Qualitative sales research: an exposition of grounded theory

Johnson, Jeff S.

doi:10.1080/08853134.2014.954581

Cited by 87 publications

(84 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…A qualitative research approach is beneficial when examining a complex, highly nuanced topic (Johnson 2015). The SMI is a topic that fits this criterion and sales and marketing scholars have used this approach to better understand this phenomenon (e.g.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A União Faz a Força(There is strength in unity): understanding the sales–marketing interface in Brasil

Johnson

Boeing

2016

Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A União Faz a Força(There is strength in unity): understanding the sales–marketing interface in Brasil

Johnson

Boeing

2016

Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management

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“…Grounded theory is one of the most widely used qualitative research methods across a wide range of disciplines and subjects [5,29]. It is also becoming more prevalent in both sales research [13,21] and IS research [47,48].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Visibility of Work: How Digitalization Changes the Workplace

Timonen¹,

Vuori²

2018

Proceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences

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“…Qualitative pivoting is a newly-advanced qualitative data analysis technique, launched in the sales literature to improve sales researchers' ability to make comparisons across cases in their analysis. As espoused by Johnson (2015), in qualitative pivoting, themes are coded along with case characteristics (e.g. incumbent seller, outside seller).…”

Section: Qualitative Pivotingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Further, to offer insight into the contextual conditions that lead to their contrasting interpretations, this examination uses qualitative pivoting. Qualitative pivoting is a newlyadvanced analytical technique launched in the sales literature which allows researchers to make comparisons of coded themes across cases (Johnson 2015).In the following section, we discuss our method and detail the findings from our study. Consistent with the theories-in-use approach, we then situate our findings within the existing body of literature.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Mixed interpretations of sales proposal signals

Johnson

Friend

Malshe

2016

Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management

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Long-term relationships with customers are critical determinants of a sales organization's success. However, research tends to assess relational approaches from the salesperson or sales organization's perspective and often neglects to capture customers' perspectives which lead to the evaluative success or failure of buyer-seller relationships. This study assesses the seller's bidrelated signals from the buyer's perspective following their selection or rejection of a business-to-business sales proposal. The authors adopt a theories-in-use approach, utilizing 54 depth-interviews with decision-makers from 33 buyer organizations. Within this data set, findings reveal three bid signals that are represented across both selection and rejection outcomes (i.e. mixed interpretations by buyers). These signals are the seller's usage of price concessions, sales proposal specificity, and comparative customer examples. To better understand the mechanisms which influence buyers' mixed interpretations of these signals, the authors utilize the newly-advanced qualitative pivoting technique to identify contextual variables across cases that influence the buyer's positive or negative signal interpretation.Keywords: sales proposal selection; signaling theory; price concessions; proposal specificity; comparative customer examples; qualitative Buyer-seller relationships are complex and interdependent (Autry, Williams, and Moncrief 2013;Beverland 2001;Chakrabarty, Brown, and Widing 2013;Dwyer, Schurr, and Oh 1987;Guenzi and Troilo 2006) and relationshipbuilding efforts are an ongoing endeavor. As business-tobusiness (B2B) firms widely embrace relational strategies (Gonzalez, Douglas Hoffman, and Ingram 2005;Morgan and Hunt 1994), sellers attempt to initiate, build, and maintain long-term buyer-seller relationships with existing and/ or potential customers (Berry 1983). In this endeavor, the continuous engagement sellers have with buyers serve as forward-looking signals to buyers about the direction of their relationship (Palmatier et al. 2013). An important juncture in the buyer-seller relationship is when the account comes up for renewal and the buyer invites proposals from their incumbent provider, along with other prospective sellers. While incumbent sellers look to leverage their existing relationship and send desirable signals to buyers during the renewal stage, buyers have a large number of data-points to glean from, interpret, and base their decisions upon during this stage.From the buyer's perspective, these data-points include the following factors that influence their decision: (a) experience working with the incumbent seller to date, (b) recent interactions with the incumbent seller during the account renewal initiation, (c) characteristics of the final proposal put forward by the incumbent seller, (d) credibility of outside sellers calling on the buyers and seeking their business, (e) interactions with outside sellers during the account renewal stage, (f) characteristics of the proposals submitted by outside sellers, and/or ...

show abstract

Qualitative sales research: an exposition of grounded theory

Cited by 87 publications

References 29 publications

A União Faz a Força(There is strength in unity): understanding the sales–marketing interface in Brasil

A União Faz a Força(There is strength in unity): understanding the sales–marketing interface in Brasil

Visibility of Work: How Digitalization Changes the Workplace

Mixed interpretations of sales proposal signals

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