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Description:
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The selling job in most businesses today has become an integrated process that requires the coordinated efforts of salespeople and other participants , both within and across product lines , functional departments , and geographic districts . As a result , many companies today require their salespeople to be cooperative players who can work effectively in groups whose members share skills , knowledge , time , and effort , to achieve common objectives .
This dissertation is the first in -depth study towards understanding the antecedent factors that influence task -specific cooperation among salespeople . Several antecedent factors that promote or inhibit salesforce cooperation are identified , each factor is categorized into one of the four broader sets of antecedent conditions , namely , relational , task , organizational , and personal factors , and each factor is tested , within a nomological network , for its effect on cooperative behaviors of salespersons directed toward coworkers .
The main thesis of the hypothesized structural model is that each major antecedent category exerts significant influence on cooperation , independently from the effects of others . Based on this main thesis , two general research questions are explored : to what extent does each antecedent category explain the observed variance in cooperation ; and , what role do relational factors , particularly trust in coworkers and organizational commitment , play in explaining salesforce cooperation . The hypothesized structural model is tested with data collected through self -administered surveys of a large sample of (N = 554 ) automobile salespeople from 112 different dealerships . |