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Identifying effective hunters and farmers in the salesforce: a dispositional–situational framework

  • Original Empirical Research
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Abstract

In business-to-business markets, hunting for new customers and farming existing customers are critical to achieve sales goals. Although practitioners suggest that salespeople have a preference for either hunting or farming, academic research has yet to examine when and why salespeople become oriented toward hunting or farming, and whether a simultaneous engagement in both (i.e., being ambidextrous) is efficient or damaging. In Study 1, the authors identify the link between regulatory focus and salesperson hunting and farming orientations. In Study 2, they demonstrate that (1) a promotion (prevention) focus is more strongly related to salesperson hunting (farming) orientation than is a prevention (promotion) focus, and (2) ambidextrous salespeople generate higher profits when they are customer oriented. In Study 3, the authors show that salesperson expectations about hunting success and the extent to which compensation plans are based on customer acquisition activities can change the direction of the relationship between regulatory focus and salesperson hunting and farming orientations. The authors discuss the implications of these findings for research and management of customer acquisition and retention at the salesperson level.

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Notes

  1. Our research integrates prior research on individual orientations in salesperson–customer interactions with that in salesperson goal achievement. Consistent with the former, our hunting and farming orientation constructs capture a salesperson’s concern for customers, but delineate whether the concern is directed toward either existing or new customers (i.e., main effects) or both (i.e., interaction effects). As is the case with goal orientation, these constructs also represent how salespeople self-regulate their behavior to pursue their performance goals.

  2. We did not include the product term of hunting orientation and farming orientation as the dependent variable to capture salesperson ambidexterity because the product term cannot distinguish between a “high hunting × low farming” ambidexterity from a “low hunting × high farming” combination, and between a “low hunting x low farming” ambidexterity from a “high hunting × high farming” combination.

  3. One District Sales Manager said, “They [salespeople] have various quotas, such as sales volume, profit margin and number of new accounts, but it’s up to the salesperson as to how they achieve those goals each month.” Salespeople agreed, “I like working for this company because they let me make my own decisions on how to manage my territory.”

  4. We also found discriminant validity among hunting orientation, farming orientation, and competitor orientation. The zero-order correlations between farming orientation–competitor orientation and hunting orientation–competitor orientation are 0.13 and 0.35, respectively. In addition, one of the measurement items in the farming orientation scale has a factor loading that is lower than 0.60. We decide to keep this item in our analysis for theoretical completeness; removing it actually makes the path coefficients stronger than the ones we reported in the “Results” section.

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Author notes

    Authors and Affiliations

    1. Collat School of Business, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 219 BEC, 1150 10th Avenue South, Birmingham, AL, 35294-4460, USA

      Thomas E. DeCarlo

    2. Terry College of Business, University of Georgia, 133 Brooks Hall, Athens, GA, 30602-6258, USA

      Son K. Lam

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    1. Thomas E. DeCarlo
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    Correspondence to Son K. Lam.

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    Both authors contributed equally.

    Appendices

    Appendix 1

    Table 6

    Table 6 Key measurement scales
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    Appendix 2

    Table 7

    Table 7 Moderated mediation test results with hunting orientation as mediator
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    Appendix 3

    Table 8

    Table 8 Study 3: Sample composition
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    DeCarlo, T.E., Lam, S.K. Identifying effective hunters and farmers in the salesforce: a dispositional–situational framework. J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. 44, 415–439 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-015-0425-x

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