, travel agencies, corporate/fleet customers, and
so forth.
The survey was administered to all RentCar corporate key
account managers across the United States (n = 333). Archival
data analyzed in conjunction with the senior management
at RentCar indicated that the typical sales cycle was seven
to nine months. The RentCar sample is therefore a solid
candidate to test the research framework because it embodies
the trends that influence the sales role noted at the outset of
this paper and because sales occur over time (as opposed to a
distinct sales call). Finally, RentCar’s key account managers
often had to orchestrate a comprehensive customer “solution”
(e.g., a bundle of related services that might include rental
cars, washing/maintenance, insurance coverage, roadside
assistance coverage, or fleet/inventory management), implying
a consultative, complex sale indicative of the research context
(Tuli, Kohli, and Bharadwaj 2007).
Data Collection and Survey Administration
The design and execution of the RentCar survey followed
Dillman, Smyth, and Christian’s (2008) tailored design
method. All of the responses were recorded through a secure
third-party survey Web-hosting service, with the order of sur-
vey questions randomly presented to each respondent. Senior
management at RentCar supported the study by preannounc-
ing the survey to the sales force and by agreeing to provide an
independent, objective measure of sales performance for each
 150  Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management
responding salesperson at the conclusion of data collection.
The salespeople were also offered an executive summary of
the study findings. To assess nonresponse bias, the procedures
recommended by Armstrong and Overton (1977) were used
to compare early versus late respondents. No significant dif-
ferences were found.
Measures
Scales to test the study’s hypotheses were all taken from the
studies referenced in the preceding literature review and
research model development (the Appendix lists all the items).
Unless noted otherwise, all the constructs employed seven-
point “disagree/agree” Likert scaling.
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Study Controls
The research design was first set up to control for several
common factors that could provide alternative explanations
for variation in selling performance over and beyond the
espoused relationships in the research model. In this regard,
work experience was assessed with five items commonly uti-
lized to control for in-role/on-the-job experience of person-
nel in sales positions (see the Appendix for details). Gender
was captured by a check box on the online survey and age
was captured with an open-ended numerical input question.
Educational attainment was measured with seven response
choices ranging from “junior high school or less” to “graduate
university degree.”
Self-Efficacy
The seven-item self-efficacy scale devised by Sujan, Weitz, and
Kumar (1994), which had an alpha of 0.77 in the original
study, was employed in this research.
Trait Competitiveness
To assess trait competitiveness, we utilized the four-item scale
employed by Brown, Cron, and Slocum (1998).
Adaptive Selling
A shortened version of the ADAPTS scale that utilizes just 5
of Spiro and Weitz’s (1990) original 16 items was introduced
by Robinson et al. (2002). Robinson et al.’s findings, from a
large sample of salespeople across multiple industry settings,
showed comparable results for this reduced scale to those
generated by the original ADAPTS instrument. In the pres-
ent study, we employ this empirically validated short-form of
the ADAPTS scale.
Subjective Value Inventory
To operationalize “downstream,” deal-level behavioral out-
comes, the SVI was deployed in the survey as articulated
by Curhan and his colleagues (Curhan and Pentland 2007;
Curhan, Elfenbein, and Eisenkraft 2010; Curhan, Elfenbein,
and Kilduff 2009; Curhan, Elfenbein, and Xu 2006).2
Sales Performance
As highlighted in the development of the research model
and the preceding literature review, both a subjective and
objective measure of salesperson performance are employed
in the present study. Subjective performance was assessed
using six self-reported performance measures collected from
the RentCar key account managers as part of the question-
naire (α = 0.92). These items were based on Johlke et al.’s
(2000) operationalization of Behrman and Perreault’s (1982)
performance scale. This scale employs an 11-point Likert
format where respondents rate their performance from –5
“much worse than the other salespeople in this company” to
0 “average” to +5 “much better than the other salespeople in
this company.”
The objective measure of sales performance was obtained
directly from the RentCar management team upon conclu-
sion of the survey. Here, RentCar’s management provided a
single, objective measure of job performance for all of the
responding key account managers who had completed the
survey. In RentCar’s internal evaluations of their key account
managers, the preferred measure is total revenue generated
(labeled “RevGen” hereafter). RevGen is the total annual sales
revenue generated by the key account manager in question
within his or her assigned branch/territory over a complete
fiscal year. Because the conclusion of our survey did not cor-
respond with the conclusion of RentCar’s fiscal year, manage-
ment ran a separate data query to generate a report containing
the RevGen figures for the full preceding calendar year up
to the date the data collection and the survey ceased. This
was preferred, as it would largely mitigate the possibility of
a temporal imbalance between our objective measure of the
endogenous variable of interest (i.e., selling performance) and
the rest of the antecedents and nomological relationships in
the research model (as per Bommer et al. 1995; Chonko et
al. 2000; Rich et al. 1999).3
ANALYSIS and RESULTS
Survey Results
Of the 333 surveyed RentCar salespeople, 211 completed,
usable surveys were recorded, representing a 63.4  percent
response rate. The sample exhibited a mean respondent age

