VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI VIETNAM JAPAN UNIVERSITY. NGUYEN THI THUY LINH FACTORS INFLUENCING ON SALESPERSON PERFORMANCE IN INFORMATION SERVICE INDUSTRY MASTER’S THESIS BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION Hanoi, 2019 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI VIETNAM JAPAN UNIVERSITY. NGUYEN THI THUY LINH FACTORS INFLUENCING ON SALESPERSON PERFORMANCE IN INFORMATION SERVICE INDUSTRY MAJOR: BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION Code: 60340102 Research Supervisors Assoc. Kodo Yokozawa Assoc.
Pham Thi Lien Hanoi, 2019 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The study "Factors influencing on salesperson performance in information service industry" is choosen to conduct for my graduation thesis based on my experience in the industry as well as precious knowledge an I gained from MBA program at Vietnam Japan University after 15 valuable months studying here. Firstly, I would like to express my deep gratitude for Assoc. Kodo Yokozawa (Yokohama National University), and Assoc. Pham Thi Lien (Vietnam Japan University), who directly instructed and guided me throughout the research process, and all of respecful lecturers in MBA program for inspiring and encouraging us to complete this program.
In order to get data and information during the research process of this thesis, I would like to say thank you to all of sales colleagues and senior managers from over 20 international academic publishing and data analytics companies for their valuable contributions and precious time during data collection and research modeling steps. I also wish to thank Dr. Hiep Pham and his research coach centre for all profression assistance during data analysis process. I am indebted to my loved husband, my son, Nemo, and friends, who have always been with me, and encouraged me to complete this MBA course and the thesis as well.
Last but not least, I would like to deeply thank Japan and Vietnam Government, Vietnam Japan University, and Yokohama National University with generous scholarship programs and nurturing education environment that encouraged not only me, but hundreds of VJUers during our 2-year Master training program here. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT To examine major factors that influencing on salesperson performance in information service industry, especially academic publishing and data analytics companies, researcher proposed research model and hypotheses. A full measurement model was tested by CFA analysis and modeling procedure. Then, structural equation model was tested.
Models fit the data well. Proposed hypotheses were supported and interpreted. Factors influencing on salesperson performance in information service industry, especially academic publishing and data analytics companies includes adaptive selling behavior, customer orientation, guanxi. It’s found that customer orientation, adaptive selling behavior, “ganqing” (apart of “guanxi”) has positive influence on salesperson performance, whereas “renqing” (apart of “guanxi”) has positive to adaptive selling behavior, but not support salesperson performance.
Besides, customer orientation is proved to have strong positive impact on adaptive selling in relationship toward salesperson performance in this industry. Not only the customer orientation but the relationship between salesperson and his buyer's representatives have strong influence on his selling behavior and performance. The social relationship between salesperson and his customer's representative have strong affect on salesperformance than his adaptive selling behavior and customer orientation. It's the implication for manager to encourage their salespeople to develop emotional attachment among parties networking in order to improve their salesperson performance strategically.
The research also affỉrmed the significance of customer orientation on adaptive selling behavior, toward their positive influence on salesperson performance in information industry, especially academic publishing and data analytics companies. It then suggested salesperson consider the effects of favors exchanges or reciprocity with his business partner. Therefore, sales manager can identify and orient salespeople the relevant treatment strategy for their customers, in order to improve sales performance. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Keywords: Salesperson performance; Information service industry; Academic publishing; Data analytics companies; Adaptive selling behavior; Customer orientation; Guanxi; Renqing; Ganqing; Xinren.
LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION.1 Background to the research problem & Rationale of the Study .3 Terminologies and Scope of study .2 Information Service Industry .5 The structure of thesis. 6 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW .1 Information service industry .2 Publishing and Data Analytics Companies .2 Previous research on Salesperson Performance .2 Previous research on Customer Orientation .4 Adaptive Selling Behavior .2 Previous research on Adaptive Selling Behaviors .2 Previous research about Guanxi .6 Research Gap & Research Questions. 29 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH MODEL AND DATA COLLECTION .1 Reasearch model - Concept of variables and Development of h ypotheses 35 3.2 Data collection method. 43 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.3 Questionaire design and administration .4 Data collection process .5 Data analysis procedure.
49 CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND MEASUREMENT MODEL .1 Data Preparation and descriptive statistics .2 Measurement model evaluation .4 Data analysis result. 65 CHAPTER 5: HYPOTHESES TESTING & DISCUSSION .1 Hypotheses Testing Results. 68 CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSIONS, IMPLICATIONS, LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH .1 Conclusions from this study .4 Limitations and future research .92 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF TABLE Table 3.1: Detail and Source of Questionaire .2: Description of Questionaire’s components .2: Profile Of Respondents .3: Descriptive Analyses for Measurement Items .4: Variables in the CFA Model .5: Standardized Factor Loading Matrix: Estimate /t-value .6: Confirmatory factor analysis for convergent and discriminant validity 57 Table 4.7: Acceptable level of fit indices .8: Results of multiple fit indices .9: Variables in the SEM Model .10: SEM Model Fit Summary…………………………………………….62 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF FIGURE Figure 2.1: The literature study summary of Adaptive selling behaviors – (Adopted from Park & Deitz) .2: The literature study summary of SP - ASB – CO - GX (included any dimension: Renqing/Xinren/Ganqing), and Information Service Industry by Author .1: Gender distribution among 204 respondents.2: Age distribution among 204 respondents .3: Working experience among 204 respondents .4: Working area among 204 respondents .5: Model of Structural Equation Model Result. 64 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF ABBREVIATION Abbreviation Full term/Meaning SP Salesperson Performance ASB Adaptive Selling Behavior CO Customer Orientation GX Guanxi GQ Ganqing RQ Renqing XR Xinren CRs Construct Reliability (AVE) FA Confirmatory Factor Analysis e.
