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

• In the American sample, these effects are negative or nonexistent except for achievement
orientation.
Managerial implications:
• Remember that supervisee trust is only conditionally good, because it will lead to lower
sales performance under certain conditions.
• Managers must perform a delicate balancing act in building and enhancing the effectiveness
of supervisee trust (and other forms of trust) in different cultures.
• When supervising sales force in low-trust societies (e.g. China) and high-trust societies
(e.g. the USA)
- Managers may need to give attention to factors that build supervisee trust and enhance its
effectiveness on sales performance (e.g. use an achievement orientation style) when the
objective is to build trust and at the same time enhance its impact on sales performance.
- In addition, managers in China and the USA must enhance their accessibility to
salespeople when they want to build trust (perhaps at the initial stage of the relationship).
But they must reduce such accessibility after trust has been built.
• When supervising sales force in low-trust societies (e.g. China)
- By using controls and behaviors that reduce the salesperson’s perceived performance risk,
supervisors may unwittingly reduce the potential for their benevolence (supervisee trust)
to enhance sales performance. This is because salespeople may perceive greater gains
than losses from opportunistic behavior under such conditions.
- Conversely, when managers use controls and behaviors that shift performance risk to the
salesperson, they encourage more trustworthy behavior that enhances sales performance.
- If supervisee trust has already been built, managers may need to focus on factors that do
not engender supervisee trust but enhance its effect on sales performance (e.g. output
control and role ambiguity). This is because these factors are likely to prevent
opportunism and hence enhance the impact of supervisee trust on sales performance.
- To build supervisee trust in the low-trust and collectivist China, managers may also need
to emphasize process control. This is because the Chinese attach greater importance to the
care, support, and nurturing benefits of process control than to the loss of autonomy and
self-control implied by this control method.
• When supervising sales force in high-trust societies (e.g. the USA)
Managers should be cautious about shifting disproportionate performance risk to the
salesperson.
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