Creating tension in sales research

When Johannes reached out to me regarding the topic of this editorial and mentioned creating tension in sales research, I was slightly taken aback. Having been through the review process more times than I can count, with far more negative responses than positive, the last thing I could imagine was creating even more tension in the process! However, after a series of exchanges and calls, I realized that he was raising a very important issue, not just in sales research, but in academic research in general. Simply, the ability to create interest in your manuscript and “hook” the reader early on, which is an area where many of us struggle.

Being so close to our own individual research, oftentimes we miss the important areas of research and simply assume that others will see the value in our research in the same way that we do. Similar to many entrepreneurs, when we create our own product and innately understand the value proposition and importance of it, we do not always execute on explaining the worth to those not as familiar with our perceived value (and contribution). The saying that “a product sells itself” does not always hold true. This leads to the criticisms of “incremental contributions,” “lack of novelty,” “uninteresting topic,” “not warranting journal space,” “misalignment in length to contribution ratio,” and my personal favorite, “this would have been better as a research note.” Candidly, I have used all these critiques (and been critiqued by these statements) quite a few times over my career as a researcher and now as an editor.

Below, we define what we mean by the term tension, offer different approaches for creating tension, and then offer ways in which reviewers can interpret and provide suggestions on the tension (or lack thereof) in a developmental manner.

What is tension?

Sales reviewers frequently ask authors to improve the positioning of their manuscripts. For example, they ask authors to “clarify the research gap,” “improve their contribution,” or “make a better case for why their study is needed.” Put differently, reviewers frequently question whether an article advances knowledge on personal selling and sales management sufficiently to warrant publication.

In our experience, a key reason for such doubts of reviewers is that authors fail to create sufficient tension in the positioning of their articles. Puglisi (2013) defines tension as “an emotional response from the reader, and conflict is one of the things that elicits it. Think of it in terms of real-life tension—that tight, stretched feeling in your belly that puts you on edge.” In the context of academic sales research, such tension arises from a fundamental gap or conflict in the existing body of literature that we need to address to advance knowledge. We thus define creating tension in academic writing as follows:

Creating tension refers to identifying a fundamental gap or conflicting evidence in past research or practice and presenting them in a way so that readers perceive closing the gap or resolving the conflict as important.

It may well be that disciplines other than sales are less focused on creating tension. Whether a clinical trial of a new vaccine (medicine), the discovery of a new exoplanet (astrophysics), or the identification of a new species (biology), the value of such research may be self-evident and require little justification. However, in the social sciences, the value of research can be more open to interpretation and debate, reflecting the diverse perspectives and subjective elements inherent in studying human behaviors. As a result, in our experience, sales scholars must work particularly hard to convey tension in a way that allows our peer reviewers to buy in.

Guidelines for authors

In our experience, peer reviewers tend to perceive tension when the positioning of an article fulfills three criteria: (1) it identifies a research question that prior academic literature did not answer, that is, a gap in the literature, (2) answering this question is important for academia and practice, and (3) the answer to this question is not obvious. To create tension, we need to not only choose the right questions to ask, but also craft positionings that effectively convey these three criteria to readers. In the following, we propose guidelines to accomplish this when developing a sales manuscript.

Identifying a research gap

We argue that there are four promising avenues to identify a research gap and corresponding research idea: (1) academic investigation, (2) industry research, (3) popular press, and (4) real world conversations. However, many of us are currently not utilizing these avenues to their full potential.

The first three avenues consist of reviewing past academic or managerial publications to identify something that is missing or has yet to be investigated. Many of us adopt this approach after reading current literature and simply determining what may be missing or what extensions could be developed. However, we are oftentimes bound by the thinking of the materials we previously read and do not extend or innovate the idea nearly far enough. If we merely add a moderator or a new relationship to a previously existing idea, the paper will more than likely come under criticism from reviewers for little contribution (by far the greatest critique we see for JPSSM submissions).

The fourth approach stems from real world interviews with salespeople and sales managers to generate an interesting and thought-provoking research topic. Unfortunately, it is common for authors to conduct interviews without a real research question and attempt to publish a laundry list of results without synthesizing a meaningful theoretical framework through established approaches (Glaser and Strauss 1999; Zeithaml et al. 2020).

There are better ways of creating new research ideas that we would argue can have more impact. First, by examining academic or industry research, we can identify meaningful gaps or conflicts in the literature. Literature gap detection is the identification of a missing or under-represented conceptual or empirical concept found by reviewing literature. This is more than simply adding a construct into a model, but rather, something that has been largely ignored in the existing literature (e.g. cross functional sales teams; Rapp and Rapp 2023). Literature conflict detection represents the identification of disagreement across research or a general weakness across findings (e.g. self-efficacy to performance; Childs et al. 2023).

