The authors examine the relationships among performance, causal attribution, and the expectancy component of sales force motivation through the measurement and manipulation of components of a proposed conceptual framework. They conducted one field survey, two laboratory experiments, and one field experiment to test hypothesized effects. The results generally support the hypotheses, indicating that causal attributions can either raise or lower expectancy, depending on certain underlying conditions. The results also suggest that salespeople's prior experience may moderate the effect of attribution on expectancy change. These findings have important implications for sales managers as coaches and trainers.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
BagozziRichard P. (1978), “Salesforce Performance and Satisfaction as a Function of Individual Difference, Interpersonal, and Situational Factors,”Journal of Marketing Research, 15(November), 517–31.
2.
BirnbergJacob G., FriezeIrene H., and ShieldsMichael D. (1977), “The Role of Attribution Theory in Control Systems,”Accounting, Organizations, and Society, 2 (3), 189–200.
3.
BradleyGifford W. (1978), “Self-Serving Biases in the Attributional Process: A Reexamination of Fact or Fiction Question,”Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36(January), 56–71.
4.
DowneyH. Kirk, ChackoThomas I., and McElroyJames C. (1979), “Attribution of the Causes of the Performance: A Constructive, Quasi-Longitudinal Replication of the Staw (1979) Study,”Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 24(December), 287–99.
5.
DubinskyAlan J., HowellRoy D., IngramThomas N., and BellengerDanny N. (1986), “Salesforce Socialization,”Journal of Marketing, 50(October), 192–207.
6.
EisenSusan V. (1979), “Actor-Observer Differences in Information Inference and Causal Attribution,”Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37(February), 261–72.
7.
EligTimothy W., and FriezeIrene H. (1975), “A Multi-Dimensional Scheme for Coding and Interpreting Perceived Causality for Success and Failure Events: The CSP, JSAS,”Catalog of Selected Documents in Psychology, 5(313), MS No. 1069.
8.
EligTimothy W., and FriezeIrene H. (1979), “Measuring Causal Attributions for Success and Failure,”Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37(April), 621–34.
9.
EricssonK. Anders, and SimonHerbert A. (1984), Protocol Analysis: Verbal Reports as Data.Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
10.
FiskeSusan T., and TaylorShelley E. (1991), Social Cognition, 2nd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company.
11.
ForsterlingFriedrich (1985) “Attributional Retraining: A Review,”Psychological Bulletin, 98 (November), 495–512.
12.
HiltonDennis J., and SlugoskiBen R. (1986), “Knowledge-Based Causal Attribution: The Abnormal Conditions Focus Model,”Psychological Review, 93(January), 75–88.
13.
JenkinsJames J. (1979), “Four Points to Remember: A Tetrahedral Model of Memory Experiments,” in Level of Processing in Human Memory, CermakLaird S., and CraikFergus I. M., eds. Hillsdale, NJ: LEA Publishers, 429–46.
14.
JonesEdward E., and DavisK. E. (1965), “From Acts to Dispositions: The Attribution Process in Person Perception,” in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Vol. 2, BerkowitzLeonard, ed. New York: Academic Press Inc., 220–66.
15.
JonesEdward E., KanouseD.E., KelleyH.H., NisbettR.E., ValinsS., and WeinerBernard (1972), Attribution: Perceiving the Causes of Behavior, Morristown, NJ: General Learning Press.
16.
JonesEdward E., and NisbettRichard E. (1971), The Actor and the Observer: Divergent Perceptions of the Causes of Behavior.New York: General Learning Press.
17.
KelleyHarold H. (1967), “Attribution Theory in Social Psychology,” in Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, LevineD., ed. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 192–238.
18.
KelleyHarold H. (1973), “The Process of Causal Attribution,”American Psychologist, 28(February), 107–28.
19.
KunAnne, and WeinerBernard M. (1973), “Necessary Versus Sufficient Causal Schemata for Success and Failure,”Journal of Research in Personality, 7(September), 197–207.
20.
McArthurLeslie A. (1972), “The How and What of Why: Some Determinants and Consequences of Causal Attribution,”Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 22(May), 171–93.
21.
