GILBERT A. CHURCHILL, JR., NEIL M. FORD, STEVEN W. HARTLEY, and ORVILLE C.

WALKER, JR.*

The authors use meta-analysis techniques to investigate the evidence that has been
gathered on the determinants of salespeople's performance. A search of the pub-
lished and unpublished literature uncovered 116 articles (the list of which is available
upon request) that yielded 1653 reported ossociations betv/een performance and
determinants of that performance. The results indicate the determinants can be or-
dered in the following way in terms of the average size of their association with
performance: (1) role variables, (2) skill, (3) motivation, (4) personal factors, (5)
aptitude, and (6) organizational/environmental factors. When ordered according
to the amount of the observed variation in correlations across studies that is real
variation (i.e., not attributable to sampling error), the determinants ronk as follows:
(1) personal factors, (2) skill, (3) role variables, (4) aptitude, (5) motivation, and
(6) organizationol/environmentol factors. To investigate whether the associations
between each of the categories of predictors and performance could be partially
accounted for by the presence of moderator variables, the results were broken out
by customer type, product type, and type of dependent measure used. The results
indicate that the strength of the relationship between the major determinants and
salespeople's performance is offected by the type of products salespeople sell. The
authors discuss the impiicotions of these findings for soles managers and researchers.

The Determinants of Salesperson Performance:

A Meta-Analysis

Sales managers have always tried to understand the
determinants of good sales performance. In response to
this interest, researchers have examined many possible
determinants of sales performance over the past 75 years.
The studies have produced very inconsistent results with
respect to what factors affect sales performance and the
strength of the relationships.
Past reviews of the salesperson performance literature
have not provided an adequate explanation for the ob-
served inconsistencies. Part of the problem is that all of
the reviews have been narrative. Though a narrative re-
view affords the opportunity for special insight about the
'Gilbert A. Churchill. Jr is Dunald C. Slichter Professor in Busi-
ness Research and Neil M. Ford is Professor of Business, University
of Wisconsin-Madison. Steven W. Hartley is Assistant Professor of
Marketing, University of Denver. Orville C. Walker, Jr.. is Professor
of Business, University of Minnesota.
The many helpful suggestions of the three anonymous JMH review-
ers and the Editor are gratefully acknowledged.
classification of phenomena and limitations of the stud-
ies, it is not the most effective way of generating a con-
sistent summary of results.
Meta-analysis is an attractive alternative for integrat-
ing research findings (Glass 1976. p. 4; Glass. McGaw,
and Smith 1981). It treats the fmdings of individual stud-
ies as dependent variables and examines those findings
as a function of one or more independent variables in an
attempt to account for the variation in results across stud-
ies. The independent variables investigated typically in-
clude both the substantive and methodological factors that
can influence results. In essence, meta-analysis is the
application of the principles traditionally employed in
primary research studies to the review and integration of
the findings in a body of studies.
We use meta-analysis to analyze the evidence about
the factors that affect salesperson performance. In the
first section we describe the process followed in locating
the studies that served as input to the investigation. We
then look at some structural characteristics of these stud-

103

Journal of Marketing Research

Vol. XXII (May 1985). 103-18
104
ies, including when they appeared, where, the number
of companies, and the number of salespeople involved.
In the next two sections we overview the analysis pro-
cedure and examine the evidence on how much of the
variation in salesperson performance is associated with
the major determinants—aptitude, skill levels, motiva-
tion, role perceptions, other personal, organizational, and
environmental factors. Finally, we discuss the implica-
tions of the findings for sales managers and researchers.
PROCEDURE
The primary goal in selecting data sources for a meta-
analysis is to secure a representative sample and avoid
potential bias. The lack of a sampling frame, however,
ultimately dictates that a meta-analyst attempt a census
of all studies pertaining to a research question.
Figure 1 illustrates the procedure used to identify in-
vestigations of salesperson performance for our study.
Though a typical literary review focuses on published
literature, a meta-analysis acknowledges the fact some
research may not be published. Thus, in the first "stage"
of the search we utilized published reference sources,
indices, and journals, whereas in the second—and more
difficult—search effort we attempted to identify unpub-
lished literature by contacting businesses, consultants,
government offices, and trade associations. Not surpris-
ingly, many sources were reluctant to release what they
considered proprietary information. Finally, references
from the studies identified in the first stage were ex-
amined for new citations.
The literature search identified 409 citations from 63
joumals covering the period from 1918 to 1982. We were
able to obtain copies of 393 of the studies. The search
of unpublished literature identified 36 dissertations, 27
of which were released by university libraries, and lim-
ited industry selection material.
Of all the studies obtained. 116 contained enough in-
formation to be included in the meta-analysis in that they
reported some empirical evidence about the relationship
between salesperson performance and one or more log-
ical predictors of that performance.' Most studies re-
ported associations between performance and several
variables. For purposes of many of the subsequent anal-
yses, we treated each individual association as a separate
observation, producing 1653 observations in all.
Most studies reported measures of association be-
tween performance and a predictor variable in the form
of a correlation coefficient. Though most studies used
product-moment correlation coefficients, some used other
measures of association. The results were analyzed to
determine whether the measure of association used in the
study was in any way related to the size of the reported
'A list of the studies as well as a more detailed version of the article
is available by request. Please write Gilbert A. Churchill, Jr., Uni-
versity of Wisconsin-Madison, School of Business, 1155 Observa-
tory Drive, Madison, WI 53706.
JOURNAL Of= MARKETING RESEARCH, MAY 1985
correlation. No differences were found. Consequently,
the measure of association used was ignored in subse-
quent analyses.
STRUCTURAL CHARACTERISTICS OE STUDIES
Temporal Patterns
An investigation of the publication dates of the studies
revealed that 57% were conducted in the 20-year period
beginning in 1951—probably because of the lack of
computer capability before then. The temporal pattern
for the average number of companies and average sam-
ple size per study was very irregular, as Table 1 indi-
cates.
The process of knowledge development suggests that
as evidence accumulates, theories improve, fewer as-
sociations are hypothesized, and the evidence for those
associations is stronger. These expectations were not
supported. Rather, later studies contained more reported
associations between predictors and performance mea-
sures, and the average size of the correlation coefficients
was no larger. In fact, the strongest associations between
predictors and performance measures were found in the
earliest studies when the theories about the determinants
of salesperson performance were least developed.
Size of the Correlations
The generally small size of the correlations between
predictors and performance criteria is somewhat dis-
couraging. As Table 1 indicates, the average r across the
1653 correlations is .188; on average less than 4% of the
variation in salesperson performance is associated with
a single predictor of that performance. In most studies,
of course, the proportion of variation explained is higher
than 4% because the variables were combined in devel-
oping the prediction equation. Nonetheless, the fact that
so little of the variation in performance is associated with
any single predictor supports the notion that models of
the determinants of salesperson performance must in-
corporate multiple causes.
ANALYSIS PROCEDURE
Given the large number of factors that have Deen in-
vestigated as possible determinants of a salesperson's
performance, we need to categorize the reported corre-
lations in order to make sense of them. One useful tax-
onomy is provided by the Churchill, Ford, and Walker
(1985) model of salesperson performance. Their model
holds that a salesperson's performance is a function of
five basic factors: (1) aptitude, (2) skill level, (3) mo-
tivation, (4) role perceptions, and (5) personal, organi-
zational, and environmental variables.
Using their definitions, we classified the 1653 obser-
vations into one of six categories—aptitude, skill level,
motivation, role, personal factors, or organizational and
environmental factors. In coding the studies, we record-
ed each variable at the greatest level of detail possible.
For example, the use of either the Gordon Personal Pro-
DETERMINANTS OF SALESPERSON PERFORMANCE 105