Second, by inspecting business practices, through deep engagement with practitioners beyond simple interviews, we can again identify gaps and conflicts. Business gap detection is the identification of a managerial problem, behavior, or strategy that has received limited academic investigation (e.g. the currently hot topic of designing “sales pods” including business development representatives, account executives, and other specialized sales roles; Sales Hacker 2018; see also Hochstein et al. 2021). Business conflict detection is the identification of a managerial problem, behavior, or strategy that is misaligned with current research knowledge and investigation (e.g. managers’ efforts to harmonize compensation plans although academic research suggests there is no one-size-fits-all; Bommaraju and Hohenberg 2018; Steenburgh and Ahearne 2012).

Once we identify a research gap, we must convince reviewers that this gap is indeed a gap. A key tool to accomplish this is a literature table including prior articles on the phenomenon of interest. A proven layout is placing each prior article in a separate row of the table and characterizing it along meaningful criteria in a tick-box fashion. We then add our own study to the table and show that it ticks boxes that prior articles have left unticked (e.g. Crecelius et al. 2022; Kanuri et al. 2022; Schendzielarz, Alavi, and Guba 2022). Alternative table layouts are advisable if our article intersects with multiple literature streams (e.g. Cardy et al. 2023; Chaker, Zablah, and Noble 2018; Hartmann et al. 2023a; Malshe et al. 2022).

Defining the dimensions on which to characterize existing studies can be tricky. We like to focus on one or two big-ticket items (the “gap columns”) and some additional strengths of our study (the “supporting columns”). For example, if we add a neglected antecedent x (e.g. salesperson’s generation, such as Generation Z) to y (e.g. adaptive selling), the table might list individual papers that examined antecedents of adaptive selling. The gap column would be titled “Generation examined?” and tick only our own article. The supporting columns would list additional characteristics that are strengths of our study relative to prior literature, such as the inclusion of a neglected moderator, attractive data (e.g. objective measures, longitudinal data), a novel method (e.g. a field-experimental or quasi-experimental approach), or a novel finding (e.g. a negative rather than a positive effect). Here, prior articles will tick some boxes and our own article will tick all the boxes. In summary, the gap column(s) and supporting columns must scream out loud to the reader: “We are doing something new.”

Importance for academia and practice

The fact that something has not been studied before does not mean that it should be studied. We have to make a case for why the research gap laid out in our literature table is worthy of academic investigation. Two key reasons that render a topic worth studying are its (1) theoretical relevance and (2) practical relevance.

First, theoretical relevance entails that closing the research gap advances our scholarly understanding of how the world of sales works. Toward this end, we need to translate the research gap we aim to address into implications for existing theories’ capabilities to explain the phenomenon of interest. Extending our example from above, we might argue that adaptive selling theory cannot explain heterogeneity in adaptive selling across generations, and thus adaptive selling theory may be incomplete. As additional evidence for theoretical relevance, we can cite calls for research on our topic of study if available (e.g. Agnihotri et al. 2023; Bowen, Haas, and Hofmann 2023; Chaker et al. 2024; Good, Mangus, and Pullins 2023; Hartmann et al. 2023b; Lindsey-Hall et al. 2023; Mullins, Chase, and Friend 2023; Rapp and Rapp 2023).

Importantly, though, the sales scholar community will not perceive every addition to theory as relevant. For example, we often process manuscripts that examine an established effect of x on y in a country or industry where this effect has not been studied. At a first glance, this research could be seen as theoretically relevant—after all, establishing boundary conditions is key to theory development (Busse, Kach, and Wagner 2017). However, as of today, a large fraction of the sales scholar community does not seem to perceive country or industry related boundary conditions effects as “interesting.” However, we must stay alert to recognize changing preferences. For example, ten years ago many sales scholars did not seem to perceive gender or ethnicity as “interesting” antecedents or moderators to study. Today, these variables are increasingly accepted and encouraged, which opens new opportunities for sales scholars (e.g. Chaker et al. 2024; Gligor, Newman, and Kashmiri 2021; Hartmann et al. 2023b; Lanzrath, Homburg, and Ruhnau 2023; Rapp and Rouziou 2023). This illustrates that the community’s evaluation of theoretical relevance is not absolute, exhibits a certain degree of subjectivity, and changes over time.

The fluidity and subjectivity of theoretical relevance should encourage us to seek peer feedback early on as we develop our manuscripts for submission to JPSSM or other journals. Asking peers who are (a) experienced members of the community and (b) brutally honest (don’t ask your mom; Fitzpatrick 2013) for feedback on our intended theoretical contribution can indeed make the difference between revision or rejection.