MeyerJohn P. (1980), “Causal Attributions for Success and Failure: A Multivariate Investigation of Dimensionality, Formation, and Consequences,”Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 38(May), 704–18.
22.
MillerDale T., and RossMichael (1975), “Self-Serving Biases in Attribution of Causality: Fact or Fiction?”Psychological Bulletin, 82(March), 213–25.
23.
MillerRupert G. (1981), Simultaneous Statistical Inference, 2nd ed. New York: Springer-Verlag.
24.
MontgomeryR. L., and HaemmerlieF. M. (1986), “Self-Perception Theory and the Reduction of Heterosexual Anxiety,”Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 4, 503–12.
25.
MowdayRichard T. (1983). “Beliefs About the Causes of Behavior: The Motivational Implications of Attributional Processes,” in Motivation and Work Behavior, 3rd ed., SteersRichard M., and PorterLyman W., eds. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 352–74.
26.
MowenJohn C., BrownStephen W., and JacksonDonald W.Jr. (1980), “Cognitive Biases in Sales Management Evaluations,”Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, 1(1), 83–89.
27.
MowenJohn C., KeithJanet E., BrownStephen W., and JacksonDonald W.Jr. (1985), “Utilizing Effort and Task Difficulty Information in Evaluating Salespeople,”Journal of Marketing Research, 22(May), 185–91.
28.
OliverRichard L. (1974), “Expectancy Theory Predictions of Salesmen's Performance,”Journal of Marketing Research, 11(August), 243–53.
29.
PageThomas J., and JohnstonWesley J. (1980), “Salesforce Attributions for Success and Failure,” in 1980 AMA Educator's Conference Proceedings, Series 46, BagozziRichard P., eds. Chicago: American Marketing Association, 252–55.
30.
ReadStephen J. (1983), “Once Is Enough: Causal Reasoning From a Single Instance,”Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45(February), 323–34.
31.
RonisDavid L., HansenRonald D., and O'LearyVirginia E. (1983), “Understanding the Meaning of Attributions: A Test of Derived Locus and Stability Scores,”Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44(April), 702–11.
32.
RussellDan (1982), “The Causal Dimension Scale: A Measure of How Individuals Perceive Causes,”Journal of Personalty and Social Psychology, 42(June), 1137–45.
33.
RussoJ. Edward, JohnsonEric J., and StephensDebra L. (1989), “The Validity of Verbal Protocols,”Memory and Cognition, 17(December), 759–69.
34.
SchneiderDavid J., HastorfAlbert H., and EllsworthPhoebe C. (1979), Person Perception, 2nd ed. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.
35.
SnyderM.L., StephenW.G., and RosenfieldD. (1978), “Attributional Egotism,” in New Directions in Attribution Research, Vol. 2, HaveryJ. H., IckesW., and KiddR. F., eds. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 91–120.
36.
SujanHarish (1986), “Smarter Versus Harder: An Exploratory Attributional Analysis of Salespeople's Motivation,”Journal of Marketing Research, 23(February), 41–49.
37.
TeasR. Kenneth (1981), “An Empirical Test of Models of Salespersons’ Job Expectancy and Instrumentality Perceptions,”Journal of Marketing Research, 18(May), 209–26.
38.
TeasR. Kenneth, and McElroyJames C. (1986), “Causal Attributions and Expectancy Estimates: A Framework for Understanding the Dynamics of Salesforce Motivation,”Journal of Marketing, 50(January), 75–86.
39.
VroomVictor H. (1964), Work and Motivation.New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
40.
WalkerOrville C., ChurchillGilbert A.Jr., and FordNeil M. (1977), “Motivation and Performance in Industrial Selling: Present Knowledge and Needed Research,”Journal of Marketing Research, 14(May), 156–68.
41.
WeinerBernard M. (1980), Human Motivation.New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.
42.
WeinerBernard M., FriezeL.H., KuklaA., ReedL., RestS., and RosenbaumR. M. (1971), Perceiving the Cause of Success and Failure.New York: General Learning Press.
43.
WongPaul T.P., and WeinerBernard (1981), “When People Ask ‘Why’ Questions, and the Heuristic of Attributional Search,”Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 40(April), 650–63.
