An examination of the effects of adaptive selling behavior and customer orientation on performance of pharmaceutical salespeople in an emerging market

Abstract

The effects of salespeople's customer orientation and adaptive selling behavior on their performance have been frequently studied in the marketing literature. However, most of the studies were conducted in the developed world. Given the role that different cultural environments may play, the assumed relationships among the constructs need to be studied in different cultural contexts to explain performance. The objective of this study is to examine pharmaceutical salespersons' customer orientation and adaptive selling behavior on their performance in a different cultural environment. Using personal interviews, data were collected from Turkish pharmaceutical salespeople to examine the hypothesized relationships. Results indicate that customer orientation was significant in respect to sales performance, satisfaction, and adaptive selling behavior. Furthermore, adaptive selling behavior was significantly related to sales performance and customer orientation but not to satisfaction.