As modern business-to-business (B2B) sales have become more complex; recruiters are turning to business schools to find educated and motivated sales professionals to fill the employment demand gap that has risen. This study provides important information about business students' intentions regarding pursuing careers in B2B sales, as there are no…

The leadership styles and behaviors of supervisors preferred by pharmaceutical sales professionals during periods of varied sales performance were explored in this qualitative study. A phenomenological approach was used to address the gap in research on how the leadership styles of the supervisors of pharmaceutical salespeople affect the…

Nonverbal communication impacts a broad range of human interactions and bears significant influence on understanding and perceptions. One of the most influential categories of nonverbal communication is kinesics, which includes physical gestures and other body movements. The current study develops a foundation for future kinesics education in…

Orientation training plays a crucial role in the process of newcomer socialization by equipping employees with the knowledge, abilities, and skills necessary for success in a new work setting. However, relatively few studies have investigated orientation training from a socialization perspective and addressed its underlying mechanisms. To address…

Expertise is featured by continued high performance in a particular domain. Expertise research has primarily focused on absolute expertise in structured domains such as chess and emphasized the significance of deliberate practice for expertise development. We investigated the development of relative expertise in commercial domains as part of…

Purpose: Building on the concepts of learning communities of practice, the paper aims to evaluate their application within degree apprenticeships (DAs) to support pedagogic engagement and inclusive education within a university setting. Design/methodology/approach: A case study of an existing B2B sales degree apprenticeship reviewed relevant…

There is a shortage of sales education programs that develop sales-trained graduates with the business skills required to succeed in the sales profession today. More than 50% of U.S. college graduates will work in sales (Sales Education Foundation, 2023c), yet fewer than 4% of more than 4,800 U.S. institutions offer sales programs at the…

Background: Tobacco retailers have an important role to play in reducing access to tobacco among youth, but in the USA, their role has become more complicated because of recent developments in policies and industry, such as the Indiana Tobacco-21 law and the rising popularity of electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) products. This study…

Purpose: This study aims to examine how incorporating gamification elements into an offline training program influences learner engagement and learning outcomes in a non-academic, organizational setting. Design/methodology/approach: A randomized pretest-posttest control group experiment was designed to investigate participants' levels of…

This study analyzed participants' perceptions regarding a sales training program before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a descriptive research design, a survey was administered to 53 participants that examined the training methods used, topics covered, and their overall satisfaction with the program. The participants were assigned to…

For design education, although different international design organizations have developed design thinking models (DTM), these DTMs mainly focus on improving innovation but ignore the actual demands of users. This paper proposes a consumer-oriented DTM to implement innovation and evaluation based on accurately grasping users' demands. The…

Purpose: Employee engagement literature pertaining to professional salespeople has revealed several antecedents and consequences that lead to greater performance and turnover reduction. However, engagement literature in the field of human resource development (HRD) does not account for Generation Z (Gen Z), the latest in the workforce who has been…

Purpose: This study aims to empirically examine the relationship between the leader characteristic of humility and the informal learning of team members. It also evaluates the role of leader authenticity in mediating that relationship. Design/methodology/approach: Data were collected on 518 salespeople reporting to 66 managers in a time-lagged…

The recent popularity of ChatGPT and artificial intelligence chatbots presents both challenges and opportunities for incorporating this modern technology in the classroom. This paper introduces an activity that uses ChatGPT to help students practice their role playing sales skills. The benefits of using this AI chatbot for role play training…

In the framework of positive psychology approach, the present study reports the effect of a mixed human resources (HR) intervention program. We developed an intervention by the integration of the classic resource-based intervention with the specific strength training program named FAMILY. Then, we examined the extent to which such a combined…