Corporate Culture and Sales Force Management in Japan and America

Abstract

Managers' personal values are a key aspect of corporate culture. Sales representatives' agreement with their managers' values (hereafter “value congruence”) can be expected to influence sales performance, satisfaction, and propensity to quit. These propositions are investigated in two countries. One hundred seventy-five sales representatives and 93 sales managers from a Japanese firm and 146 sales representatives and 21 sales managers from a comparable American firm participated in the study. A questionnaire was distributed to the managers and representatives. Value congruence was found to be weakly related to performance, but strongly related to satisfaction and propensity to quit for both cultural groups. The Japanese group was found to be higher in value congruence and propensity to quit, but lower in satisfaction. Suggested are implications for future research and for managers.