ABSTRACT

Dynamic business environments can cause unexpected disruptions that can force firms to embrace new ways of working. In such situations, salesforce change agility can be a key to success. However, scant research has examined the factors that promote the development of change agility, or the consequences thereof. We address these notable omissions by using a sample of 237 B2B salespeople to explore the effect of idiosyncratic deals on work absorption, change agility, behavioral performance, and sales performance. The findings indicate that a salesperson’s idiosyncratic work arrangements (i.e. Flexibility and Development Idiosyncratic Deals) enhance work absorption, which in turn increases salesperson change agility. Moreover, we find that while development idiosyncratic deals are positively related to change agility, flexibility idiosyncratic deals do not impact change agility. Finally, our analysis also shows that change agility is positively related to behavioral performance, with subsequent downstream effects on sales performance. Collectively, these findings offer a glimpse into the importance of agile behaviors as salespeople deal with the changes impacting the sales function.

摘要

动态的商业环境可能会导致意想不到的中断，从而迫使公司采用新的工作方式。在这种情况下，销售人员的变革敏捷性可能是成功的关键。然而，很少有研究检查促进变革敏捷性发展的因素或其后果。我们通过使用 237 名 B2B 销售人员作为样本来探索特殊交易对工作吸收、变革敏捷性、行为绩效和销售绩效的影响，从而解决这些显着的遗漏。调查结果表明，销售人员的特殊工作安排（即灵活性和发展特殊交易）增强了工作吸收，这反过来又增加了销售人员的变化敏捷性。此外，我们发现虽然开发异质性交易与变革敏捷性正相关，灵活性特殊交易不会影响变革的敏捷性。最后，我们的分析还表明，变革敏捷性与行为绩效呈正相关，随后对销售绩效产生下游影响。总的来说，这些发现让我们得以一窥敏捷行为在销售人员处理影响销售职能的变化时的重要性。