Figure 1
SEARCH PROCESS

Unpublished Published

1
Government Industry Other Reference Indices Other

Equal Life Disser- AMA Biblio Work Books

Employment Insurance tation #36: Selling Related
Opportunity Market Abstracts and Sales Abstracts
Research Management Search
Association Biblio-
Air Force Business graphies
Human Mental Periodicals of
Resources Measurements Index Previous
Laboratory Yearbook Reviews

Personnel
National Tests in Management
Technical Print Abstracts
Information
Service
ASAP Hand- ERIC
book of
Smithsonian Personnel
Science Psych
Information Abstracts
Exchange Dartnell
Sales
Managers Journal
Handbook Indices

Handbook of
Industrial &
Organiza-
tional Psych

Collect Articles

Check References

No
106 JOURNAL OF MARKETING RESEARCH, MAY 1985

Table 1
USE OF INDEPENDENT VARIABLES AS A FUNCTION OF PUBLICATION PERIOD

Organi-
zational/
Average Role environ-
no Average Moti- percep- Personal mental
Number com- sample Total Aptitude Skill level vation tion factors factors
Publication of panies size per no. Mean No./ No./ No./ No./ No./ No./
period studies per study study of r's r No.' study*" No. study No. study No. study Nn. study No. study
Before 1920 1 1.0 18.0 11 .266 22 22.0
1921-1925 7 17.3 626.1 56 .218 2 2.0 54 9.0
1926-1930 3 1.0 63.7 38 .354 8 4.0 26 8,7 2 2.0 2 2.0
I93I-I935 2 13.5 245.0 13 .324 4 2,0 1 1,0 8 8.0
1936-1940 3 1.0 291,7 9 .190 3 1.5 5 5.0 1 1.0
1941-1945 3 24.0 41,7 35 .142 34 17,0 1 1.0
1946-1950 4 11.5 306,5 21 .223 16 5.3 1 1,0 4 4.0
1951-1955 13 1.1 121.7 101 .175 51 7.3 14 3,5 1 1.0 32 5.3 3 3.0
1956-1%0 29 1.1 215,8 367 .234 222 12.3 88 8,8 13 1,9 44 5.5
1961-1965 12 9.2 195,5 321 .131 275 27.5 13 4,3 6 6,0 17 8.5 10 10.0
1966-1970 12 2.9 298,8 131 .269 34 4.3 8 2,7 47 9.4 42 8.4
1971-1975 7 33.4 144.1 109 .113 34 11,3 20 10,0 27 13.5 10 5.0 18 18.0
1976 and after 20 21.0 491.7 430 .166 127 14.1 1 1,0 30 5.0 59 14.8 193 12.1 20 10.0
Total
(percentage) 116 1653 .188 832 (50) 178 (10) 126 (8) 59 (4) 407 (25) 51 (3)
'Refers to total number of correlations between predictors and performance reported in the period. This number is greater than lhe number of
studies because most studies reported multiple pairwise correlations between predictors and performance criteria.
""Refers to average number of correlations per study among those studies in which the predictor was used. By dividing the number of correlations
of a given type by the average number per study, one can determine the number of studies in a period in which the particular predictor was used.

file or the Bernreuter Personality Inventory to measure
the same personality characteristic (e.g.. sociability) was
recorded by using separate four-digit codes. One person
coded all of the studies. Coding quality was checked by
having an independent investigator code a random sam-
ple of 5% of the study observations. No errors were
identified with any of the four-digit codes that were as-
signed. The four-digit codes subsequently were col-
lapsed into the six major categories of predictors by the
authors in a group meeting.
Statistics Used to Test the Model
To assess the strength of the relationship between each
of the hypothesized major determinants and actual per-
formance, we followed the analytic procedures sug-
gested by Hunter, Schmidt, and Jackson (1982). They
suggest that the best estimate of the size of the corre-
lation between predictor and criterion is not the simple
mean r across studies, ". . . but a weighted average in
which each correlation is weighted by the number of per-
sons in that study" (p. 41). Similarly, the appropriate
variance in the r's across studies is the frequency-weighted
average squared error, rather than the usual sample vari-
ance. Their rationale is that a correlation based on 500
persons contains more information than one based on 50
persons because the estimate based on the larger number
of observations has smaller sampling error. There ap-
pears to be some risk, though, in relying exclusively on
the weighted average correlation in that a few large-sam-
ple studies could dominate the analysis. We therefore
concentrate on the weighted average correlation, but also
report the unweighted or simple average correlation in
the analysis that follows. More specifically, we report;
1. The mean of the observed correlations across studies us-
ing sample-size-weighted and unweighted r ' s . The
weighted mean provides the best estimate of the popu-
lation correlation between the predictor and the criterion
assuming there is no range variation in the independent
variable and no error of measurement.
2. The attenuation-corrected mean which is the best esti-
mate of the population correlation between the latent
constructs after allowing for the errors associated with
their measurement,
3. The total variance in the observed correlations and an
estimate of how much of it is due to sampling error. The
corrected variance which represents the difference be-
tween the total variance and the sampling error variance
is also reported. The square root of the corrected vari-
ance is used to form a 95% credibihty interval around
the weighted mean. The credibility interval for each de-
terminant provides an indication of the size of the popu-
lation correlation likely to be observed in a given study.
Large credibility intervals suggest the observed correla-
tion between the predictor and performance might vary
dramatically from study to study because of the influence
of other factors present in one situation but not in others.
When the "real variation' in results is large, one searches
for moderator variables that may account for it.
4. The 95% credibility interval for the attenuation-cor-
rected mean. Though the attenuation-corrected results were
used to calculate these credibility intervals, the attenua-
tion-corrected variances are not displayed because gen-
DETERMINANTS OF SALESPERSON PERFORAAANCE 107

