The field of selling and sales management is changing at a torrid pace. Indeed, almost on a seemingly diurnal basis, sales practitioners and researchers are proffering new alternatives for enhancing sales-force productivity. Sales-force automation, relationship selling, outsourcing of selling and sales management tasks, e-commerce, and internationalization of the sales force have become watchwords for many sales organizations. Moreover, ameliorating the effectiveness and efficiency of sales managers and their subalterns has become the juggernaut of many organizations. And although the dynamism continues unabated, managers seek to interdict business malfeasance and create an environment that foments ethical sales practices.
The foregoing milieu places great burdens on sales managers and their sales subordinates. To deal with such conditions and engender sales organization success, becoming a learning organization is now the sine qua non for many firms. Progressive and astute sales managers realize that becoming cognizant of and immersing themselves in new ideas that will facilitate the performance of their jobs and those of their sales subordinates is of paramount concern. This situation then begs the following question: Where might such knowledge be gleaned? One palpable answer entails perusing and utilizing the work from sales researchers. This Special Issue of Psychology & Marketing will hopefully serve as one such source of learning for sales managers and sales personnel.
This Special Issue offers a refulgent farrago of topics pertaining to selling and sales management. Some authors introduce new ideas or concepts to the discipline. Other authors revisit familiar issues but do so in a way that still adds markedly to the body of knowledge in the par-