Flow and salesperson performance: A positive psychology approach

Abstract

Researchers and practitioners explored factors that influenced salesperson performance since a long time (Churchill et al., 1985; Verbeke et al., 2011; Vinchur et al., 1998). More recently, the changes in selling environment, increased product complexity, ever demanding customers and technological advancement, have impacted salespersons’ performance adversely (Homburg et al., 2011). Extant literature suggests that the determinants of salesperson performance have been able to explain only a small variance (about 10 %) in the sales performance (Rollins et al., 2014). Empirical studies have traditionally focused on what is wrong with the salesperson and suggested corrective or remedial measures (Friends et al., 2016). This exclusive attention on repairing human functioning neglects the well-being of salespersons and the importance of nurturing their positive competencies. There is a dearth of research that focused on the positive competencies of salesperson and this study addresses this gap. Drawing from Flow theory and Broaden and Build theory, this study aims to advance the understanding of the determinants of salesperson performance.