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Incentives and job redesign: the case of the personal selling function

Author

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  • Alex Thevaranjan

    (School of Management, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, USA)

  • Kissan Joseph

    (School of Business, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USA)

Abstract

Changes in the internal and the external environment of organizations are causing many of them to redesign individual jobs as team functions. Sales organizations, in particular, are responding to increased selling costs by redesigning the selling function to include a support person. The basic idea here is to let the support person perform important but relatively low-skilled tasks, such as lead generation, so that the salesperson's valuable time is freed up to perform important and relatively high-skilled tasks, such as product promotion. However, this trend gives rise to several interesting questions. Specifically, we ask: How are the incentives offered to the salesperson affected by the introduction of the support person? To what extent will the support person be utilized? And, how will the job be conducted under the new design? We find that the level of incentives and job redesign are related, albeit in a complex manner. We also find that the firm will not always fully utilize the support person, nor will the salesperson always fully delegate the low-skilled task to him. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • Alex Thevaranjan & Kissan Joseph, 1999. "Incentives and job redesign: the case of the personal selling function," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(4), pages 205-216.
  • Handle: RePEc:wly:mgtdec:v:20:y:1999:i:4:p:205-216
    DOI: 10.1002/(SICI)1099-1468(199906)20:4<205::AID-MDE932>3.0.CO;2-2
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Amiya K. Basu & Rajiv Lal & V. Srinivasan & Richard Staelin, 1985. "Salesforce Compensation Plans: An Agency Theoretic Perspective," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 4(4), pages 267-291.
    2. Rajiv Lal & V. Srinivasan, 1993. "Compensation Plans for Single- and Multi-Product Salesforces: An Application of the Holmstrom-Milgrom Model," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 39(7), pages 777-793, July.
    3. Kissan Joseph & Alex Thevaranjan, 1998. "Monitoring and Incentives in Sales Organizations: An Agency-Theoretic Perspective," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 17(2), pages 107-123.
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    Cited by:

    1. Murali Mantrala & Sönke Albers & Fabio Caldieraro & Ove Jensen & Kissan Joseph & Manfred Krafft & Chakravarthi Narasimhan & Srinath Gopalakrishna & Andris Zoltners & Rajiv Lal & Leonard Lodish, 2010. "Sales force modeling: State of the field and research agenda," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 21(3), pages 255-272, September.
    2. Natarajan, Ramachandran & Sethuraman, Kannan & Surysekar, Krishnamurthy, 2005. "Reducing incremental costs associated with the delegation of incentive contracting decisions: An analysis of planning and control decisions in a manufacturing setting in the presence of moral hazard," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 162(3), pages 816-838, May.

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