of 28.1 years, a reasonable gender mix of 55 percent males
and 45  percent females, a high level of educational attain-
ment with over 90 percent of the sample possessing at least a
4‑year college degree, and substantial experience in the sales
role (mean = 7.1 years selling experience).
Examination of the research model followed the approach
prescribed by Fornell and Larcker (1981a) and Wold (1985)
for evaluating structural equation models using partial least
squares (PLS). PLS is a well-accepted approach for analyzing
multivariate data in exploratory, theory-building research
contexts, much like the present study (see Chin 1998; Hulland
1999). Furthermore, with 211 respondent cases in the data
set, data sizing thresholds for PLS were met, and it is thus
permissible to assess the research model.
Consistent with the recommendations in the literature, all
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of the constructs reported in the research model—with the
exception of the control variables—were modeled with a reflec-
tive epistemic orientation (see Jarvis et al. 2003). As is common
in this manner of research, the four control variables (including
the five different measures of work experience) were all mod-
eled directly and in a formative manner, and independent of
one another, on the endogenous variable of sales performance
(as is implied in Figure 2, the research model).
PLS Measurement Model Results: Psychometric and
Discriminant Validity
We first assessed the adequacy of the PLS measurement model
by examining the robustness of item loadings on their respec-
tive construct (Chin 1998). From this assessment, we dropped
two of the original 35 total items that loaded below 0.70 (as per
Carmines and Zeller 1979), and re-ran the PLS measurement
model (i.e., one self-efficacy item had a 0.58 loading and one
for SVI–instrumental loaded at 0.54, so both were removed).
Of the 33 measures included in the second and final iteration
of the measurement model, all met the loading guideline of
≥ 0.70 on their respective construct. Table 1 reports key data
regarding the constructs and their measures. Note also that a
confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) showed evidence of con-
struct reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant validity
of the dependent variables (as per Fornell and Larcker 1981b).
Table 1 also contains the measures of CFA fit and item-level
cross-validated communalities, all of which were acceptable.
The reliability of constructs captured with a reflective
epistemic orientation in PLS was assessed by examining the
variance construct items share, or their internal consistency
(IC) (Fornell and Larcker 1981a) (see Table 2). When IC val-
ues exceed Nunnally’s (1978) criteria of ≥ 0.70, all constructs
indicate adequate reliability. We assessed the relationship of
the formative items (i.e., the control variables) through an
examination of the statistical significance of the jackknifed
Spring 2013  151
value of their item-level loading on the construct in question
(see Chin and Newsted 1999; Wildt, Lambert, and Durand
1982). Thus, given the acceptable results reported in Table 2,
it becomes defensible to consider the achieved PLS structural
model results.
PLS Structural Model Results
At a high level, Figure 3 shows that all of the hypothesized
relationships proposed in the research model were supported
by the data with just one exception: H4d, or the relationship
between SVI–relationship and sales performance. It is also
noteworthy that all of the relationships between the constructs
in this research were predicted to be positive, and all of the
significant relationships were, in fact, positive.
Working more systematically through the results, we
see strong relationships inherent in phases  1 and  2 of the
model. Both examined traits significantly predict ADAPTS
behavior (i.e., self-efficacy, or H1,  0.357 [p  <  0.001] and
trait competitiveness, or H2,  0.287 [p < 0.01]). Moreover,
the overall variance explained in ADAPTS is quite high (i.e.,
R 2 = 30.1 percent).
Thus, the findings with this set of relationships validate two
important things. First, that the salesperson traits → “sales
call”–level selling behaviors pathway holds in the present study.
Second, there are solid statistical and substantive relationships
among these three constructs given the data and empirical
results. This is important because, although self-efficacy, trait
competitiveness, and ADAPTS have been well examined in
sales research, the relationships among these three constructs
have not been demonstrated in any single known study.
We also find strong support for the hypothesized rela-
tionship between ADAPTS and each of the “deal-level”
behavioral outcomes. ADAPTS was hypothesized to act as
an antecedent to each of the four negotiations outcomes
inherent in the SVI and the data, and the results show fairly
convincing evidence that these relationships hold. Specifically,
the ADAPTS → SVI–instrumental (H3a, 0.208 [p < 0.01]),
SVI–self (H3b, 0.172 [p < 0.05]), SVI–process (H3c, 0.246
[p < 0.01]), and SVI–relationship (H3d, 0.287 [p < 0.001])
pathways all proved significant. This provides reasonable
evidence that even though the locus of the behaviors is dif-
ferent, being competent and proficient at “sales call”–level
selling behaviors (e.g., ADAPTS) also translates into “deal-
level” selling behaviors valuable to the overall sales process
(e.g., favorable negotiations outcomes). One finding that we
must interpret with more caution, however, is the R 2 values
achieved on the four SVI dimensions. Since these R 2 values
range from a low of 3.0 percent (self ) to a high of 8.2 percent
(relationship), much of their variance is unexplained by the
research model as operationalized and tested. As noted earlier,
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Table 1
PLS Measurement Model Results—Construct Psychometric Properties
Epistemic
Orientation
of Construct Original Internal Cross-
152  Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management