erally they were very close to the sampling-error-cor-
rected variances. The attenuation-corrected credibility
interval describes the size of the real variation in results
across studies when proper allowance is made for the
errors with which the independent and dependent con-
structs were measured.
IMPACT OF MAJOR DETERMINANTS
Aptitude
The very first study on salespersoti performance, which
appeared in 1918 (Oschrin), examined the relationship
between aptitude and performance. More than 50% of
the pairwise correlations reported iti the literature sinee
then also use an aptitude measure as the predictor of per-
formance (see Table i). Though the emphasis given to
aptitude seems logical, the empirical evidence on the
strength of the relationship between aptitude and per-
formance is weak. As Table 2 and Figure 2,A indicate,
820 correlations were found in the literature. The simple
correlations range from 0 to .85. The higher correlations
suggest that in at least some studies salespeople's apti-
tude was a good predictor of their performance. How-
ever, the weighted mean correlation is only .138, sug-
gesting that, on average, slightly less than 2% of the
variation in salespeople's performance can be accounted
for by variations in their aptitude. Further, a large por-
tion—more than 49%—of the total variation in observed
correlations across studies is attributable to sampling er-
ror. The credibility interval for the weighted mean after
adjusting for sampling error is - . 0 5 4 :^ p :^ .331. The
size of the adjusted interval suggests there may be one
or more variables that moderate the relationship between
aptitude and performance, a point to which we return
subsequently.
The strength of association between aptitude and per-
formance is biased downward only slightly by measure-
ment errors as can be seen by comparing the weighted
mean with the attenuation-corrected mean. The atten-
uation mean is calculated by dividing the weighted mean
by the prcxluct of the average reliabilities of the inde-
pendent and dependent variables, where the average re-
liabilities are calculated from those studies in which they
are reported (Hunter. Schmidt, and Jackson 1982, p. 7 4 -
83; Schmidt and Hunter 1977). These average reliabil-
ities are .860 for aptitude and .831 for pedbrmance. The
errors of measurement cause the mean to be depressed
from .193 to .138. Even with no errors in the measure-
ments, then, salespeople's aptitude on average has a low
correlation with their performance.
Skill Levels
Selling skills have received less attention as predictors
of pertbrmance than aptitude. Only 178 of the total 1653
correlations use a salesperson skill as a predictor of per-
formance. Further, the attention paid to skills has been
sporadic (see Table I) and the number of skills inves-
tigated per study has been low. The heaviest emphasis
on skills as a predictor of performance was in the 1956-
1960 period when 10 studies employed at least one skill
variable and there were 88 reported associations in all.
The average size of the correlations with performance
is greater when skill is used as a predictor than when
aptitude is used. As Figure 2,B indicates, the distribu-
tion of simple correlations is also much less skewed. The
sample-size-weighted mean correlation of .268 indicates
that on average somewhat more than 7% of the variation
in performance is associated with variations in skill. The
attenuation-corrected mean of .320 suggests that more
than 10% of the variation in the latent constructs is shared
variance.
Not only is the total variation in observed correlations
larger with skills than with aptitude, but a much smaller
proportion of the total variance is sampling error vari-
ance—25% for skills versus 49% for aptitude. The 95%

Table 2
VALUES OF r FOR TYPES OF INDEPENDENT VARIABLES

Variance Credibility interval for

Mean Sampling Attenuation-
Number Attenuation- Total error Corrected Ratio Weighted corrected
Independent variable of r's' Simple Weighted corrected T (SE) tC) SE/T mean mean
Aptiiiidc 820 .170 .138 .193 .018 .009 .009 .494 -.054 -.076
.331 .461
Skill 178 .276 .268 .320 .037 .009 .028 .253 -.067 -.077
.602 .716
Molivation 126 .228 .184 .258 .017 .009 .008 .533 .005 .012
.363 .505
Role 59 .302 .294 .379 .020 .008 .on .422 .079 .102
.508 .655
Personal factors 407 .166 .161 .292 .043 .002 .041 .058 -.240 -.438
.560 1.000
Organizational/ 51 .142 .104 .104 .010 .004 .006 .405 -.051 - .051
environmental factors .259 .259
There were 12 correlations, all of which pertained to aptitude, for which the sample size was not reported and which had to be excluded from
the analysis bccau.se the emphasis is on sample-size-weighted mean r's.
lOB . •• J O U R N A L O F M A R K E T I N G RESEARCH, M A Y T985

Figure 2
DISTRIBUTION OF CORRELATION COEFFICIENTS FOR EACH MAIN PREDICTOR OF PERFORMANCE

A. APTITUDE B . SKILL LEVEX

(S 140

^ KB

t .13 . » .m .m .44 . » . » . • .71 .B4 • • um .04 . u .JO . a .m .44 . » .B . « . n .04 .mum

