3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
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Item The role of personality and organisational cultural differences in the success of salesperson-buyer dyads(2016) Hammerich, WestleyArguably the most important function a business focuses on is revenue generation, which is ultimately achieved through immediate sales and the inculcation of future customer spend. For many businesses, notably in the business-to-business realm, salespeople are still required to form relationships with key customer buyers and to achieve or facilitate sales through this “dyadic” interpersonal relationship. Understanding what makes relationships and interactions between customer buyers and salespeople successful – from a sales perspective – remains an important concern for organisations and marketing theorists. In such sales relationships, the “success” of the sale and the longer term sales relationship can depend on aspects of the interpersonal relationships such as the ability of the parties to communicate well, come to agreement, and potentially even bond socially. The ability of parties to form productive and conducive interpersonal relationships in turn depends on factors such as personality and culture. This thesis argues that there is no particular “best” personality or culture for the formation of successful sales relationships, but that match between the personality traits of salespeople and customers as well as between their respective organisation’s cultures may facilitate success in sales. As indicated above, the thesis studies two main dependent variables, namely sales success and word-of-mouth. These variables are derived from the theory of customer equity management (Rust, Lemon, & Narayandas, 2005). The thesis argues that prior to generating income through either a sale or through word-of-mouth the organisation will need to have a relationship with the customer. Relationship marketing (Morgan & Hunt, 1994) provides a framework for understanding what constitutes a relationship. The current study aligns itself with prior literature arguing that relationship quality comprises three components specifically; trust, satisfaction and commitment. Personality research has remained at the heart of industrial research and managerial practise. Voluminous literature has used the Big Five personality traits for understanding customer’s interactions. The five personality traits include Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism and Openness to Experience (Soto & John, 2012). The current study argues that it is not the personality traits themselves which are important, but rather the similarities or differences between the customer and the salesperson. Organisation culture has been shown to affect several different arenas within the management field, but has not been much examined within the context of dyadic relationships. The specific relationship that the study addresses is the customer-salesperson relationship. In this thesis I argue that both the customer and salesperson to some extent embody and reflect their respective organisational cultures, and in addition, sales systems can reflect organizational cultures, for instance where bureaucratic organizational culture creates sales systems with high levels of formality. In turn, match or mismatch in organizational cultures may affect sales or relationship outcomes in various ways. The well-known organisational culture index (Wallach, 1983) will be used to capture the cultures from both the salesperson and customer. The three elements of organisational culture measured by the index include bureaucratic cultural aspects, innovative cultural aspects, and supportive cultural aspects. To test these relationships, the thesis presents an empirical study based on a cross-sectional, quantitative, survey of the SME market in South Africa. One hundred salesperson-customer dyads participated in the study, and data from each member of the dyad was surveyed separately. Statistical techniques such as partial least squares structural equation modelling and polynomial regression were used in the analysis of the data. A response surface methodology allowed for graphical representation of the polynomial regression results. These results then acted as inputs for a Bayesian Networks analysis (Charniak, 1991), which are used to improve the understanding of causality. Results of the empirical survey indicate that trust, satisfaction and commitment affect the level of word-of-mouth while only trust and commitment have an effect on sales. The analysis indicates that matches or mismatches in the personality traits of extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness do affect dependent variables of relationship quality, sales success and word-of-mouth, and do so in differing ways. This thesis provides several unique contributions to sales theory and literature. First, although the salesperson-customer dyad has been studied before, the differences in personality traits have not been included. This is particularly true within the South African context. Secondly, organisational culture literature has been reviewed and studied but has neglected the role that organisational culture plays in the sales environment, specifically when interacting with a customer. Third, several theories are used to explain why the constructs came together; however certain aspects of these theories are questioned. Lastly, several practical applications are provided that allow organisations to improve the hiring process and implement training objectives for their sales force. Key Words: Dyad, satisfaction, trust, commitment, customer lifetime value, relationship marketing, relationship quality, organisational culture, bureaucracy, innovation, supportive, response surface, polynomial regression, Bayesian network, customer equity management.Item Culture as a moderator for the infusion of Web 2.0 technology: TAM vs WebQual(2012-06-29) Hammerich, WestleyIt is clear that the internet is being used more often for social interactions but the reasons why people adopt these newer technologies are still unclear. Over the last thirty years numerous adoption theories have been proposed however few account for the newer types of technology, such as social website usage. Purpose – The study will compare and contrast two different models of adoption to see if one model is better than the other in understanding the usage of social networking websites such as Facebook. At an organisational level the idea of extended usage of technology has been encapsulated in the construct of infusion of technology into a work place. The study will also show that infusion of technology may occur at an individual level of research. The argument is made that since national culture has been shown to affect usage, national culture may moderate the level of infusion that is found. Methodology – The study will use a quantitative methodology to survey potential (or actual) users of Facebook using a structured questionnaire. Since two adoption models are being tested, two questionnaires were developed and tested. The items for the questionnaires have been adapted from prior literature. Reliability and validity tests confirmed the scales from prior literature. The sample was selected from higher education institutions within the Johannesburg region .Specifically, students from the University of the Witwatersrand and the University of Johannesburg were invited to complete the questionnaires. The two questionnaires were mixed randomly between the students. Findings – It was found that the traditional technology acceptance model could better explain the usage of social networking websites when compared to the more modern WebQual framework. The study found that there is a strong positive relationship between usage and infusion. In line with the prior research on national culture moderating usage, the study found that national culture does moderate the relationship between usage and infusion. Implications – The study has a number of implications. Firstly, the research compared two models of technology usage. The study showed that the technology acceptance model was better at explaining the usage of social networking websites. Future research should focus on improving the TAM model and may result in better understanding the usage of social websites. Secondly, a set of scales are provided for future research which allow for the measurement of infusion at an individual level. These scales were tested for reliability and validity in two separate data collections and in both collections the scales met or exceeded the statistical requirements. Thirdly, the relationship between usage and infusion is seen to be moderated by national culture. This has 5 large implications for organisations and people who use Web2.0 as a medium for business. As an example, marketers could use the results in better understanding the usage of these types of websites, in the hope that it would allow for better targeting and placement of adverts. Lastly, the implications may extend beyond the context of the research. The study found a relationship between usage and infusion at an individual level of analysis. The relationship may exist in other areas of research which relate to Information systems including but not limited to Marketing (increasing the life cycle of products and increasing the value of customers through brand loyalty) and human resources (increasing employee efficiency through understanding peoples infusion of different types of technology). Research limitations – The research is limited to the sample that was achieved. The findings can be directly inferred to a similar sample base within South Africa, however cannot be generalised to samples of dissimilar natures. While the study used Facebook as a case, it should be cautioned that the results should not be generalised to other forms of social networking websites such as Twitter. Originality – The study is original in the following ways: Firstly, the study was conducted in South Africa where few other studies been found with a similar nature. Secondly, the study extended the thoughts on usage to the idea of infusion. Thirdly, two models were directly compared with independent data collections occurring. Fourthly, the relationship between usage and infusion is seen to be moderated by national culture. Both the relationship as well as the moderation effects has previously been empirically shown.