文档介绍：Willem J. Verbeke, Frank D. Belschak, Arnold B. Bakker, & Bart Dietz
When Intelligence Is (Dys)Functional
for Achieving Sales Performance
Using two samples of salespeople, the authors investigate how bination of general mental ability (GMA) and
specific skills and capabilities (petence and thinking styles) enables salespeople to reach their sales
goals. The study finds evidence for an interaction between GMA and petence. bined with high
petence, high GMA leads to the highest sales performance; bined with low petence,
high GMA leads to the lowest sales performance. In addition, the authors find interaction effects between GMA and
a judicial thinking style. Salespeople with a high GMA have the most potential for attaining high levels of sales
performance bined with specific skills; when salespeople with a high GMA lack these skills, they may
e the firm’s worst performers.
Keywords: sales, knowledge-based marketing, general mental ability, petence, shaping
s the economy es increasingly knowledge absorptive capacity (Cohen and Levinthal 1990). Intuitively,
intensive, salespeople are tending to sell knowledge- it might be argued that cognitive ability, g-factor, or general
Abased solutions to customers (Bettencourt et al. mental ability (GMA), which reflects a person’s innate abil-
2002). An essential part of selling knowledge-based solu- ity to think flexibly and reason abstractly (Sternberg 2003,
tions is transferring knowledge to customers; therefore, p. 20), should play a prominent role. Although this argu-
salespeople need to act as knowledge brokers (Sarvary ment may seem straightforward, a closer examination of
1999). During the sales interaction, both the salesperson the literature reveals a debate about this issue. Many
and the customer play an active role and, together, cocreate researchers argue that GMA is a predictor of job perfor-
a solution (Vargo and Lusch 2004). This cocreation process mance (., Kuncel, Hezlett, and Ones 2004;