in Research Number of Final Number Standard Consistency Validated

Construct Model Items of Items Mean Deviation (IC)1 Alpha2 Communality

Self-Efficacy3 Reflective 7 6 4.97 0.42 0.85 0.82 0.24

Trait Competitiveness Reflective 4 4 6.31 0.68 0.87 0.85 0.42
Adaptive Selling Reflective 5 5 5.79 0.79 0.88 0.84 0.36
SVI–Instrumental3 Reflective 4 3 5.96 1.03 0.83 0.79 0.21
SVI–Self Reflective 4 4 6.00 0.86 0.82 0.77 0.13
SVI–Process Reflective 4 4 5.72 0.91 0.84 0.78 0.36
SVI–Relationship Reflective 4 4 5.87 0.98 0.92 0.85 0.60
Sales Performance Reflective 2 2 N/A N/A 0.91 0.90 0.34
Totals 34 32

Notes: CFA model fit: χ2 = 1236.24.; df (degrees of freedom) = 674; RMSEA (root mean square error of approximation) = 0.05; TLI (Tucker–Lewis index) = 0.83; IFI (in-
cremental fit index) = 0.86; CFI (comparative fit index) = 0.86. N/A = not applicable. 1 IC values were calculated by the method articulated by Fornell and Larcker (1981b).
2
 Cronbach’s alpha values based on standardized items were calculated in SPSS and are reported as a complement to the ICs. 3 The dropped item for “self-efficacy” was item 4,
and for SVI “instrumental” was item 4 (see the Appendix for details).
 Spring 2013  153

Table 2
Average Variance Extracted (AVE), Discriminant Validity, and Construct Correlations
SELF-EFF TCOMP ADAPTS SVI-INST SVI-SELF SVI-PRCS SVI-RSHP PRFMNCE

SELF-EFF 0.71
0.50
TCOMP 0.45* 0.79
0.62
ADAPTS 0.46* 0.45* 0.77
0.59
SVI-INST 0.21 0.20 0.21 0.79
0.63
SVI-SELF 0.27 0.12 0.17 0.24 0.73
0.54
SVI-PRCS 0.24 0.10 0.26 0.52* 0.38* 0.78
0.61
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SVI-RSHP 0.28 0.13 0.29 0.42* 0.32* 0.74* 0.87

0.75
PRFMNCE 0.46* 0.30* 0.36* 0.21 0.18 0.20 0.14 0.89
0.80

Notes: SELF-EFF = self-efficacy; TCOMP = trait competitiveness; ADAPTS = adaptive selling; SVI-INST = SVI–instrumental; SVI-
PRCS = SVI–process; SVI-RSHP = SVI–relationship; PRFMNCE = sales performance.The lower values on the table’s diagonal are
construct AVEs; the upper boldface value is the square root of each AVE. All the other values in the table are the correlations (r) among
the constructs in the measurement model. If the square root of the construct’s AVE is greater than r, then discriminant validity can be
claimed across all constructs in the measurement model. Significance levels for construct intercorrelations are designated as * if p ≤ 0.05.

Figure 3
PLS Structural Model Results

* p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01; *** p < 0.001; n.s. = not significant.

