To go or not to go for the sell: Regulatory focus and personal sales performance

Melvyn Hamstra*, Eric Rietzschel, Denise Groeneveld

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Selling products and services is a central function in organizations. Although explaining sales success has mainly been approached from broad trait perspectives, tactical decision-making potentially explains additional variance in this crucial outcome. We propose and find that promotion focus positively predicts sales agents’ success, while prevention focus negatively predicts sales success. These relations were significant while controlling for five-factor traits. Predictors were measured before participants started on the job; outcome was the total number of sales participants made. As such, results evidence incremental validity of regulatory focus in predicting objective sales performance.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)109-112
JournalJournal of Personnel psychology
Volume14
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2015

Keywords

  • regulatory focus
  • sales performance
  • performance prediction

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