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Longitudinal salesperson performance research is evident as early as 1960 and evaluates performance salesperson performance in different ways. Longitudinal salesperson performance research either examines (1) trajectories over time, or (2) time-lagged performance. It is the former that is of interest to the present study, as the latter does not

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examine within-person change1. Different studies examine the longitudinal dynamics from different perspectives, at different intervals, and over different time frames. Table 2.1

summarizes the key longitudinal salesperson performance literature. The earliest longitudinal performance study finds salesperson performance to fluctuate slightly (Kirchner, 1960). Hoffman (1993) then identified a negatively accelerating performance trend when assessing quarterly sales performance over a three-year period, concluding that a learning curve occurs in new salesperson. This learning curve is consistent with Murphy’s (1989) theoretical work on sales performance, which posits that there are two different phases in performance: (1) transition, and (2) maintenance. Since salespeople are acquiring new skills and understanding new duties in the transition phase, greater change in sales performance occurs in the

transition phase compared to the maintenance phase (Hoffman, 1993). Even a salesperson with decades of experience may have to re-learn sales techniques, or secure new knowledge about new products or customers, in response to a change in their job, or existing role,

leading to a new transitional period. On the other hand, in the maintenance stage performance is relatively stable and fluctuates around a base level.

Table 2.1 An overview of the key longitudinal sales performance literature

33 Author(s) Date Key findings

Kirchner 1960 Small fluctuations in monthly salesperson performance

Hoffman et al. 1993 Both linear and quadratic (negatively accelerating) change in quarterly salesperson performance over time

Harrison et al. 1996 The correlation between periods of salesperson performance decreases as the time-lag difference increases

Ployhart & Hakel

1998 Significant individual differences in quarterly salesperson performance

Thoresen et al. 2004 For salespeople in the transition stage, agreeableness and openness to experience influence quarterly salesperson performance differences and performance trends. For salespeople in the maintenance phase, conscientiousness and extraversion are positively associated with between-person differences in total sales.

Stewart & Nandkeolyar

2006 Significant weekly within-person variance in salesperson performance in business-to-consumer salespeople

Zyphur et al. 2008 Significant between-person differences in quarterly salesperson performance. Autoregression in measurement is also apparent.

Fu 2009 Salesperson experience (age) shows a positive (negative) impact on new product growth trajectory. Self-set goals increase the average level of new product performance and growth over time. Self-efficacy/new product performance relationship insignificant

Jaramillo & Grisaffe

2009 Salesperson experience and customer orientation significantly related to sales growth rate

Fu et al. 2009 Self-efficacy positively affects self-set goals, selling effort, & new product sales (measured quarterly)

Ahearne et al. 2010 Average salesperson performance trajectory displays an initial decline, gradual recovery, and eventual re-stabilization after a change intervention

Fu et al. 2010 Self-efficacy positively influences new product growth rate

Peterson et al. 2011 Significant within-individual change in psychological capital over time, which is related to change in salesperson performance

Gupta et al. 2013 Significant differences between the predictive validity of monthly subjective and objective measures of performance not observed

Chan et al. 2014 In business-to-consumer salespeople, learning occurs for new salespeople during the first 3 months (weekly performance measured), with performance leveling off after. Significant between-person differences in quarterly salesperson

performance.

Chung et al. 2014 Overachievement commissions help sustain the high productivity of the best performers, even after attaining quotas. quarterly bonuses help to improve performance of the weak performers.

More recently, Ahearne et al. (2010) demonstrate that the average trajectory of

pharmaceutical salespeople shows an initial decline after the sales process changed from “a home-grown contact management system to a full-scale process-driven sales force

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automation system” (p. 68). The initial decline is followed by a gradual recovery and re- stabilization of performance (after 1 year). Consequently, it can be expected that salespeople in the transition phase may demonstrate greater changes in self-efficacy and salesperson performance than salespeople in the maintenance phase.

Empirical evidence demonstrates that salesperson performance can fluctuate weekly for business-to-consumer (B2C) salespeople (Stewart & Nandkeolyar, 2006), and as often as monthly (e.g. Ahearne et al., 2010; Adkins & Naumann, 2001) for B2B salespeople. To understand longer-term change, sales researchers also examine salesperson performance quarterly (Thoresen, Bradley, Bliese, & Thoresen, 2004), and annually (Chung, Steenburgh, & Sudhir, 2014)

Substantial between-person differences in performance trajectories are identified by Chan, Li, and Pierce (2014). In Chan et al.’s study, salespeople working with high-ability peers

demonstrate greater growth in performance over time. This growth is perhaps due to the high- ability peers demonstrating successful sales techniques, and thus providing a good role model for salespeople to follow (Bandura, 1977), something proposed to be an antecedent to self- efficacy (Rich, 1997). Ployhart and Hakel (1998) also demonstrate significant between- person differences in performance trajectories. Here, lagged salesperson performance is influenced by self-reported persuasion, empathy, past sales commission, and salary potential. However, not each predictor was not significantly related to performance at each time point, providing support for the proposition that relationships between salesperson performance and its antecedents can change over time (Bolander et al., 2017). Precisely, some effects may wear off, some effects may take time to take effect, whereas others may consistently

influence performance achievement. Furthermore, Thoresen et al. (2004) find agreeableness and openness to experience to influence B2B salesperson performance trajectories for individuals in the transition phase, while conscientiousness and extraversion influenced the trajectories of salespeople in the maintenance phase.

Self-efficacy also demonstrates inconsistent relationships with salesperson performance in longitudinal studies. For example, in Gupta et al.’s (2013) study, when examining monthly performance over five months, self-efficacy predicts both subjective and objective

performance, above and beyond the big-5 personality traits. Fu et al. (2009) also find self- efficacy, via self-set goals and effort, to exert a positive indirect effect on new product sales performance, both three and 5 months later. Additionally, self-efficacy also demonstrates an

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insignificant direct effect on new product sales performance. Fu et al. (2010) also finds self- efficacy to be positively related to new product performance growth rates.

Finally, a study specifically examining within-person changes in salesperson performance finds PsyCap, a construct consisting of self-efficacy, hope, optimism, and resilience, to be related to within-person changes in both subjective and objective performance (Petersen, Luthans, Avolio, Walumbwa, & Zhang, 2011). However, the analysis technique the

researchers use, namely the standard latent growth model, fails to separate the within-person effects from between-person effects, focusing only on between-person differences when evaluating stability and change over time. Separating within-person from between-person variance requires the use of a specific form of growth model, one with structured residuals (Curran, Howard, Bainter, Lane, & McGinley, 2014)2. Thus, Peterson et al. (2014) fail to adequately disaggregate the effects, and thus their results are, at least in part, unreliable, as the within-person estimates will contain between-person variance (Curran et al., 2014). Furthermore, the individual relationships of self-efficacy, hope, optimism and resilience with salesperson performance are not tested, and consequently it is not possible to determine which part of PsyCap influences salesperson performance. For example, wider literature suggests a negative effect of within-person self-efficacy on performance (e.g. Vancouver & Kendall, 2006; Vancouver et al., 2001). Thus, it may be that the other three constructs demonstrate positive relationships, consequently cancelling out a negative within-person effect of self-efficacy on salesperson performance.

The above-described longitudinal salesperson performance research suggests that the

longitudinal salesperson performance research stream is still developing. However, a picture of how salesperson performance changes over time can be gauged from this research. It seems that salesperson performance antecedents do not consistently influence salesperson performance over time. Henceforth, it is proposed that it is important that research begins to examine how change in salesperson performance antecedents influence change in salesperson performance.

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