Salesperson’s Personality, Motivation and Selling Performance : The Study of New Product Selling

In the highly competitive environment businesses invest big amounts of money into the new product development. New product success potentially depends on different factors among which salespeople play an important role. The aim of this paper is to explore the potential link between salespeople’s personality, motivation to sell new products and performance in selling new products. Based on the theoretical background of the Big Five personality dimensions, motivation and selling performance hypotheses were formulated and tested using statistical methods of correlation and regression analysis. The data was collected within one technologically intensive organization – ABB AB in Sweden using online web questionnaire and self-assessment measurements. Total investigation was conducted among organization’s salesforce. The findings confirm the importance of salesperson’s personality empirically showing that the latter significantly predicts both motivation and performance in selling new products. From all the Big Five Extraversion was confirmed to be the most important predictor of both motivation and performance in selling new products. Extraversion was found positively related with both motivation and performance in selling new products. Salespeople scoring high in Extraversion and especially possessing such characteristics as confident, energetic and sociable tend to be more motivated to sell new products and show higher performance results. Other personality dimensions such as Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness to experience complexly approached are not proved to be significantly related neither with motivation nor performance in selling new products. The results are explained by the extreme importance of Extraversion in new product selling situation which analyzing in combination with the other personality dimensions suppresses the others. Finding regarding controlling for certain demographical characteristics of salespeople reveal that performance in selling new products is determined by selling experience. Salespeople’s age is not proved to be significantly related neither with motivation nor performance in selling new products. Findings regarding salespeople’s gender though proposing that males are more motivated to sell new products cannot be generalized due to the study limitations.

"An on-going individual adjustment" : a qualitative study of midwives' experiences counselling pregnant women on physical activity in Sweden

Background: In Sweden, midwives play prominent supportive role in antenatal care by counselling and promoting healthy lifestyles. This study aimed to explore how Swedish midwives experience the counselling of pregnant women on physical activity, specifically focusing on facilitators and barriers during pregnancy. Also, addressing whether the midwives perceive that their own lifestyle and body shape may influence the content of the counselling they provide. Methods: Eight focus group discussions (FGD) were conducted with 41 midwives working in antenatal care clinics in different parts of Sweden between September 2013 and January 2014. Purposive sampling was applied to ensure a variation in age, work experience, and geographical location. The FGD were digitally recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using manifest and latent content analysis. Results: The main theme- "An on-going individual adjustment" was built on three categories: "Counselling as a challenge"; "Counselling as walking the thin ice" and "Counselling as an opportunity" reflecting the midwives on-going need to adjust their counselling depending on each woman's specific situation. Furthermore, counselling pregnant women on physical activity was experienced as complex and ambiguous, presenting challenges as well as opportunities. When midwives challenged barriers to physical activity, they risked being rejected by the pregnant women. Despite risking rejection, the midwives tried to promote increased physical activity based on their assessment of individual needs of the pregnant woman. Some participants felt that their own lifestyle and body shape might negatively influence the counselling; however, the majority of participants did not agree with this perspective. Conclusions: Counselling on physical activity during pregnancy may be a challenging task for midwives, characterized by on-going adjustments based on a pregnant woman's individual needs. Midwives strive to find individual solutions to encourage physical activity. However, to improve their counselling, midwives may benefit from further training, also organizational and financial barriers need to be addressed. Such efforts might result in improved opportunities to further support pregnant women's motivation for performance of physical activity.

Oförändrad prestation, men varierande motivation under menstruationscykeln : Ett examensarbete som undersöker om maximalstyrka och explosivitet förändras under menstruationscykeln samt om motivationen korrelerar med prestationen

Syfte - Studien avser att undersöka om prestation gällande maximalstyrka och explosivitet varierar under menstruationscykeln. Dessutom undersöks om den psykologiska motivationen eller känslan korrelerar med prestationen. Studiens syfte är att skapa en utgångspunkt för att se om periodisering av styrketräning i relation till menstruationscykeln faser är aktuell för kvinnor inom prestationsidrotter. Metod - Testerna genomfördes under en menstruationscykel, fyra veckor. Ett test genomfördes varje vecka för att täcka in fyra faser under menstruationscykeln och för att erhålla ett konsekvent veckomönster. Menstruationscykelns faser räknades ut i efterhand för att inte i förhand påverka testdeltagarnas motivation och prestation i förhållande till menstruationscykeln. Fas 1 menstruationsfas, fas 2 intermenstruation, fas 3 intermenstruation/ägglossning och fas 4 premenstruation. I testgruppen ingick fyra kvinnor, 32 år (± 10), längd 162,8 cm (± 7,32), vikt 57,4 kg (± 5,79). I kontrollgruppen ingick en man och två kvinnor utan menstruation, 26,67 år (± 9,02), längd 168,3 cm (± 8,96), vikt 71,7 kg (± 11,02). Fysiska tester, längdhopp och knäböj. En standardiserad uppvärmning genomfördes inför varje test, följdes av tre stycken jämfota längdhopp utan ansats med två minuter vila mellan hoppen. Bästa hoppet av tre dokumenterades. Längdhopp (CV 1,8 %) (Hopkins, Schabort & Hawley, 2001), knäböj, en repetition max [1RM] (CV 1,57 %) (Urquhart, Moir, Graham & Connaboy, 2015). En specifik uppvärmning genomfördes även inför 1RM knäböj därefter försök på en repetition på 1RM. Frågeformulär gällande hälsotillstånd och motivation “Snabbkollen” (Cross & Lyle, 1999) besvarades inför varje testtillfälle. Vid sista testtillfället fick alla testdeltagare fylla i ett frågeformulär om upplevda symptom och tillstånd under den gångna menstruationscykeln. Resultat och slutsats - Det är ur denna studie svårt att tyda om menstruationscykelns olika faser skulle ha någon relevant effekt värd att ta hänsyn till när det gäller prestationen hos idrottande kvinnor. Dock visar resultaten att menstruationscykeln påverkar motivationen.