Size of Correlation Coefficient Size of Correlation Coefficient

C, HCmVATION D. ROLE

.04 .12 .30 . » .« .44 . » . n .ai .m .M . « i . a o

Size of Correlation Coefficient Size of Correlation Coefficient

E. PERSONAL FACTORS F . OHCANIZATIONAL/ENVIROKMENTAL FACTORS

.04 .12 .ao .20 .IB .44 .» .m .m .» .** .SB 1.00 .04 . 1 2 .ao .ao .BB .44 . » .BD .BB .7B . M .OB 1.00
Size of Correlation Coefficient Size of Correlation Coafficiant
DETERMINANTS OF SALESPERSON PERFORMANCE
credibility interval ranges from a low of - . 0 6 7 to a high
of .602. The credibility interval for the latent constructs
is larger still, ranging from a low of —.077 to a high of
.716. The large amount of variation in the correlations
that remains after removal of the effects of sampling er-
ror provides strong evidence that one or more variables
moderate the relationship between skill level and per-
formance.
Motivation
Researchers' interest in motivation as a predictor of
salespeople's performance is relatively recent. Except for
one early study, it was not until the 1950s that research-
ers empirically explored motivation as a predictor of sales
perfomiance.
The weighted mean eorrelation of .184 and attenua-
tion-corrected mean correlation of .258 in Table 2 in-
dicate that the shared variance between motivation and
pertbrmance averages more than 3% with the variables
as measured and less than 7% with the latent constructs.
The simple mean correlation is larger than the weighted
mean correlation and as Figure 2,C indicates, most of
the simple correlations range from .02 to .48. The over-
all pattern of results suggests that, on average, motiva-
tion is a better predictor of performance than aptitude,
but not as good a predictor as skill level.
Table 2 also indicates that when motivation is used to
predict pertbrmance more than half of the observed vari-
ation in results is attributable to sampling error. Alter-
nately, the credibility interval—which indicates the size
of observed correlations likely to be realized in future
studies that use motivation to predict performance—ranges
from .005 < p < .363. which is approximately the same
as for aptitude but smaller than for skill.
Role Perceptions
Researchers' interest in role as a predictor of sales-
people's performance is even more recent than their in-
terest in motivation. The first empirical study using role
did not appear until 1978, and only four studies have
used role as a predictor of performance.
Table 2 indicates that the 59 correlations between role
and performance average .294 with the weighted mean
and .379 with the attenuation-corrected mean. These
findings suggest that less than 9% of the variance is shared
when the constructs as measured are used whereas more
than 14% of the variance is shared when the latent con-
structs are used. Not only is the average correlation with
performance higher for role variables than for other pre-
dictors, but as Figure 2.D indicates, the spread of cor-
relations is more symmetrical around the average. Also,
more than 42% of the variation in correlations is sam-
pling-error-induced. The weighted mean credibility in-
terval after allowing for sampling error ranges from .079
to .508.
Personal Variables
Personal variables are intra-individuai factors that might
be related to salespeople's performance but which are
109
not part of the aptitude, skill level, motivation, and role
perceptions components. Past studies have included such
factors as the salesperson's age, height, sex, weight, race,
appearance, education, marital status, number of depen-
dents, club memberships, and other similar character-
istics. As Table 1 indicates, the interest in personal char-
acteristics as a predictor of salesperson performance has
been pervasive and continuing. It is the second largest
category of associations, accounting for approximately
25% of all reported correlations.
Table 2 indicates that the simple mean correlation for
personal factors is .166 and the weighted mean corre-
lation is .161. On average, the variation in performance
accounted for by variations in personal factors is rela-
tively equal to that accounted for by aptitude.
The major difference between personal factors and ap-
titude as predictors of performance is related not to what
is true on average but to what happens across studies.
First, the variance in observed correlations is much larger
(more than two times larger) when personal factors are
used to predict performance than when aptitude factors
are used. Moreover, a much smaller portion of the vari-
ation is attributable to sampling error, less than 6% with
personal factors and more than 49% with aptitude fac-
tors. The upshot is that analysts can expect a wider range
in the strength of the observed associations when per-
sonal factors rather than aptitude are used to predict per-
formance. The credibility interval representing the ob-
served correlations that might be realized after the effects
of sampling error are taken into account when personal
factors are used to predict performance is - . 2 4 0 ^ p ^
.560.
Organizational and Environmental Factors
The investigation of how organizational and environ-
mental factors affect salespeople's pertbrmance has been
concentrated in a few studies, namely one in each of the
1951-1955. 1961-1965, and 1971-1975 periods and two
after 1976, which yielded 51 empirical associations in
all.
As Table 2 indicates, the average correlation between
predictor and performance criterion is lowest for orga-
nizational and environmental factors among the six cat-
egories of predictors studied. The average simple mean
correlation is .142 and the weighted mean correlation is
.104. The attenuation-corrected mean correlation also is
shown as .104 because not enough evidence is available
for calculation of the attenuation-corrected results. The
results suggest that, on average, only 1% of the variation
in performance is associated with variations in organi-
zational/environmental factors. The variation in ob-
served correlations when organizational/environmental
factors are used to predict performance is also small, and
more than 40% of that variation is attributable to sam-
pling error. The resulting credibility interval is conse-
quently narrow. The combination of a low average value
and narrow credibility interval suggests that analysts
should expect to observe relatively small pairwise cor-
relations when using organizational/environmental fac-
no
tors to predict performance; the best estimate is that these
correlations will be in the range from - . 0 5 1 to .259.
One factor that might partially account for the poor
predictive power of the organizational/environmental
factors vis-a-vis other predictors is the general lack of
variability and the restriction of range of the organiza-
tional/environmental factors. As only five studies in-
vestigated the impact of organizational/environmental
factors on performance, the observations came from only
a few companies. Consequently, they reflect only a lim-
ited set of external conditions, and the limited variability
of the predictor naturally constrains the amount of vari-
ance in the criterion for which it might account.
Figure 3 summarizes the fmdings for the six hypoth-
esized determinants of salespeople's performance. The
determinants are ordered in the figure according to their
degree of association with performance. The credibility
intervals for the observed variables are shown in Figure
3,A and those for the latent constructs are shown in Fig-
ure 3,B.
IMPACT OF MODERATOR VARIABLES
The ability of the individual determinants to predict
performance seems rather unimpressive. The highest av-
erage correlations are produced by the role perception,
skill level, and motivation measures, but these measures
account for only 3 to 9% of the variation in performance
with the results unadjusted for measurement error. How-
ever, the unimpressive results are somewhat counterin-
tuitive. It seems, a priori, that salespeople's perfor-
mance would be related to their ability to perform or to
the skills they bring to the job, or to their motivation
levels, and so on. Perhaps the disappointing results are
due to a failure to model adequately the full set of de-
terminants of sales performance. Walker. Churchill, and
Ford (1977), for example, suggest that " . . . the ap-
propriate definition of aptitude, and the appropriate mea-
sures of the construct, may vary greatly from industry
to industry, firm to firm, and product line to product
line, depending on what specific tasks must be per-
formed and what dimensions of performance are consid-
ered important" (p. 167). The argument implies that the
type of customers to which the firm sells or the types of
products it sells or the types of measures it uses to eval-
uate performance all might affect the observed relation-
ships between sales performance and various predictors
of that performance.
The empirical evidence in Table 2 and Figure 3 sup-
ports such an argument. For all six categories of pre-
dictors, the variation in population correlations across
studies after allowing for sampling error is still large.
When such a condition arises, it is appropriate to look
for moderator variables to explain that variance.
To test a hypothesized moderalor variable, we break the
set of studies into subsets using the moderator variable.
. . . We then do separate meta-analyses within each sub-
set of studies. If we find large differences between sub-
sets, then the hypothesized variable is indeed a moderator
JOURNAL OF AAARKETING RESEARCH, MAY 1985
variable. The meta-analysis within subsets also tells us
how much of the residual variance within subsets is due
to sampling erTor and how much is real (Hunter, Schmidt,
and Jackson 1982, p. 36).
To investigate whether the associations between each
of the categories of predictors and performance could be
partially accounted for by the presence of moderator
variables, the results were broken out by customer type,
product type, and type of dej>endent variable. Moderator
variables tend to show themselves in two ways: (1) the
average correlation varies across subsets and (2) the
sampling-error-corrected variance averages lower in the
subsets than for the data as a whole (Hunter, Schmidt,
and Jackson 1982, p. 48).
Customer Type
Table 3 reports the results when the values of the cor-
relation coefficient are broken out by customer type and
the six main categories of predictors. Customers were
categorized broadly as either "institutional" or "individ-
ual" because there were too few observations for fmer
distinctions.
Several facts stand out in Table 3. First, though most
studies identified the type of customers being served, some
did not. Second, the historical emphasis has been on firms
selling to institutional customers rather than individuals.
Finally, some variation is present in the size of the av-
erage correlations across customer categories and some
variability is present in the sampIing-erTor-corrected
variances across subsets as well.
One could focus on the weighted mean within each
subset to determine for what types of customers the pre-
dictor most affects performance, because the weighted
mean provides the best estimate of the mean population
correlation. One also could use the credibility interval
around each weighted mean to estimate how much of the
variation within each subset is real. Though we mention
several of the main differences hereafter, we do not con-
centrate on these comparisons because Tables 3, 4, and
5 can be inteipreted in exactly the same way as Table
2, and readers can make such judgments themselves. In-
stead, we concentrate our discussion on comparisons of
the "corrected variances (CV) ratios." The CV ratios,
which are listed in the last line under each of the major
categories of predictors, show the ratio of average cor-
rected variance within subsets to the total corrected vari-
ance for that predictor. A large ratio indicates the av-
erage corrected variance is only marginally lower within
subsets than for the predictor as a whole; for example,
a ratio of .90 means that the average corrected variance
within subsets is 90% of the overall corrected variance
for the predictor. Conversely, small ratios indicate the
average corrected variance is substantially lower within
subsets than for the predictor as a whole. In sum, the
smaller the ratio the more the cross-classification vari-
able in question moderates the relationship between the
predictor and performance.
DETERMINANTS OF SALESPERSON PERFORMANCE 111

