Research
Bouncing Back Following Failure[11/9/2009]
Sales is a profession in which one must not be a stranger to failure. Being a successful agent depends, in part, upon the ability to respond effectively to failure. How agents interpret failure (i.e., the attributions they make for failure) drives their expectations for future success, which in turn influences what they do (e.g., work harder, change strategy). A specific attribution for failure often leads to different responses across agents which suggests other variables beyond the experience of the agent influences the attribution-behavior link. Research in other fields indicates that individual differences influence behaviors after success and failure, which suggests that personality may play a role in agents' responses to success and failure.
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Insider - Buyer/Seller Relationships
[11/9/2009]
How can the relationship between the buyer and seller prove to be more efficient? How can both parties benefit in the short-term and long-term from establishing a relationship? In "A Dialectical Model of Buyer-Seller Relationships" published in the Journal of Business and Industrial Marketing in 2009, authors Maud Dampérat and Alain Jolibert provide a framework for better understanding key characteristics of relationships in a business environment. The researchers show the need for sellers and buyers to be trained to maintain business relationships and emphasize certain determinants of buyer interpersonal satisfaction.
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Insider - Recognizing Emotion in the Buyer-Seller Interchange
[11/9/2009]
How does the awareness of emotion impact interaction between buyer and seller? In "Perceiving Emotion in the Buyer-Seller Interchange: The Moderated Impact on Performance" published in the Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management (Spring 2007), Blair Kidwell, Richard G. McFarland, and Ramon A. Avila look at the salesperson's ability to recognize emotion in the buyer-seller interaction and the corresponding effect on sales performance. The primary purpose of their research is to examine how the ability to identify customers' emotions can influence the buyer-seller interaction through the salesperson's effective use of adaptive selling and customer-oriented selling techniques.
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When A Customer is Grateful to Be Your Customer
[11/9/2009]
"Relationship Marketing" (RM) refers to a long-term and mutually beneficial arrangement in which both the buyer and seller focus on value enhancement with the goal of providing a more satisfying exchange. RM encompasses all activities directed toward establishing, developing, and maintaining successful relationships (Morgan and Hunt 1994). When you think about RM, two concepts come to mind: trust and commitment. But, what other mechanisms make RM effective at improving seller performance? A key goal of selling is to build and sustain customer relationships (DeWulf, Odekerken-Schroder, and Iacobucci 2001). For real estate agents, the longevity of the relationship is paramount. Not only do you want your customers to buy/sell every house through you, their referrals are priceless. In this article, we discuss the role of customer gratitude in establishing effective buyer and seller relationships. Our research suggests it is important for a seller to go beyond providing the obvious benefit of a new home to creating more positive buyer perceptions of a seller's motive.
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Analyzing Absorptive Capacity
[11/6/2009]
Information technology (IT) is a continuously evolving field when it comes to the emergence and integration of new knowledge. IT departments within public organizations must adapt to these changes, while also facing challenges such as budgetary constraints, stakeholder demands and political influences.
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Business Innovation: Beyond Boundaries
[11/6/2009]
The phrase "business innovation" conjures specific types of images for those of us past a certain age. We imagine The Coca-Cola Company's secret recipe locked away in a vault, Google's mind-boggling search algorithms scribbled on a white board or brilliant IBM and P&G scientists tinkering in their research & development (R&D) lairs. Those of us past a certain age need to look again.
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Passing the Torch: Family Business Succession Planning
[11/6/2009]
Owners want to maintain family harmony, and at the same time, have a successful transfer of power. This means, according to the Baylor researchers, that more time needs to be put into personal and career develop
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Research in Action: Creating a Culture for Successful Innovation
[11/6/2009]
Dr. Greg Leman, director of University Entrepreneurial Initiatives and the Curtis Hankamer Chair in Entrepreneurship at Baylor, is a big fan of innovation. Among other courses, he teaches the "Initiating and Sustaining Innovation" Entrepreneurship class and serves as director of Baylor's i5 program: Immersion Into International Interdisciplinary Innovation.
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Social Entrepreneurship in Action
[11/6/2009]
Marlene Reed, professor of Entrepreneurship, is looking to bring hope through social entrepreneurship efforts to a country with impoverished people and underutilized resources.
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The Economics of Religion
[11/6/2009]
While religion, politics and money may be taboo topics at a dinner party, they are inexorably linked, according to a research team that included Baylor faculty members. The team studied the relationship between religion and economic prosperity, and the impact of government involvement on religious attendance worldwide.
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