Sales ambidexterity and performance: a behavioral paradigm through the Career Stage framework

Sales professionals worldwide have a decisive role in bringing value to organizations and supply chains, but pressures are challenging the existing sales force models and forcing organizations to look for new ways to optimally manage their resources and achieve multiple goals, including Sales ambidexterity. This approach allows for the achievement of seemingly conflicting tasks and goals, with superior performances. The purpose of this research is to study the salesperson’s orientations and behavior, and the concept of Sales ambidexterity, as well as to provide additional insights into the personal and career concerns of the sales professional, by adopting a Career Stage perspective. The quantitative study (PLS-SEM), conducted on a large sample of Italian BtoB salespeople (N = 199), made it possible to test the hypotheses that had emerged from extant research, verifying the importance of orientations and personal dispositions towards ambidexterity, as well as its relationship with efficacy and performance outcomes, in interaction with the Career Stage dimension. The findings confirm that the attitudes, priorities and concerns of individuals in their career have an impact on salespeople’s job outcomes. Salespeople orientations, motivation and Career Stage should indeed be taken into consideration when reflecting or planning salesforce training and incentive initiatives aiming at Sales Ambidexterity. This study investigates Sales Ambidexterity, a novel construct with theoretical and managerial importance, extending its nomological network and including relevant antecedents and the Career Stage framework. The importance of motivation and orientations in sales is known and, in this study, Career Stage is used in interaction with Sales ambidexterity to provide additional insights on this new sales paradigm.