Figure 3
SUMAAARY OF FINDINGS ON IMPACT OF MAJOR DETERMINANTS

A. USING OBSERVED VARIABLES

ROLE SKILL MOTIVATION PERSffliAL APTITUDK ORGANIZATIONAL/

FACTORS FNVIKONMENTAL
— FACTOBS

B. USING LATENT CONSTHUCTS

ROLB SKILL MOTIVATION PERSONAL APTITUDE ORGANIZATIONAL/

FACTORS ENVIRONMENTAL
FACTORS
112 JOURNAL OF MARKETING RESEARCH, MAY 1985

Table 3
VALUES OF r FOR TYPES OF INDEPENDENT VARIABLES AND CUSTOMER TYPES

Customer type
Individual
Independent variable consumers Institutions Unknown
Aptitude
Number of r's 260 392 168
Simple mean .180 .186 .119
Weighted mean .156 .171 .085
Attenuation-corrected mean .218 .240 .118
Corrected variance (C) .012 .011 .001
Credibility interval for
Weighted mean -.062 £ p s; .373 -.035 S p s .378 .018 s p s .151
Attenuation-corrected mean -.084 £ p <; .579 -.046 < p := .525 .028 s p s .209
CV ratio .972
Skill level
Number of r's 64 101 13
Simple mean .254 .287 .294
Weighted mean .265 .272 .279
Attenuation-corrected mean .317 .324 .333
Corrected variance (C) .033 .017 .013
Credibility interval for
Weighted mean -.100 £ p s: .631 -.010 s p := .534 .048 s p s .510
Attenuation-corrected mean -.118 s p <; .751 -.014 s p '.= .634 .061 < p < .605
CV ratio .812
Motivation
Number of r's 55 43 28
Simple mean .289 .226 .110
Weighted mean .211 .231 .073
Attenuation-corrected mean .296 .325 .103
Corrected variance (C) .005 .005 .001
Credibility interval for
Weighted mean -.071 s p < .350 -.088 < p -= .374 .014 £ p S .132
Attenuation-corrected mean -.109 < p :s .484 -.134 s p == .515 .022 ^p^ .183
CV ratio .509
Role
Number of r's 52 7
Simple mean .316 .194
Weighted mean .323 .194
Attenuation-corrected mean .418 .251
Corrected variance (C) .006 .019
Credibility interval for
Weighted mean -.172 s p =s .475 - .078 < p :s .467
Attenuation-corrected mean -.223 s p < .613 -.101 s p< .603
CV ratio .629
Personal factors
Number of r's 161 197 49
Simple mean .220 .126 .154
Weighted mean .238 .129 .087
Attenuation-corrected mean .434 .235 .159
Corrected variance (C) .072 .002 .008
Credibility interval for
Weighted mean -.297 ^ p < .773 .040 £ p < .217 -.093 s p s .268
Attenuation-corrected mean -.542 s p < 1.00 .073 :£ p S .396 -.170 :< p ^ .489
CV ratio .756
Organizational/environmental factors
Number of r's 7 16 28
Simple mean .147 .236 .087
Weighted mean .145 .251 .051
Attenuation-corrected mean .145 .251 .051
Corrected variance (C) .002 .010 0
Credibility interval for
Weighted mean .059 £ p s .232 .051 s p == .451 -.001 ^ p s .102
Anenuation-corrected mean .059 < p S .232 .051 £ p -= .451 -.001 S p :< .102
CV ratio .558
DETERMINANTS OF SALESPERSON PERFORMANCE
The CV ratios suggest that type of customer has very
little effect on the relationship with performance when
either aptitude, skill level, or personal factors are used
as predictors. With motivation, as well as organiza-
tional/environmental and role factors, customer type does
moderate the relationships because the average corrected
variance within subsets is approximately 60% or less of
what it is for each predictor as a whole.
Product Type
Product type and customer type clearly overlap in that
certain types of goods and services are sold to either in-
stitutional customers or individual customers but not both.
However, certain other goods and/or services might be
sold to either type even though the product is primarily
a consumer got^d or an industrial good. Table 4 conse-
quently shows the results by type of product, using the
broad classes consumer goods, industrial goods, and ser-
vices.
Several items in Table 4 are notable. First, the re-
search effort is more balanced for type of product than
it is for type of customer, though historically research
emphasis has been greater for consumer goods than either
services or industrial goods. More important, tyj>e of
product seems to affect the relationship between each of
the main determinants of performance, with the excep-
tion of aptitude, and salespeople's actual performance.
The type of product sold has the greatest moderating
effect on the relationship between motivation and per-
formance where the average corrected variance within
subsets is only 38% of what it is for motivation overall.
The weighted means suggest that motivation bears the
strongest relationship with performance when salespeo-
ple are selling industrial goods. Product type also mod-
erates somewhat the impact of skill, role, personal fac-
tors, and organizational/environmental factors, in that
the average corrected variance within subsets ranges from
50 to 60% of the total corrected variance for each of
these variables. Most of the difference in the size of the
associations across subsets seems to be concentrated in
one product subset for each of these basic determinants.
Personal factors make the most difference, for example,
when salespeople are selling services, whereas organi-
zational/environmental factors make the most difference
when salespetiple are selling industrial goods and the least
difference when they are selling consumer goods.
Dependent Measures
The "appropriate" way to measure performance is a
dispute that lingers in the literature. Some authors argue
that much evidence about job performance is flawed be-
cause it relies on self-report measures which may have
an upward bias. Others believe that self-report measures
are fme because even if they are biased there is no reason
to suspect the amount of bias varies systematically across
salespeople. To investigate whether the results depend
on the measure of performance used, the results are re-
ported in Table 5 by type of dependent measure.
113
The table distinguishes between two types of objective
data—those which control for externalities and those
