Abstract

Despite recent attention from scholars, internal networking remains underexplored in the sales literature, particularly with respect to its effect on longitudinal measures of performance. The current research addresses this notable omission by examining the interactive effect of salespeople’s internal networking ability and their supervisor’s organizational status on performance growth trajectories. Utilizing 20 quarters of individual, financial performance data from 113 salespeople at a warehousing equipment manufacturer, we find that both internal networking and a supervisor’s organizational status drive a salesperson’s performance growth trajectory. However, the interaction of these two variables has a negative – and counterintuitive – effect on performance growth trajectory. That is, supervisors with high organizational status attenuate (buttress) the performance growth of their high (low) networking salespeople. Taken together, these results reveal an important boundary condition regarding the efficacy of internal networking, and underscore the importance of sales managers in shaping the effectiveness of their salespeople’s internal networking efforts.

摘要

尽管最近有学者关注，但内部网络在销售文献中仍未得到充分开发，特别是在内部绩效对纵向绩效的影响方面。当前的研究通过检查销售人员的内部网络能力和他们的主管的组织地位对绩效增长轨迹的交互作用来解决这一明显的遗漏。利用来自仓库设备制造商的113个销售人员的20个季度的个人财务绩效数据，我们发现内部网络和主管的组织地位共同驱动了销售人员的绩效增长轨迹。但是，这两个变量的相互作用对绩效增长轨迹具有负面影响和违反直觉的影响。那是，具有较高组织地位的主管削弱（支持）他们的高（低）网络销售人员的绩效增长。综上所述，这些结果揭示了内部网络有效性的重要边界条件，并强调了销售经理在塑造销售人员内部网络工作有效性方面的重要性。