Second, practical relevance entails that closing the research gap has the potential to change how sales professionals perform their work. Again, extending our example from above, if a study reveals that salespeople of Generation Z need to be trained differently to succeed in adaptive selling, this might prescribe important changes to human resource practices in sales organizations. Authors should spell out such practical relevance and not expect reviewers to recognize it on their own. As supporting evidence, we recommend citing the business press or managerial publications (e.g. highlighting managers’ challenges in working with Generation Z; Resume Builder 2023). If these do not get us close enough to our research question (e.g. if they do not link Generation Z to adaptive selling), we like to conduct brief manager surveys by ourselves that pinpoint the need for change given the specific managerial problem addressed by our study (e.g. Cron et al. 2021; Habel, Alavi, and Heinitz 2023). Oftentimes we refer to this as “preliminary evidence.” Under this scenario, this survey is not the entire study, but rather a tool to demonstrate the importance and value of the study.

The emphasis in our previous elaborations is on the word “change.” Our community usually perceives practical relevance to fall short if an article recommends managers to engage in a behavior the majority are already engaging in. Consider a study that reveals that salespeople of Generation Z can increase their sales performance through adaptive selling and concludes that sales managers should ensure that salespeople of Generation Z engage in adaptive selling. Arguably, this recommendation would merely reiterate what we believe practice is already doing, seeing that adaptive selling is a well-established success factor in sales—not a good proposition to tension-seeking peer reviewers.

To ensure practical relevance, early on (i.e. before collecting data), we need to ask ourselves how empirical support for our hypotheses would translate into implications for managerial practice. If support for our hypotheses would not prescribe changes to managerial practice, we should rethink the hypotheses.

As an aside, it is beyond this editorial to evaluate the sensibility of our community’s thirst for practical relevance, though we tip our hat to Lee and Greenley (2010)’s notion that “Business research is research about business, not research for business” (p. 7). Still, whether sensible or not, as authors, we need to navigate reviewers’ demands for practical relevance.

Non-obviousness

Beyond not having been studied and offering theoretical and practical relevance, the answer to research questions must not be “obvious,” “intuitive,” or “easily predictable from prior literature.” This final hurdle might be the most subjective and difficult to pass—but it is most important to make reviewers perceive tension and accept an article as an important contribution to the field.

Obviously, ensuring non-obvious findings starts with developing a non-obvious conceptual framework and hypotheses. To accomplish this, we need to ask ourselves early on whether our hypotheses merely state the obvious. Not every hypothesis needs to be “counterintuitive,” but there needs to be some proposition at the core of our framework that will make reviewers go “huh…” rather than “of course!” It often helps to add moderators, nonlinearities, or competing mediators (e.g. Friess et al. 2023) as reviewers frequently judge complex and ambivalent relationships as less obvious than linear, one-directed main effects.

When writing up our articles, we need to spell out the non-obviousness for reviewers. One way to accomplish this is to raise opposing theoretical predictions. Using our example from before, we may argue that on the one hand, Generation Z is known to be collaborative and might use their collaborative attitude to sell more adaptively. On the other hand, Generation Z prioritizes self-care and might therefore trade off adaptiveness in the sales process because being adaptive is effortful (De Witte 2022). Thus, it is unclear whether and how Generation Z practices adaptive selling—and our article will bring resolution.

In summary, as sales scholars we need to focus on research gaps that have theoretical and practical relevance and that do not have an obvious answer (see Table 1). We also need to make it abundantly clear to reviewers that our research fulfills these criteria—preferably on the first one or two pages of the introduction, helping reviewers experience the tension they crave.

Table 1. Practical Guide for Creating Tension in Sales Research.

Tension criteria	Do	Don’t
Research gap	Identify questions through literature gap detection, literature conflict detection, business gap detection, and business conflict detection Verify that the question has not been answered yet Evidence the research gap through a tick-box literature table	Claim a gap without providing comprehensive and highly structured evidence of it
Relevance Theoretical relevance	Ensure and clearly communicate how closing the gap improves our scholarly understanding of how the world of sales works If applicable, cite calls for research on your phenomenon of study Solicit early feedback from experienced sales scholars who are brutally honest	Focus on your empirical findings without integrating them with theory
Practical relevance	Ensure and clearly communicate how closing the gap implies that practitioners should change their practices If applicable, cite the business press or managerial publications If applicable, conduct a brief survey among managers as additional evidence	Only confirm what practitioners already know or do
Non-obviousness	Build your research framework around a non-obvious proposition If applicable, add moderators, nonlinearities, or competing mediators If applicable, discuss opposing theoretical predictions as part of your positioning	Exclusively propose relationships that we already believe to be true

Guidelines for reviewers

While our previous recommendations are targeted at authors, they also translate to recommendations for reviewers. Specifically, in our role as reviewers, (1) we should use the criteria outlined previously to evaluate the tension of articles. In doing so, we should increase our (2) fairness to and (3) support of authors. We review these recommendations in the following.