however, phase 3 of the conceptual framework (Downstream, components are more modest. This is an intriguing avenue
“Deal-Level” Selling-Related Behaviors; Figure  1) was not for future work.
assessed in this research. As such, perhaps the omission of Solid support was also found for the proposed direct
these behaviors is why the R 2 values in each of the four SVI effect between ADAPTS and sales performance (H3e 0.316
 154  Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management
Figure 4
PLS Structural Model Results, SVI Constructs on
Performance Only
Downloaded by [University of Southern Queensland] at 22:33 15 October 2014
* p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01; n.s. = not significant.
[p  <  0.001]). Whereas most past work has examined this
relationship solely with self-reported measures (see Franke
and Park 2006; Plouffe, Hulland, and Wachner 2009), this
result is somewhat unique in that here it has been achieved
based on a more broadly operationalized sales performance
construct—one formed with both objective and perceptual
measures.
Turning attention to the final set of results associated with
the research model, we see reasonably strong support for
the H4x series of hypotheses, which proposed effects from
each of the four “deal-level,” selling-related outcomes inher-
ent in the SVI to sales performance. Significant effects on
performance were noted for SVI–instrumental (H4a, 0.139
[p < 0.05]), SVI–self (H4b, 0.113 [p < 0.05]), and SVI–process
(H4c, 0.125 [p < 0.05]), with a nonsignificant performance
effect noted for the proposed H4d pathway (SVI–relation-
ship). Although not perfect, these findings suggest that many
of the outcomes associated with salesperson negotiation
behaviors do affect performance. The results also provide some
empirical support for the salience of the additional phases of
the expanded, process-based view of selling that this research
proposes (Figure 1).
Overall, the total R 2 achieved on sales performance is
16.4 percent—a solid result given the generally accepted range
in this research stream (i.e., past work and meta-analyses have
shown that results in the 10 percent to 20 percent range in
terms of variance explained in sales performance is a decent
finding; see Churchill et al. 1985; Rich et al. 1999; Vinchur
et al. 1998). As a final step and as recently recommended by
Hair et al. (2011), we also assessed the predictive relevance of
the model with the Stone–Geiser test (see Chin 1998). Using
an omission distance of 25, the cross-validated redundancy for
each endogenous construct in the model, also known as the
“Q2 statistic,” is substantially greater than zero (see Q2 values
in Figure 3). These findings further support the conclusion
that the proposed model adequately captures our data.
Impact of Study Control Variables
The impact of the four non-experience-related control
variables embedded in the study—that is, age (β  =  0.024,
t = 0.464, n.s. [not significant]), gender (β = 0.033, t = 0.594,
n.s.), and educational attainment (β = 0.091, t = 1.006, n.s.)—
were all nonsignificant.
Of the five measures of experience, one did prove to be a
significant covariate of sales performance, that being the total
measure of all years of working/career experience (β = 0.186,
t = 1.884, p < 0.05). This result is not at all surprising and is
consistent with past findings that have shown that the more
work experience the employee/salesperson has, the better he or
she tends to perform (Ingram and Bellenger 1983; Schmidt,
Hunter, and Outerbridge 1986). To summarize, with the
exception of this lone measure of work experience, the effects
and relationships noted in the research model occur indepen-
dent of these potential covariates.
Post Hoc Analysis
The tested model thus exhibited a reasonable degree of robust-
ness in terms of the percentage of supported, hypothesized
relationships as well as the percentage of variance in sales
performance that was explained. However, a lingering and
interesting question is this: How much of the variance in
sales performance can be attributed solely to phase 4 of the
proposed framework, or “downstream” deal-level behavioral
outcomes? Since exploration of this issue was not a directly
hypothesized relationship or goal of this study, a post  hoc
analysis to examine this was conducted (see Figure 4).
A new research model was created and estimated with PLS
that solely examines the four SVI constructs on the dependent
variable of sales performance.4 This is a robust test of the
efficacy and role of the SVI as a proxy for phase 4 of the pro-
posed conceptual framework (Figure 1), since the well-studied,
traditional variables included in the formal research models
(e.g., ADAPTS, the various traits) were not included.
Consistent with the full/original model, the results show
that three of the four SVI constructs are significant predic-
tors of performance. Specifically, SVI–instrumental (0.208
[p  <  0.01]), SVI–self (0.166 [p  <  0.01]), and SVI–process
(0.165 [p < 0.05]) all predict performance. These were the

