Research

Our faculty actively conducts and publishes research that investigates important issues confronting sales organizations. Such research generally begins with the identification of a substantive sales-related problem or opportunity. In designing and executing a research plan, we partner with companies to collect, analyze, and interpret data applying sophisticated methodologies, statistical techniques, and conceptual frameworks en route to generating actionable findings with key managerial implications.

• Recent Articles Published by MSU Faculty

  Lastner, Matthew, Judith Anne Garretson Folse, Stephanie M. Mangus, and Patrick Fennell (forthcoming), “The Road to Recovery: Overcoming Service Failures through Positive Emotions,” Journal of Business Research.

  Bolander, Willy, Cinthia Santornino, Douglas E. Hughes, and Gerald R. Ferris (2015), “Social Networks within Sales Organizations: Their Development and Importance for Salesperson Performance,” Journal of Marketing, 79 (6), 1-16 (lead article and award nominee).

  Sridhar, Srihari, Clay M. Voorhees, Srinath Gopalakrishna (2015), “Assessing the Drivers of Short and Long-Term Outcome at Business Trade Shows,” Customer Needs and Solutions, 2(3), 222-229.

  Rapp, Adam, Dhruv Grewal, Lauren Beitelspacher, and Douglas E. Hughes (2013), “Understanding Social Media Effects Across Seller, Retailer, and Consumer Interactions,” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 41(5), 547-566.

  Hughes, Douglas E. (2013), “This Ad’s for You: The Effect of Advertising Perceptions on Salesperson Effort and Performance” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 41 (1), 1-18 (lead article).

  Hughes, Douglas E., Joel Le Bon, and Adam Rapp (2013), "Gaining and Leveraging Customer-Based Competitive Intelligence: The Pivotal Role of Social Capital and Salesperson Adaptive Selling Skills,” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 41 (1), 91-110.

  Hughes, Douglas E., Avinash Malshe, and Joel LeBon (2012), “The Marketing-Sales Interface at the Interface: Creating Market-Based Capabilities through Organizational Synergy,” Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, 32 (1), 57-72.

   

• Current Projects

  Current projects underway by our faculty and doctoral students include, among other things, investigations into:

  • Sales incentive/contest design
  • Sales training effectiveness Salesperson motivation
  • Sales-service ambidexterity and interface
  • Efficacy of various sales persuasion techniques
  • Effective sales manager time allocation across responsibilities
  • Adaptive selling behaviors in customizing customer experiences
  • Relationship building strategies in B2B sales
• Future Projects and Partnering With Us

  Such research projects are excellent cooperative undertakings between business and academia. If you are interested in learning more or would like to discuss the possibility of partnering with us on a research project that deals with an issue you are grappling with, please contact Suman Basuroy, Department of Marketing Chair, basuroys@msu.edu.  As long as there is a reasonable chance of publishing the results in an academic journal (with names of companies/industries masked to protect the confidentiality and ensure anonymity), we generally can conduct this research with little or no cost to participating firms, saving companies substantially in consulting fees while generating very useful insights.