which do not. This distinction is consistent with the con-
ceptual separation of "performance" and "effective-
ness," as discussed by Walker, Churchill, and Ford (1979.
p. 33-5). Objective company data that control for ex-
ternalities include .such items as sales as a percentage of
quota or market potential, sales corrected for economic
conditions, or the salesperson's route difficulty. Objec-
tive company data that are not corrected for externalities
include such items as total sales volume, expenses, num-
ber of total calls or new account calls, or the number of
demonstrations. Some of these measures reflect sales-
person inputs (e.g., number of calls) and some refiect
outputs (e.g., sales). The use of both inputs and outputs
as performance criteria was observed for all four types
of dependent measures.
The evidence in Table 5 supports authors who argue
that the size of the correlations between predictors and
criteria is not inflated if self-report measures of perfor-
mance are used as criteria. The corrected variance within
subsets averages only slightly less than the total cor-
rected variance for all of the main categories of predic-
tors, except for organizational/environmental factors, and
the differences in means across subsets are small. Also,
the direction of the differences is mixed. Indeed, for some
predictors, self-report measures of performance produce
lower average associations than do more "objective"
measures. The general conclusion that emerges from Ta-
ble 5 is that there is no basis for generalizations that
higher correlations can be expected when particular types
of performance measures are used as criteria.
DISCUSSION
The results of our meta-analysis of 116 studies indi-
cate that the determinants can be ordered in the follow-
ing way in terms of the average size of their association
with sales performance: (1) role variables, (2) skill, (3)
motivation, (4) personal factors, (5) aptitude, and (6) or-
ganizational/environmental factors. However, when or-
dered according to the amount of the observed variation
in correlations across studies that is real variation (i.e.,
not attributable to sampling error), the determinants rank
as follows: (1) f>ersonal factors, (2) skill. (3) role vari-
ables, (4) aptitude. (5) motivation, and (6) organiza-
tional/environmental factors. The latter result suggests
that those studies which employ personal factors to pre-
dict performance have the greatest deviation from what
is true on average in the size of the correlations they
obtain because of situational or other environmental fac-
tors. Another conclusion is that none of the predictors
by themselves account for a great amount of the vari-
ation in performance—less than 10% on average—^though
it could be much higher in any single study. Finally, the
results indicate that the strength of the relationship be-
tween the major determinants and salespeople's perfor-
mance is affected by the type of products salespeople
sell. A salesperson's aptitude, for example, has a stronger
114 JOURNAL OF MARKETING RESEARCH, MAY 1985

Table 4
VALUES OF r FOR TYPES OF INDEPENDENT VARIABLES AND PRODUCT TYPES

Product type
Independent variable Consumer goods Industrial goods Services Unknown
Aptitude
Number of r's 238 237 172 173
Simple mean .194 .186 .164 .121
Weighted mean .176 .170 .146 .088
Attenuation-corrected mean .246 .238 .205 .123
Corrected variance (C) .019 .010 .007 .001
Credibility interval for
Weighted mean -.102 < p £ .455 -.032 £ p £ .372 -.017 £ p £ .309 .032 £ p £ .144
Attenuation-corrected mean -.141 £ p S .634 -.041 £ p £ .518 -.020 £ p £ .430 .048 £ p £ .198
CV ratio 1.000
Skill level
Number of r's 48 22 46 62
Simple mean .238 .250 .228 .351
Weighted mean .239 .210 .264 .346
Attenuation-corrected mean .285 .251 .315 .413
Corrected variance (C) .026 .015 .038 0
Credibility interval for
Weighted mean -.081 £ p £ .558 -.033 £ p :S .454 -.128 £ p £ .656 .152 £ p £ .540
Anenuation-corrected mean -.095 £ p £ .664 - .037 £ p £ .540 -.151 £ p £ .781 .175 £ p £ .651
CV ratio .672
Motivation
Number of r's 56 32 18 20
Simple mean .268 .255 .236 .067
Weighted mean .209 .264 .174 .051
Attenuation-corrected mean .294 .372 .245 .072
Corrected variance (C) .002 .006 .004 0
Credibility interval for
Weighted mean .118 £ p£ .300 .112 £ p £ .417 .042 < p £ .306 .012 £ p £ .090
Attenuation-corrected mean .179 £ p £ .408 .170 < p < .574 .066 £ p£ .425 .016 £ p £ .129
CV ratio .379
Role
Number of r's 16 36 7
Simple mean .306 .321 .194
Weighted mean .306 .326 .194
Attenuation-corrected mean .395 .422 .251
Corrected variance (C) .006 .006 .019
Credibility interval for
Weighted mean .146£ p£: .466 .178 £ p <; .495 -.078 £ p £ .467
Attenuation-corrected mean .189 £ p s .601 .231 £ p £; .613 -.101 £ p £ .603
CV ratio .635
Personal factors
Number of r's 166 92 102 47
Simple mean .163 .112 .216 .177
Weighted mean .158 .115 .238 .052
Attenuation-conected mean .288 .209 .434 .095
Corrected variance (C) .011 0 .067 .006
Credibility interval for
Weighted mean -.051 £ p £: .367 .013 £ p <; .217 -.280 £ p £ .755 - .097 £ p £ .201
Attenuation-corrected mean -.094 £ p <; .669 .023 £ p s: .396 -.510 S p £ I.OO -.177 S p £ .366
CV ratio .546
Organizational/environmental factors
Number of r's 4 16 13 18
Simple mean .098 .236 .187 .036
Weighted mean .098 .251 .203 .036
Attenuation-corrected mean .098 .251 .203 .036
Corrected variance (C) 0 .010 0 0
Credibility interval for
Weighted mean .029 £ p <; .166 .051 £ p ^^ .451 .091 s p £ .314 .052 £ p £ .124
Attenuation-corrected mean .029 £ p <• .166 .051 £ p s; .451 .091 - P - .314 .052 £ p £ .124
CV ratio .531
DETERMINANTS OF SALESPERSON PERFORMANCE 115