same three SVI variables that were significant in the full
model, although now, with the removal of ADAPTS and the
two person-specific traits, the results actually get somewhat
stronger in each case. Importantly, 10.1 percent of the vari-
ance in the sales performance can be attributed solely to the
three significant SVI constructs. This is noteworthy as it
provides some evidence that downstream behavioral outcomes
(phase 4) account for a majority of the variance explained in
the original model (61.6 percent of the total, original variance).
ADAPTS and the two examined antecedents add 6.3 percent
more explained variance to the model (i.e., a performance R 2
of 16.4 percent in the original model versus 10.1 percent in
this version).
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DISCUSSION
Theoretical Contributions
This paper made an initial empirical contribution by validating
the efficacy of the majority of the proposed guiding conceptual
framework (Figure 1). Specifically, the study tested a research
model that contained reasonable proxy constructs and salient
measurement instruments for four of the five “stages” inherent
in the framework. As such, our approach was consistent with
the tradition of both theory building (as per Bagozzi 1984)
and theory testing (as per Hunt 1983) in marketing research.
The goal was to provide evidence that the proposed, multi-
phased framework proves efficacious in better understanding
the process by which selling occurs today (Mackenzie 2000).
So, while the general approach was solid, more can be done to
push the structure and further testing of the framework.
It could also be argued that another contribution of this
paper surrounds the strength of the empirical results that
were reported. We observed fairly strong empirical support
for the nomological validity of the research model, as all but
one hypothesized relationship was supported. In addition,
we found that 16.4 percent of the variance in selling perfor-
mance could be attributed to the constructs and relationships
espoused in the research model. Relative to historical norms
achieved for similar types of studies and research designs in
marketing research, these results can be considered quite strong
(see Bommer et al. 1995; Churchill et al. 1985; Franke and
Park 2006; Jaramillo, Carrillat, and Locander 2003; Plouffe,
Hulland, and Wachner 2009; Rich et al. 1999; Vinchur et
al. 1998). In a different light, the results support a guardedly
optimistic view that the proposed, process-based model of
selling might prove to be a fruitful lens for the continued
examination of salesperson performance.
Finally, our results showed an attenuated effect for the
long-studied adaptive selling perspective (e.g., Franke and
Park 2006; Plouffe, Hulland, and Wachner 2009) when the
outcomes of selling-related behaviors further downstream in
Spring 2013  155
the sales cycle are also considered (i.e., operationalized in the
present study as the four-construct SVI). In our view, this
signals the complex interplay that exists between the phases of
the sales cycle—something both classic (e.g., Weitz 1981) and
more contemporary (e.g., Plank and Reid 1994; Plouffe and
Barclay 2007) frameworks of the sales process have conceptu-
ally acknowledged, as have practitioners and consultants who
monitor the selling profession (Stevens and Kinni 2007).
Managerial Implications
This paper began by highlighting three key trends that
managers grapple with as they direct the modern sales force:
(1)  longer sales cycles, (2)  the “solutions”-selling era, and
(3) the shift from a product- to a services-centric economy.
These trends suggested a reinspection of pervasive thinking
surrounding process-based sales frameworks. Leveraging a
wide array of related literature, an argument was offered for the
insertion of two additional “phases” into the common three-
phased approach to modeling the process of selling: Down-
stream, “Deal-Level” Selling-Related Behaviors (phase 3) and
Downstream, “Deal-Level” Behavioral Outcomes (phase 4).
It was argued that this expanded view of the sales process
meaningfully augments the pervasive three-phased view
because it better reflects market-level realities and key forces
that affect the sales role today. In addition, we believe it will
stimulate managers to think differently about the competen-
cies required for sales success going forward. Most notably,
we refer to competencies associated with managing customer
behaviors and interactions across the entire sales cycle (or “deal”),
rather than representative-level skills and capabilities within
the context of a single, discrete sales call (e.g., handling an
objection). There are obvious implications of the preceding
especially in terms of the training, coaching, and mentoring
of salespeople versus what the conventional wisdom might
suggest in these regards.
This research also offers more of direct consequence to
managers. While the specific characteristics of the salesperson
(e.g., competitiveness) and his or her discrete, call-to-call
behaviors (e.g., ADAPTS) do play a role in performance, other
constructs and sales-related behaviors—seldom considered to
this point—also seem to matter a great deal. In this spirit, we
found that a clear majority of the variance in selling perfor-
mance could be attributed to the three significant constructs
inherent in the SVI. This provides solid evidence that the
outcomes salespeople garner as a result of negotiating deals
and maintaining longer-term relationships with their custom-
ers are significant drivers of performance. So, if downstream
behavioral outcomes that result from effective buyer–seller
negotiations drive performance (as this research shows), then
perhaps it behooves sales managers to more broadly consider
and perhaps assess “negotiations competency” as a screening
 156  Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management
criteria in the salesperson recruitment and selection process.
In addition, the results also hint at the importance of offer-
ing additional training and guidance to veteran salespeople to
further enhance these skills.
Limitations
There are limitations of the work reported in this paper—some
of a theoretical and conceptual nature and some pertaining
to the empirical study that was reported. First, and from the
broadest possible vantage point, one key limitation of this
paper is that we did not empirically test all five “regions” of
the guiding conceptual framework we initially offered (i.e.,
Figure  1). As intimated earlier, this debate essentially boils
down to a “is the glass half full or half empty” type of exercise.
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On the one hand, there would be a group of scholars (of which
we would be a part)—not just in marketing (e.g., Bagozzi
1984; Hunt 1983) but also in the social sciences at large
(e.g., Light and Pillemer 1984; Weick 1989)—who would
defend the logic and prudence of, in the same paper, offering
a guiding framework or model of some sort, and then testing
selected portions of it in the ensuing empirical work that was
reported. On the other hand, there would be scholars who
would chalk this approach up to being either incomplete or
misleading. While settling this debate is far beyond the scope
of this paper, our hope is that by being clear about what would
and would not be tackled in the empirical portion of the
study—and why—at least the reader of this work is now in
a more informed position to take up his or her own position
on this complex issue.
Second, and from a research design perspective, the respon-
dents in this study were limited to salespeople. Thus, the other
half of the buyer–seller dyad (i.e., buyers) was absent from the
study design. So, while the research model and results yielded
interesting and seemingly important insights, in the end, the
perspectives and feedback from this important stakeholder
group were not included. It would therefore be interesting to
garner the reactions and perceptions of those with whom the
salesperson interacts such that the buyer–seller dyad would be
complete. This, however, might necessitate a more complex
network-based research design.
A third potential empirical limitation of this study is that
data on both predictors and outcomes were mainly collected
from the same source (i.e., key account managers at RentCar).
While this is a valid concern, we believe that we have at least
partially addressed this potential for a common methods bias
in a critical way by incorporating both an archival measure
of sales performance as well as a subjective (i.e., perceptual,
self-reported) performance measure.
The CFA we initially conducted prior to our PLS analyses
yielded slightly lower model-level results than the convention-
ally cited norms, and consequently, this is a fourth limitation
of the present study. While we did acknowledge this limitation
in detailing those results, the logical next step was to utilize
all of the construct measures in the initial PLS measurement
model, since the CFA results, while lower than desired, were
still reasonable (i.e., to be consistent with past research results
and the theoretical spirit of each originally developed and
published scale, see DeVellis 1991; Nunnally 1978). As noted
previously, the more granular results that then came from the
initial PLS measurement model showed two potentially prob-
lematic items, which as the PLS methods literature makes clear
(see Chin 1998; Chin, Peterson, and Brown 2008; Hulland,
Chow, and Lam 1996), were removed from the second and
final iteration of the PLS measurement model and subsequent
analysis because of unsatisfactory psychometric properties.
A fifth and final potential limitation pertains to the gener-
alizability of this study’s findings. Examining the key account
sales force at a large, services-focused company operating in
a single industry compels us to consider whether the results
can be generalized to other types of salespeople or the sales
function at large. While this study had an exploratory focus
and made no pretense of generalizing across the sales role,
some support for the generalizability of the findings is the fact
that all but one of the study’s hypotheses were supported (i.e.,
weaker results might have been indicative of a nonrepresenta-
tive sample). So additional work in other industry settings and
sales contexts, and perhaps work that utilizes other methods,
seems prudent.
Future Research Directions
Although noted earlier in the papers’s limitations, here we
again pick up on the notion that our proposed, updated
model of salesperson job functioning (Figure 1) tested only
four of five proposed phases in the ensuing empirical study.
As it relates to this study, data were only gathered to test the
outcomes of the salesperson’s negotiations ability and behavior,
but not the precise nature of the negotiations behavior itself.
As highlighted earlier, behavioral assessment tools, measure-
ment instruments, or scale(s) that would have been germane to
phase 3 of our model are basically nonexistent in the literature
(a notable exception in this regard being the scale offered by
Lewicki and Robertson 1989). Thus, future work could look
to include measures or perspectives of actual negotiations abil-
ity/behavior in new studies in this area. Taking this further,
the lack of these types of measures has been highlighted here
as a pressing issue not just for marketing research but also
for the many other areas of the social sciences that consider
negotiations (e.g., management, organizational behavior,
industrial and organizational psychology). Hence, this is an
area in which marketing and sales researchers could take a
proactive role going forward, perhaps via a grounded-research
or a qualitative approach (Denzin and Lincoln 1994; DeVellis

