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Polychronicity and Scheduling’s Role in Reducing Role Stress and Enhancing Sales Performance

2013; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 33; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2753/pss0885-3134330204

1557-7813

Christophe Fournier, William A. Weeks, Christopher P. Blocker, Lawrence B. Chonko,

Collaboration in agile enterprises

AbstractOrganizations can pursue a competitive advantage by guarding and enhancing one of its most precious marketplace assets—the sales force. Hiring salespeople who are suited for their role is critical within an increasingly global and competitive environment, and doing so generates dividends for increasing sales force retention, sales productivity, and performance. In addition to effective recruiting, reducing role stress is one way to achieve an acceptable sales force retention rate. Today salespeople must overcome the now frazzled pace of a hypercompetitive selling environment and splice their time effectively across customers and opportunities. This study introduces the impact that polychronicity—an employee’s preference for switching between multiple tasks within the same block of time—has on job performance and the components of role stress, role ambiguity, and role conflict. Findings demonstrate that a polychronic orientation has a positive impact on performance and a negative impact on role ambiguity. A salesperson’s propensity for scheduling and meeting deadlines reveals similar effects and highlights the desirability of hiring salespeople who are both disciplined and adaptive with their time. Additional informationNotes on contributorsChristophe FournierChristophe Fournier (Ph.D., Montpellier II University), Professor of Marketing, Institut d’Administration des Entreprises, Montpellier 2 University, Montpellier Recherche Management, christophe.fournier@univ-montp2.fr.William A. WeeksWilliam A. Weeks (DBA, Indiana University), Professor of Marketing, Hankamer School of Business, Keller Center for Professional Selling, Baylor University, bill_weeks@baylor.edu.Christopher P. BlockerChristopher P. Blocker (Ph.D., University of Tennessee), Assistant Professor, Hankamer School of Business, Baylor University, chris_blocker@baylor.edu.Lawrence B. ChonkoLawrence B. Chonko (Ph.D., University of Houston), Thomas McMahon Professor in Business Ethics, College of Business, Department of Marketing, University of Texas at Arlington, larry.chonko@uta.edu.