Learning and performance orientation of salespeople: The role of supervisors

The recent work of Sujan, Weitz, and Kumar (1994) brings into sharp focus two distinct goal orientations of salespeople: learning and performance. In this article, the authors make two primary contributions to this emerging topic in salesforce literature: (1) They develop and examine novel propositions that shed light on how supervisors influence the goal orientations of salespeople, and (2) They examine whether supervisors' influence on their salespeople's orientations is moderated by salesperson experience. The article's hypotheses are tested using data from salespeople in two Fortune 500 companies. The results support several of the a priori hypotheses and suggest that supervisory behaviors las perceived by salespeople) have a significant influence on salespeople's learning and performance orientations. Furthermore, the authors obtain some support for the hypothesized moderating effect of salesperson experience.