1991). The goal here would be to create specific measurement
instrument(s) for negotiations behaviors germane to the sales
process/role. A related and important point would also be
to consider the dynamics and temporal processes by which
“deals” and negotiations within the sales process occur over
time—ideal measurement instruments can and should be able
to accommodate this. In a related point, a highly prudent
strategy might be to employ longitudinal studies and research
designs to further flesh out the sales process, and “downstream”
behaviors/outcomes, such as negotiations.
The literature has also offered much with respect to traits
that drive the salesperson’s behavior and job functioning (e.g.,
Reid and Plank 2000; Vinchur et al. 1998). Hence, more
could be done at the “front end” of our proposed framework
to embed and test other traits. Similarly, there are also other
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selling behaviors that could be used to further populate and
add granularity to phase 2 of the framework. One notable
suggestion in this regard, particularly if ADAPTS is being
employed, is Rentz et al.’s (2002) “selling skills” perspective.
In addition, one other direction for future work (particularly
in less exploratory applications) would be to model and assess
the SVI as a higher-order construct, with its four underlying
constructs acting as subdimensions (as per Bagozzi 1984).
Finally, there are other “downstream” behaviors beyond
negotiations behaviors (phase 3), as well as the outcomes of
these behaviors (phase 4), that could be examined within this
broader nomological network. For example, there is a vast
body of research and scholarship in the general management,
organizational behavior, and applied psychology literature on
conflict management behaviors and strategies. Here, validated,
well-accepted measurement instruments exist (e.g., Rahim
[1983] and Rahim and Magner’s [1995] “ROC II” [Rahim
organizational conflice inventory]) that could be used to fur-
ther examine phases 3 and 4 of the expanded, process-based
view of selling espoused here (i.e., Figure 1). Another potential
behavior set concerns that of influence and persuasion. In this
area, the organizational behavior and applied psychology lit-
erature offer well-tested behavioral perspectives to test phase 3
of the five-phased framework (e.g., Yukl and Falbe 1990;
Yukl and Tracey 1992; Yukl, Chavez, and Seifert 2005). The
interpersonal influence literature also offers a host of potential
outcomes of influence behaviors that could be used as proxies
for phase 4 of our proposed framework, including influence
target (in this case, the customer) compliance, commitment
(Yukl, Chavez, and Seifert 2005; Yukl, Kim, and Chavez
1999), and even so-called stonewalling (Cialdini 2008).
Notes
1. One paper that does contain measures of “bargaining”
(i.e., negotiations) behaviors was brought to our attention by a
knowledgeable reviewer of this paper. Specifically, Lewicki and
Spring 2013  157
Robertson’s (1989) work can further inform this issue, at least in
terms of “negative” or unscrupulous negotiations behaviors.
2. One important caveat germane to how the SVI was op-
erationalized in the present study pertains to the salient unit of
analysis. In the original SVI instrument, the respondents were
primed to think of a specific negotiations encounter they have
just completed (i.e., a specific negotiations setting, the details
thereof, the individual[s] they interacted with, etc.). As per the
goals of the present study, the desired unit of analysis inherent in
phase 4 of the theoretical and research frameworks is different: it
is not the outcomes of a specific negotiations episode that are of
interest, but rather, the outcomes associated with all of the cus-
tomer negotiations the salesperson engages in across the various
sales cycles and “deals” he or she has worked on. Therefore, at the
study design stage, we contacted the developer of the SVI and
explained that our desired operationalization of the instrument
was toward a broad-based view of negotiations outcomes (and not
a specific negotiations “episode”). We also provided a suggested
re-operationalization of the SVI for feedback and critique, with
this revision of the instrument being more consistent with the
desired unit of analysis and research objectives of the present
study. No changes to our re-operationalization were suggested
by the scale’s developer. Thus, both the SVI respondent instruc-
tions and measures reported in the Appendix are as they were
operationalized for the unique objectives and unit of analysis of
the present study.
3. As noted previously, there are actually six measures in the
self-reported/subjective sales performance scale. Our approach
was to take these six measures of self-reported performance and
sum their total into a single, subjective performance measure.
The reason for this is that if all seven items (one objective, six
subjective) were used to estimate sales performance, the subjective
measures would be drastically overweighted and, hence, would
theoretically distort the underlying construct. We conducted
additional analyses on the psychometric properties of the self-
reported sales performance scale given our data, finding that the
scale was highly reliable (α = 0.92), which, in our view, further
justifies this approach.
4. In the interest of parsimony in reporting, just the PLS struc-
tural model results are reported here. However, a full analysis of
discriminant validity between constructs, an examination of item-
to-construct factor loadings, and so forth, all, as before, revealed
no untoward or unexpected findings.
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 162  Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management

