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Empowering sales teams for market sensing and market performance

Author

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  • Mullins, Ryan
  • Menguc, Bulent
  • Rapp, Adam

Abstract

Even though market volatility consistently outpaces traditional top-down attempts at adaptation, firms continue to underutilize frontline sales teams as a source of bottom-up market response. To address this problem, we conceptualize and test a dual-pathway model to illustrate how sales team empowerment motivates the collective and individual self-regulatory activities necessary for deploying a market sensing sales team. Drawing from a multi-source dataset of salespeople, managers, and 8-month archival performance, we show how sales team empowerment shapes team and individual motivations into sales team market sensing and market performance. Our findings contribute to both practitioners and academics in three key ways: (1) uncover dual-level learning synergies necessary for effectively deploying sales team market sensing, (2) provide new insight surrounding the ambiguous effects of team empowerment, and (3) illustrate the individual motivations and contingencies for driving sales team learning.

Suggested Citation

  • Mullins, Ryan & Menguc, Bulent & Rapp, Adam, 2026. "Empowering sales teams for market sensing and market performance," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 214(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:214:y:2026:i:c:s0148296326003346
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2026.116299
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