Avslutning av masteroppgaven

For en tid tilbake ble masteroppgaven ferdigstilt, sendt inn til trykkeriet og deretter presentert ved campus i Grimstad. På grunn av at jeg fulgte semesteret i Nederland, som er forskjøvet en måned i forhold til Norge, var jeg ferdig med masteroppgaven en stund etter det som er normalt her. Dette gjorde at ekstern sensor ikke var tilgjengelig på den muntlige presentasjonen av oppgaven, og dermed trådte Bo Terje Kalsaas til som "vikarierende sensor". 29. juni kl. 12:15 var presentasjonen og eksamineringen unnagjort. Det var en stor lettelse og fornøyelse på samme tid. Det ble feiret med en kald iste på Platebaren i Grimstad sammen med en gammel venn.

Tidligere har det vært lite informasjon om hva prosjektet handler om og resultatene fra den. Derfor er det under gitt et sammendrag (på engelsk) for de som er interesserte:


The effect of customer innovativeness on the relationship between sales employees' selling behavior and selling performance for new and existing products

Introduction

This master thesis project provides an extension to an already existing conceptual framework by Michel van der Borgh, which addresses the ambidextrous orientation’s role of proactive selling behaviors and selling performance, where sales manager’s control and product newness are implemented. The focus in this study was to uncover the effects of customer innovativeness on the relationship between the sales employees’ selling behavior and selling performance for new and existing products, respectively.

Methodology

The study design was based on the predictive model cycle by De Groot (1961). To fund an adequate knowledge base about key concepts (i.e. proactive selling behavior, customer innovativeness, selling performance and interpersonal relationships in sales context) a thorough literature review was conducted. Different sets of scales were collected to form a survey consisting of 78 items. Some scales were provided by Van der Borgh, some were adopted from other researchers and some were constructed for the purpose of this project. In the end, the questionnaire was translated from English to Norwegian accordingly to the procedure by Steenkamp et al. (1999). A quantitative online data collection was performed in a consumer electronics company in Norway, resulting in 59 valid responses.

Analysis

Preparation of the data set was executed in SPSS, and subsequently exported to SmartPLS which was used to generate the necessary statistical models. Cronbachs Alpha, Average variance extracted, R- squared, and Global goodness of fit were calculated, and showed satisfactory reliability and validity of the models. Immeasurable aspects, such as performance of a pretest, usage of acknowledged procedures and low response rate, also affect the validity and reliability.

Results

Results show that customer innovativeness (INN) directly influences the selling performance for new products (PERFNEW), and has a moderating effect on the relationship between proactive selling behavior (PROEXT) and selling performance (PERFEXT) for existing products. Including to this, customer orientation (CO) was shown to have a positive and direct impact on the salespersons proactive selling behavior and on the selling performance for both new and existing products, and company tenure (TENURE) has a positive direct impact on customer innovativeness. These significant relationships are presented in the model below.

Discussion and conclusion

Based on these findings, this study suggests that the salesperson can be very influential when selling existing products to less innovative customers. Furthermore, it is suggested that innovative customers will buy the new product, irrespective of the efforts of the salesperson. Experienced salespersons seem to serve the most innovative customers. This study confirms previous research, concluding that being proactive and customer oriented enhance the performance for selling employees. This study also suggests some managerial implications, such as the direction of the salespersons’ effort in selling situations.

A number of limitations was identified for this study, like temporal restrictions, scarce resources, subjective measurements and cross- sectional study design. Future research could implement other factors in the conceptual framework by Van der Borgh or in the model constructed in this study, including overcoming the limitations presented above.

References

De Groot, A.D. (1961). “Methodologie: Grondslagen van onderzoek en denken in de gedragsweten-schappen”. Den Haag: Mouton & Co.

Steenkamp, J.E.M., Hofstede, F.T., Wedel, M. (1999). "A cross-national investigation into the individual and national cultural antecedents of consumer innovativeness", Journal of Marketing, 63, pp.55-69