International audienceIdentifying, acquiring, and retaining top sales talent remains a priority in many sales organizations because salesperson turnover remains such an intractable management problem. This paper seeks to encourage and enrich continued research on sales turnover by introducing recent methodological and theoretical advances in psychological, economic, and organizational theory. First, we suggest an examination of sales turnover guided by social network theory. Second, we propose the simultaneous consideration of the interplay between variables within a comprehensive, integrated multilevel framework. Third, in keeping with the shift in research designs initiated in management, our model includes the concept of "shocks"--jarring events that could drive turnover decisions. Finally, we propose to examine sales turnover within an international context. The conceptual framework we present outlines how sales organizations might effectively address sales force turnover and, as a consequence, improve productivity. We conclude by suggesting some specific research questions intended to provide direction for researchers interested in identifying and investigating underresearched linkages
Introduction Of all the management fields, the field of marketing is undoubtedly that which raises the most controversy when it comes to the question of ethics. Is there anyone who has not heard stories of false advertising, pressure selling or even discriminatory pricing practices? Whether in the public opinion (Landler, 1991) or within its own community (Farmer, 1977), marketing is a discipline which provokes much debate. Very often, this controversy is linked to a lack of understanding of what the actual definition of marketing is. In order to clarify this point, we propose, in the way of an introduction, this quote from Peter Drucker (1973): Indeed, selling and marketing are antithetical rather than synonymous or even complementary. There will always, one can assume, be need for some selling. But the aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous. The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service fits him and sells itself. While this quote largely reflects what many marketing people believe to be the real essence of their discipline, there nonetheless often exists a wide gap between theory and practice. In order to illustrate this gap, we will use a different quote by the same author: That after twenty years of marketing rhetoric consumerism could become a powerful popular movement proves that not much marketing has been practiced. Consumerism is the "shame of marketing" (Drucker, 1973). The objective of this article is to show that marketing, by its very definition, is principally grounded on a utilitarian approach to ethics but that managers could also develop a deontological approach to marketing. Ethics and marketing practices While not claiming to provide the complete list, it is nevertheless interesting to point out some of the main ethical problems which have been studied in marketing. To do this, we will follow the example of Murphy and Laczniak (1981) and consider the principal marketing fields one at a time.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.