for example AVE Average Variance Extracted LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background to the research problem & Rationale of the Study The sales force, as the bridge of their company and customers, considered as a factor creating more competitive advantages for each company through financial, product and customer information they manage. Practically, “the success or failure of the organization is mostly determined by performance”. Therefore, measuring or enhancing performance for sales people should be among the highest priorities of sales managers and managers (Walker, OC, 1977). Similarly, Grant & Cravens in 1996, indicated that the performance of a commercial organization depends on the salesperson performance (Grant & Cravens, 1996) so an essential task of sales management is to find out what drives salesperson performance.
The sales force always plays a crucial role in the success of these companies by creating the linkage between the customer and the organisation in all industries. In the commercial world with challenges increasing, more and more executives need information from marketing scholars about about “what motivates salespeople and what leads to good sales performance” (Walker, 1977) Theoretically, salesperson performance, studied as the measurement of sales’ revenue or amount of customer that an employee or salesperson makes for a business, or defined as “the process of overseeing and training employees to advance their sales skills, processes, and results”. Sales performance was stated as “the result of carrying out of some discreet and specific activities which may vary greatly across different types of selling jobs and situations” (Churchill & Ford, 1979. The research topic of salesperson performance has been considered as a centre concern in order to improve companies’ development, and emerged as a hot topic in recent decades.
Over the years, many researchs in this topic published, thousands of articles was found out when “sales performance” search was conducted in Google Scholars and other scholar resources. From the very first studies to examine the relationship between aptitude and salesperson performance conducted by Oschrin in 1918 (G. Churchill, 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Ford, Hartley, & Walker, 1985), to the latest research by Tom Brashear-Alejandro about examining the longitudinal study of mentoring functions and their effect on salespersons are all related to factors influencing on salesperson performance (Brashear-Alejandro, Barksdale, Bellenger, Boles, & James, 2019) When information is the key for success in the globalization era of international business and advanced science, the information service industry, a significant part of information industry has been emerging as one of global economy pillars. Since 2006, there was a dramatic development of information service industry with the total global production value increase with US$ 624.4 billion in 2005 to US$ 672.4 billion in 2006, reported by Gartner Dataquest.
The global book publishing business, one of this industry’s components partially reached revenue of $112bn in 2018 (Ibis world, industry report). “The level of information services has become one of the key factors in measuring national modernization and comprehensive national power” (Zhu Z Y, Li N, Wang J H, 2012). This knowledge-based industry, for these reasons, is considered one of emerging field, which received attention from market analytics experts as well as business scholars over the world in previous decade. Currently, “both governments and business communities around the world consider the information service industries to be “strategic” industries” (Futoshi Kurokawa et Kiyohiko G.
When the business is healthy, it is not difficult to maintain good returns, but in some crisis periods, managers tend to shift the priority for sales representatives as the most important bridge between company and customers. The trend of “Open access” which encourage authors and publisher to share their knowledge is somehow the barrier for the industry and it’s commercialized companies (Bobby Vocile, Strategic Market Analyst, Wiley). Besides, under the fierce competition trend, even the market leaders in the industry have to constantly update the most advanced information technology, and their sales force must always mobilize to upgrade their own as well as their company’s competitiveness. However, managers in this field is having lack of information from business scholars to improve productivity of sales force on a regular basis.
2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com In academic aspect, there was recently numbers of research in the information service industry, for instance, Clark, T.(1995) investigated the issue of relationships between outsourcing vendors in Information service industry. Research on Spanish Library and Information Science on the basis of academic publications issued between 2000 and 2010 was published by Kawalec (2013). Recently, Wu, Chien-Hsin; Wu, Feng-Shang; Chen, Wei-Yin published a research to explore “the relationship between knowledge attributes and innovation behavior in SMEs in the information service industry” (2015). However, to the best of our knowledge, there are very limited academic research related to salesperson performance that focus on information services industry, but mostly in publishing companies as a one of typical section of the industry over the years.
Based on motivation from the both of academic research limitation in information service industry and the emerging excitement as well as practical challenges in academic publishing and data analytics firms, this thesis is motivated to study about the factors that having affect on salesperson performance in the information service industry, and partially expected to contribute a new scholar perspective about salesperson performance in the information service industry, as well as partially help management in the industry, especially in academic publishing and data analytics firms, to improve their sales force’s performance.2 Research objectives In the light of the above discussions, this thesis is aimed to explore and test the relationships between major factors having affects on salesperson performance in the information service industry, especially academic publishing and data analytics companies, in order to fulfil the research topic which has limited knowledge about salesperson performance in these focused fields.