Appendix
Construct Measurement

Values in brackets after each item are factor loadings; RC = reverse-coded items; * the measure was dropped from the finalized
PLS measurement model.

Self-Efficacy (as per Sujan, Weitz, and Kumar 1994)

1. I am good at selling. (0.73)

2. It is difficult for me to put pressure on a customer. (RC) (0.72)
3. I know the right thing to do in selling situations. (0.70)
4. I find it difficult to convince a customer that has a different viewpoint than mine. (RC) (0.58)*
5. My temperament is not well suited for selling. (RC) (0.74)
6. I am good at finding out what customers want. (0.84)
7. It is easy for me to get customers to see my point of view. (0.71)
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Trait Competitiveness (as per Brown, Cron, and Slocum 1998)

1. I enjoy working in situations involving competition with others. (0.85)

2. It is important to me to perform better than others on a task. (0.77)
3. I feel that winning is important in both work and games. (0.76)
4. I try harder when I am in competition with other people. (0.75)

ADAPTS (Adaptive Selling) (as per Robinson et al. 2002)

1. When I feel my sales approach is not working, I can easily change to another approach. (0.82)
2. I like to experiment with different sales approaches. (0.76)
3. I am very flexible in the selling approach I use. (0.82)
4. I can easily use a wide variety of selling approaches. (0.85)
5. I try to understand how one customer differs from another. (0.71)