Table 5
VALUES OF r FOR TYPES OF INDEPENDENT VARIABLES A N D DEPENDENT MEASURES

Dependent variable
Objective company
Self-report Manager and peer Objective company data with control
Independent variable performance ratings data for externalities
Aptitude
Number of r's 61 444 271 44
Simple mean .153 .174 .153 .268
Weighted mean .150 .156 .118 .209
Attenuation-corrected mean .209 .219 .165 .293
Corrected variance (C) .010 .006 .010 .019
Credibility interval fw
Weighted mean -.053 s p s .352 -.004 < p < .317 - .080 ^ p s .316 -.065 s p S .483
Attenuation-corrected mean -.071 < p :e .490 -.002 :5 p S .440 -.110s p< .441 -.087 < p S .673
CV ratio .909
Skill level
Number of r's 1 43 106 28
Simple mean .350 .234 .302 .239
Weighted mean .350 .219 .283 .225
Attenuation-corrected mean .418 .262 .338 .269
Corrected variance (C) 0 .032 .032 .001
Credibility interval for
Weighted mean .250 < p <; .450 -.138 < p :£ .576 -.074 S p S .639 . 162 < p £ .288
Attenuation-corrected mean .287 s p s: .549 -.163 < p!5 .687 -.086 :£ p s .761 .202 :£ p S .336
CV ratio .968
Motivation
Number of r's 18 32 65 11
Simple mean .236 .253 .195 .338
Weighted mean .208 .213 .146 .287
Attenuation-corrected mean .293 .299 .205 .404
Corrected variance (C) .007 0 .009 .006
Credibility interval for
Weighted mean .046£ps .370 .148 s p ^ .278 -.042 s p < .374 .132 < p :£ .442
Attenuation-corrected mean .073 :£ p <: .513 .!91 S p £ .408 -.057 s p s .467 .201 s p s .607
CV ratio .756
Role
Number of r's 44 15
Simple mean .315 .264
Weighted mean .321 .247
Attenuation-corrected mean .415 .319
Corrected variance (C) .006 .018
Credibility interval for
Weighted mean . 168 :< p s: .474 -.021 < p s .515
Attenuation-correeted mean .217 :£ p s: .612 - . 0 2 7 £ p £ .665
CV ratio .798
Personal factors
Number of r's 83 132 170 22
Simple mean .129 .157 .199 .112
Weighted mean .152 .069 .225 .085
Attenuation-corrected mean .277 .125 .410 .155
Corrected variance (C) .012 .004 .060 0
Credibility interval far
Weighted mean -.069 < p s .373 -.064 s p < .201 -.265 s p s .714 .024 :S p S .146
Attenuation-corrected mean -.126 < p < .681 -.117 :S p :S .368 -.483 s p s I.OO .044 < p < .266
CV ratio .725
Organizational/environmental factors
Number of r's 14 13 18
Simple mean .160 .229 .036
Weighted mean .136 .199 .036
Attenuation-corTected mean .136 .199 .036
Corrected variance (C) .003 .004 0
Credibility interval for
Weighted mean .028 < p <: .243 .071 s p s .326 - . 0 5 2 S p £ .124
Attenuation-corrected mean .028 :£ p :£ .243 .071 < p s .326 - .052 s p < .124
CV ratio .393
116
impact on that individual's performance when he or she
is selling products rather than services.
Limitations
The preceding analysis has several limitations. First,
the analysis is based on "static" data in the sense that
the correlations do not reflect salesperson-customer in-
teractions in specific sales situations. Some authors ar-
gue that salespeople's behaviors must be tailored to in-
dividual customers and that the nature of the salesperson's
actions in specific selling situations ultimately deter-
mines how successful the salesperson will be (Weitz
1979). None of the studies examined focused on the dy-
namics that make up individual sales transactions.
A second limitation is related to the conceptualization
and measurement of the variables. A variety of variables
are captured under each major grouping. The aptitude
category, for example, reflects a number of personality
characteristics as well as some other general ability char-
acteristics. Further, the quality of the measures capturing
the constructs was not investigated in many studies. Even
when psychometric properties were investigated, only a
few of the indicants of quality were typically reported,
most generally a reliability coefficient. TTiough we made
use of the reliability coefficient to adjust the results for
attenuation correction, we recognize that reliability is only
one of several indicants of the quality of a measure. It
addresses random enors in a measure but does not get
at method variance, false reporting, and other systematic
errors. Though the grouping of variables into broad cat-
egories was necessary and though the analysis did at-
tempt to incorporate the measure quality information that
was available, readers must keep these measurement
limitations in mind when interpreting the results.
A third limitation is related to the selling situations
reflected in the studies. The selling situations and sample
of firms were broader for some variables than for others
simply because of the number of studies that used a par-
ticular determinant.
A fourth, and probably the most serious, limitation
pertains to performance and its measurement. Salespeo-
ple who were very poor performers are probably under-
represented because most of the studies were cross-sec-
tional. Salespeople who had quit or had been fired because
of poor performance were not included. Though most of
the samples of salespeople probably did include poor
performers who may have been fired or quit after the
study was completed, the number of such people in the
sample depends greatly on the companies' hiring and
turnover rates. It also seems likely that new recruits, who
may include a disproportionate number of poor perform-
ers, were underrepresented because of the lack of infor-
mation about their sales performance. These conjectures
suggest that the range of performance observed in the
studies may be artificially narrow and skewed upward.
This, in turn, would help to account for the low corre-
lations between the various determinants and variations
in sales performance. One obvious implication for future
JOURNAL OF AURKETING RESEARCH, MAY 1985
research, then, is that studies should include salespeople
who leave the organization, particularly those who leave
after only a short time on the job.
Another important issue related to performance is
whether the individual studies measured performance
correctly. Industrial psychologists have begun to distin-
guish among behavior, performance, and effectiveness
when discussing the job accomplishments of individuals.
Behavior refers to what the job occupant does—that is,
the tasks on which the individual expends effort while
working. Performance is behavior evaluated in terms of
its contributions to the goals of the organization. Effec-
tiveness refers to some summary index of organizational
outcomes for which an individual is at least partly re-
sponsible, such as sales volume or market share. The
crucial distinction between performance and effective-
ness is that the latter does not refer to behavior directly,
but rather is a function of additional factors not under
the individual salesperson's control—such as the poli-
cies of top management, the sales potential in a territory,
and competitive actions.
The distinction between outcomes and desirable be-
haviors is an important one, particularly in the selling
context. A salesperson's efforts or behaviors are much
more controllable than the results produced by those ef-