Evaluate the tension

In our view, one of the most concise definitions of our role as peer reviewers was given by Donald Lehmann, Leigh McAlister, and Richard Staelin in a 2011 Journal of Marketing article: Reviewers should “focus on whether the paper meets the two criteria: (1) interesting and (2) not wrong” (p. 161). Whether an article is “not wrong” is first and foremost a question of conceptual and methodological rigor. The question of whether an article is “interesting” essentially asks for the article’s tension. Thus, to evaluate how interesting an article is, we should assess the three criteria of tension outlined above: (1) Does the article identify a research question that prior academic literature did not answer? (2) Is answering this question important for academia and practice? (3) Is the answer to this question not obvious? Rather than criticizing a “lack of contribution” wholesale, we should pinpoint the exact criteria lacking tension, as well as the exact criteria where tension is sufficient. This will enable authors to improve their articles’ tension in a more structured and prioritized way.

Be fair

As mentioned above, our role as reviewers is to evaluate an article’s tension—not to reject it at any rate. However, the reality is that all of us frequently encounter reviewers who seem to engage in motivated reasoning, starting from the presumption that an article lacks contribution and then working backwards to recommend rejection. Let’s stop that. Other disciplines have evolved beyond such unfair reviewing practices, and it is time that we follow their lead. We offer three recommendations to accomplish this.

First, we need to read the articles we review without prejudice, without the kind of motivated reasoning described above. From experience, we completely get the pressure of having to fill two to three pages of review while fearing that being too lenient would reflect poorly on us. However, rest assured that as editors, we are looking for fair rather than harsh and prioritized rather than all-encompassing reviews. For example, over a decade ago, Adam had a paper reviewed at a premiere marketing outlet on the topic of social media effects. The lead reviewer’s commentary was based on the notion that “social media is a fad” and “we won’t even be talking about this stuff in five years.” It was apparent that the reviewer had an unjustified bias against social media without providing reason or logic on why social media would disappear in the near future.

Second, related to the previous point, we need to stop using straw man arguments to reject new submissions. For example, reviewers recently critiqued Johannes’ articles by constructing arguments that a sales enablement system (the phenomenon studied) is the same as a CRM system (which had been studied before) and that introducing a new digital channel (the phenomenon studied) is the same as an incentive to sell through an established digital channel (which had been studied before). Similarly, a manuscript by Adam that focused on time and resource allocation across sales managers was unceremoniously rejected because “the discipline already understands sales leadership.” While we acknowledge that there are many legitimate reasons to reject our own articles, the reasons above seem like straw men developed with the sole purpose to reject.

Third, we need to be careful not to confuse a lack of communicated tension with a lack of actual tension. Chances are that the manuscript examines a question full of tension, but that the tension gets lost in translation between authors and reviewers. Therefore, we encourage peer reviewers to take a two-step approach. Initially, we should evaluate the three criteria of tension for ourselves, independent of how the paper is written. This will require us to examine an article’s findings and then evaluate its potential tension according to the three criteria outlined previously. This might include performing a quick literature search, reflecting open-mindedly on theoretical explanations and practical implications, and appreciating any non-obvious findings in the article (while being conscious of hindsight bias). Only then should we evaluate the extent to which an article effectively conveys tension. In our reviews, we should discuss our evaluations of these two steps separately, guiding authors on how to enhance their frameworks (if necessary) and/or convey tension more effectively (if necessary).

Support

Lastly, we should recommend what authors should specifically do to satisfy our thirst for tension. This requires us to not just outline issues but to reflect about and propose solutions. For example, we should tell authors what a literature table could look like in their context, how we perceive their findings could contribute to theory or change practice, and how the authors could improve the non-obviousness of their findings by adding to the framework or outlining competing arguments. We are all peers of each other and have a common goal—advancing our understanding of the world of sales (Lee and Greenley 2010). Let’s support each other along the way in a developmental fashion to further advance the sales discipline.

Conclusion

Creating tension in sales research is not about exacerbating the stress of the review process, but rather about enhancing the appeal and impact of academic work. By effectively identifying and articulating research gaps, and demonstrating their theoretical and practical relevance, authors can significantly elevate the value of their contributions. As the landscape of sales research evolves, embracing these principles of tension will be crucial for authors and reviewers alike, fostering a more dynamic, engaging, and impactful body of research. Please keep in mind that all potential authors are welcome to submit a research proposal to the journal for brief feedback and insight on the article’s potential value.

Adam Rapp
Marketing Department, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio, USA
[email protected]
Johannes Habel
Marketing, University of Houston, Houston, Texas, USA
[email protected]

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).