Reclaiming the contingent nature of the determinants of salesperson performance: an extended meta-analysis

Abstract

Professional selling has been transformed over the last decade and is in constant flux. Fundamental changes have occurred in how best to achieve salesperson performance and how to measure it. In this article, we present a meta-analysis of the determinants of salesperson performance using 150 studies, 936 raw effects, and ten moderating variables captured from 2009 to 2020. Our findings enable us to identify 19 key determinants of performance and to classify these within a sales determinant continuum, ranging from universal, to context-specific to necessary but insufficient predictors of performance. Our results show the significant influence the operationalization of salesperson performance has on the relationship between sales determinants and performance outcomes. Our study offers more nuanced guidelines for sales management practice than previous studies and suggests a greater alignment between research sampling and performance measurement methods to further our understanding of sales performance going forward.

Keywords:

• Sales performance
• salespeople
• meta-analysis
• performance measurement

Declaration of interest

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.