forts. If a representative's sales fall short of quota, the
problem may lie with the person, the quota, or perhaps
a change in the environment. If the number of calls a
salesperson makes falls short of the target, however, the
problem lies much more directly with the individual. In-
dustrial psychologists are increasingly arguing that job
occupants should be judged solely on those phases of
their jobs over which they exercise control, and should
not be held responsible for results beyond their control.
Unfortunately, most performance appraisal systems^—-and
most of the performance measures used in the studies
analyzed here—emphasize outcomes rather than behav-
iors, a condition one of the leading writers in personnel
has labeled the "Achilles heel of our profession" (Hene-
man 1975, p. 91).
In sum, determining the appropriate measure of per-
formance in a given situation is a complex issue. We
took the measures as reported at face value. We did not
quesiton whether the measure used was the most appro-
priate one for the situation; to do so would have required
insight into the various selling situations that simply was
not available from the articles. Though we did explore
the issue of whether type of performance measure used
had any impact on the results, the fact remains that the
correlations might be low simply because a number of
inappropriate "performance measures" were used in the
first place.
Implications
Our fmdings suggest several implications for sales
managers and researchers. The fact that no single deter-
minant can explain a very large proportion of the vari-
ation in sales performance has two obvious implications.
DETERMINANTS OF SALESPERSON PERFORMANCE
First, managers should be wary of any personnel ad-
ministrator or consultant who contends that measurement
of a single factor—or even several factors within a sin-
gle category of predictors (e.g., personality tests mea-
suring several traits)—can accurately predict salespeo-
ple's future sales performance. Second, theoretical models
which hypothesize multiple determinants—and cate-
gories of determinants—of sales performance are prob-
ably on the right track.
The multiple-determinant perspective may also ac-
count for the facts that (1) the number of correlations
per study seems to have increased rather than decreased
and (2) the size of the individual correlations did not
change as much as one might have supposed they would
as theories about the determinants of salesperson per-
formance improved over time. As researchers discov-
ered that performance is influenced by multiple factors,
their theories and subsequent research began to reflect
this fact. Even though (W/v/dutt/correlation coefficients
did not improve over time, the amount of total variance
in sales performance explained by the predictors is greater
in the more recent studies that have a multiple-deter-
minant framework.
The findings about the relative ability of the various
categories of determinants to explain variations in sales
performance suggest that "enduring" personal charac-
teristics such as aptitude variables and personal/physical
traits do have some relationship to performance, but not
as much as those characteristics which are "influenca-
bie" through increased training and experience or more
effective company policies and procedures (e.g., skill
levels, role perceptions, and motivation). The implica-
tion is that from a manager's point of view, whom one
recruits is important, but probably not as important as
what one does with the recruits—and to them—after they
have been hired. The fmding also supports the wisdom
of the preference many sales managers have for hiring
people with experience in the same or similar industries,
because such people are more likely to have developed
the necessary skills and may be less likely to suffer from
inaccurate or ambiguous role perceptions.
The finding that self-report measures of performance
do not lead to significantly higher correlations than other
"more objective" performance measures has an obvious
and important implication for future research. Though
other measures may be preferred on conceptual grounds
(e.g., to reduce method variance when a number of pa-
per-and-pencil instruments are used), self-report mea-
sures do not create an upward bias in the findings, and
the tendency that is often observed to discount flndings
simply because of the "natural" upward bias produced
by self-report measures of performance is unfounded.
However, the use of multiple indicators of different types
to assess the performance construct is desirable.
Perhaps the most important finding in our analysis is
the observation that the type of product sold influences
the correlations between the various predictors and per-
formance. This finding supports the conventional wis-
117
dom that the determinants of sales performance are job-
specific. Indeed, this point provides another possible ex-
planation for the observation made before that "influ-
enceable" characteristics do a better job of explaining
variations in performance than "enduring" personal
characteristics; infiuenceable characteristics are more likely
to be job-specific and also are more likely to be mea-
sured with instruments that reflect the unique require-
ments of the job. Researchers in sales management must
pay more attention to how sales jobs differ from one
another before they will be able to explain a more sub-
stantial proportion of the variance in sales performance
across individuals occupying different .sales jobs.
We suspect the last point will not be a revelation for
most sales managers; many of them already have a good
subjective feel for the specific requirements of the job
they supervise, and for the kinds of abilities, skills, and
motivation a recruit needs to do the job well. Many of
these perceptions seem to be subjective in that managers
often rely more heavily on the impressions they gain in
personal interviews with job candidates than on objec-
tive tests of personal traits or skills. It is also possible,
though, that many companies are ahead of academic re-
searchers in developing objective measures that accu-
rately predict their salespeople's performance, because
they can tailor such measures to the limited range of jobs
and job requirements germane to their own flnn. Indeed,
if there is a "file drawer" problem inherent in academic
researchers* inability to gain access to proprietary stud-
ies, it may be exactly the opposite of the problem usually
encountered by social science researchers. Instead of
published studies having more positive results than those
hidden away in people's files, in this case the hidden
company studies may be more positive. The reason is
that in the published studies the researchers often have
tried to predict performance across salespeople in dif-
ferent kinds of sales jobs and in different firms and in-
dustries using the same set of performance criteria and
the same set of predictor variables and measures.
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