Purpose – Based on customer value-based and social exchange theories, the purpose of this paper is to hypothesize and examine the relationships between salespeople entrepreneurial behaviors (innovativeness, proactiveness, and risk taking) and customer trust in, satisfaction with and commitment to the salespeople. Design/methodology/approach – The influences of salespeople’s entrepreneurial behaviors on customer trust in, satisfaction with, and commitment to salespeople were examined utilizing a structural equations model with a sample drawn from the newspaper industry. Findings – As predicted salespeople entrepreneurial behaviors (treated as a higher order factor) significantly and positively influence customer trust in, satisfaction with, and commitment to the salespeople. Research limitations/implications – This study confirms innovative, proactive, and risk-taking practices are useful in fostering customer trust, satisfaction, and commitment in the domain of personal selling. The key limitations are the small sample size, the use of a single company, and the omission of other potential outcomes. Practical implications – Entrepreneurial behaviors/activities such as, innovativeness, proactiveness, and risk taking are worthy undertakings for salespeople. Considering these traits in salespeople hiring and/or fostering them in salespeople training should be worth pursuing. Social implications – By improving the quality of exchanges through salespeople’s entrepreneurial behaviors and customer-salespeople relationship quality, social exchanges, and in turn social welfare are promoted. Originality/value – As per the literature search, this is the first study linking salespeople’s entrepreneurial behaviors and customer-salespeople relationship quality represented by trust in, satisfaction with, and commitment to salespeople drawing insights from customer value-based and social exchange theories.

This paper examines whether marketing educators' efforts in integrating sustainability-related issues in an undergraduate Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) course affect students' perceived sustainability literacy. Using the Taxonomy of Significant Learning, a traditional IMC course was redesigned to include sustainability-focused concepts and assignments related to and integrated with the traditional course concepts. Analyzing student pre-and posttests of self-reported data from two questionnaires, one at the beginning of the semester and one at the end of the semester, impact on students' perceived awareness and knowledge of sustainability issues was demonstrated.

Consumers increasingly engage expert service providers in their goal pursuits. While the literature focuses primarily on goal attainment, this presents just one stage of extended goal striving. Using Bagozzi and Dholakia's (1999) goal-striving framework as the foundation, this qualitative research examines the client-trainer interactions in the goal-striving process. We find that goal-striving with the aid of expert service providers entails intersubjectivity. The consumer wrestles with multiple understandings of fitness to determine and pursue a goal. This considers the individual's perceptions and desires, cultural and societal discourses, and trainer's views. Effective goal pursuit requires shared understanding between client and trainer. It entails a moment of release when consumers accept their inability to translate goals into actions alone. This occurs at multiple stages of the process. By examining the influence of service providers on goal-strivers, this research extends our understanding of goal-striving as an accepted agreement between the Self and Other.