Performance

Please refer to the Measures subsection (as well as note 3), which describes the measures and sources of the two-item, reflectively-
modeled sales performance construct.
1. Self-reported performance index (as per Behrman and Perreault 1982; Johlke et al. 2000) (0.92)
2. Objective performance measure, from RentCar. (0.86)

Experience (5 Measures, Each Assessed Independently, as Study Controls, Modeled Formatively)

1. How long have you been in sales (in years)?

2. How long have you been in sales in this industry (in years)?
3. How long have you been in sales with your current employer (in years)?
4. How long have you been selling the products or services you currently represent (in years)?
5. How long have you been selling in your current sales territory (i.e., the specific customer accounts, industry verticals,
and/or geographies you cover) (in years)?

Subjective Value Inventory (SVI) (Outcomes of Negotiations)—Respondent Instructions

The following questions are designed to get a sense for the nature of the negotiations you have with your customers and prospects,
and more importantly, what you believe you have achieved from those negotiations when they have reached their conclusion.
With this in mind, please rate the extent of your agreement with statements below. (Note: the SVI items use different anchors,
 Spring 2013  163

depending on the nature of the question; the item anchors are listed in brackets for each item). (The SVI is operationalized as
per the notations in the Post Hoc Analysis subsection and as per Curhan, Elfenbein, and Xu 2006.)

SVI–Instrumental

1. How satisfied are you with your own outcomes when negotiating with your customers—i.e., the extent to which the
terms of your agreement (or lack of agreement) benefit you? (anchors are 1 “Not at all,” to 4 “Moderately,” to 7 “Per-
fectly”) (0.87)
2. How satisfied are you with the balance between your own outcome and your counterpart(s)’s outcome(s)? (anchors are
1 “Not at all,” to 4 “Moderately,” to 7 “Perfectly”) (0.90)
3. Do you feel like you forfeit or “lose” in your negotiations with customers? (anchors are 1 “Not at all,” to 4 “Moder-
ately,” to 7 “A great deal”) (0.73)
4. Do you think the terms of your customer agreements are consistent with principles of legitimacy or objective criteria
(e.g., common standards of fairness, precedent, industry practice, legality, etc.)? (anchors are 1 “Not at all,” to 4 “Mod-
erately,” to 7 “Perfectly”) (0.54)*
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SVI–Self

5. Do you “lose face” (i.e., damage your sense of pride) in your negotiations with customers? (anchors are 1 “Not at all,”
to 4 “Moderately,” to 7 “A great deal”) (0.68)
6. Do your customer negotiations make you feel more or less competent as a negotiator? (anchors are 1 “It made
me feel less competent,” to 4 “It did not make me feel more or less competent,” to 7 “It made me feel more
competent”) (0.78)
7. Do you behave according to your own principles and values when you negotiate with your customers? (anchors are
1 “Not at all,” to 4 “Moderately,” to 7 “Perfectly”) (0.70)
8. Do your negotiations with customers positively or negatively impact your self-image or your impression of yourself?
(anchors are 1 “It negatively impacted my self-image,” to 4 “It did not positively or negatively impact my self-image,”
to 7 “It positively impacted my self-image”) (0.83)

SVI–Process

9. Do you feel your negotiations counterpart(s) listen to your concerns? (anchors are 1 “Not at all,” to 4 “Moderately,” to
7 “Perfectly”) (0.79)
10. Would you characterize the negotiations process with your customers as fair? (anchors are 1 “Not at all,” to 4 “Moder-
ately,” to 7 “Perfectly”) (0.78)
11. How satisfied are you with the ease (or difficulty) of reaching an agreement with your customers? (anchors are 1 “Not
at all satisfied,” to 4 “Moderately satisfied,” to 7 “Perfectly satisfied”) (0.70)
12. Do your customer counterpart(s) consider your wishes, opinions, or needs in your negotiations with them? (anchors
are 1 “Not at all,” to 4 “Moderately,” to 7 “Perfectly”) (0.85)

SVI–Relationship

13. What kind of “overall” impression do your customers make on you when you negotiate with them? (anchors are
1 “Extremely negative,” to 4 “Neither negative nor positive,” to 7 “Extremely positive”) (0.77)
14. How satisfied are you with your customer relationships as a result of your negotiations with them? (anchors are 1 “Not
at all,” to 4 “Moderately,” to 7 “Perfectly”) (0.92)
15. Do your negotiations make you trust your customers? (anchors are 1 “Not at all,” to 4 “Moderately,” to 7 “Perfectly”)
(0.90)
16. Do your negotiations build a good foundation for a future relationship with your customers? (anchors are 1 “Not at
all,” to 4 “Moderately,” to 7 “Perfectly”) (0.91)