Leading the Effective Sales Force: The Asian Sales Force ... - Insead

Possible reasons:
- Japanese and Korean salespeople believe that they generally are receiving a sufficient
amount of the six rewards. Conversely, American salespeople may perceive that
management is not attending adequately to their needs for a pay increase, job security,
promotion, and formal recognition, and that their sales position does not provide a
satisfactory level of personal growth and development or feelings of worthwhile
accomplishment. As a result, American salespeople have higher valences for the six
rewards than Japanese and Korean salespeople.
- Employees in the USA have an individualistic orientation and thus emphasize personal
goals/needs, while Japanese and Korean employees are more group-oriented (and more
so for Japanese employees). As a result, American salespeople have higher valences for
five rewards (pay increase, promotion, formal recognition, personal growth and
development, worthwhile accomplishment) than Japanese and Korean salespeople.
- American organizations are non-paternalistic, unlike Japanese companies which are
paternalistic to employees, and Korean firms which are somewhat paternalistic (though
less so than Japanese firms). As a result, American salespeople have higher valence for
job security than Japanese and Korean salespeople.
- Japanese and Korean salespeople might be more desirous of receiving rewards that were
not considered in this study rather than those under investigation.
(2) The exception was liking and respect where reward valence means were statistically
comparable across the three samples.
Possible reason:
- American salespeople typically work alone, in which they are left to solve problems as
they arise in the field. Thus, they interact relatively minimally with management and
sales peers. Perhaps due to the individualistic orientation of American employees,
salespeople in the USA do not have higher valence for liking and respect than Japanese
and Korean salespeople.
• Between Japanese and Korean salespeople
(1) Korean salespeople had a higher mean valence for formal recognition than Japanese
salespeople.
(2) There was no significant difference between Japanese and Korean salespeople for the
other six reward valences studied.
Two possible reasons:
- Although Japanese employees are more group-oriented than Korean employees, both
cultures value maintaining harmony and unity among people. To prevent a situation of
disharmony and disunity within the group from transpiring, perhaps Japanese and
Korean sales personnel are especially focused on perpetuating equality among sales
peers. As a result, their preferences for various rewards are quite similar.
- Japanese and Korean salespeople might be more desirous of receiving rewards that were
not considered in this study rather than those under investigation.
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