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.

Replacing Finned Copper withCorrugated Stainless Steel, forthe Heat Exchangers of a SolarCombisystem Store : Performance and EconomicEvaluation

The importance of investigating cost reduction in materials and components for solar thermal systems is crucial at the present time. This work focuses on the influence of two different heat exchangers on the performance of a solar thermal system. Both heat exchangers studied are immersed helically coiled, one made with corrugated stainless steel tube, and the other made with finned copper tube with smooth inner surface.A test apparatus has been designed and a simple test procedure applied in order to study heat transfer characteristics and pressure drop of both coils. Thereafter, the resulting experimental data was used to perform a parameter identification of the heat exchangers, in order to obtain a TRNSYS model with its corresponding numerical expression. Also a representative small-scale combisystem model was designed in TRNSYS, in order to study the influence of both heat exchangers on the solar fraction of the system, when working at different flow rates.It has been found that the highest solar fraction is given by the corrugated stainless steel coil, when it works at the lowest flow rate (100 l/hr). For any higher flow rate, the studied copper coil presents a higher solar fraction. The advantageous low flow performance of stainless steel heat exchanger turns out to be beneficial for the particular case of solar thermal systems, where it is well known that low flow collector loops lead to enhanced store stratification, and consequently higher solar fractions.Finally, an optimization of the stainless steel heat exchanger length is carried out, according to economic figures. For the given combisystem model and boundary conditions, the optimum length value is found between 10 and 12 m.

The fall descriptions and health characteristics of older adults with hip fracture : a mixed methods study

Background: In light of the multifactorial etiology of fall-related hip fracture, knowledge of fall circumstances may be especially valuable when placed in the context of the health of the person who falls. We aimed to investigate the circumstances surrounding fall-related hip fractures and to describe fall circumstances in relation to participants' health and functional characteristics. Methods: The fall circumstances of 125 individuals (age >= 50 years) with hip fracture were investigated using semi-structured interviews. Data concerning participants' health (comorbidities and medications) and function (self-reported performance of mobility, balance, personal activities of daily living and physical activity, previous falls and hand grip strength) were collected via medical records, questionnaires and dynamometry. Using a mixed methods design, both data sets were analysed separately and then merged in order to provide a comprehensive description of fall events and identify eventual patterns in the data. Results: Fall circumstances were described as i) Activity at the time of the fall: Positional change (n = 24, 19%); Standing (n = 16, 13%); Walking (n = 71, 57%); Balance challenging (n = 14, 11%) and ii) Nature of the fall: Environmental (n = 32, 26%); Physiological (n = 35, 28%); Activity-related indoor (n = 8, 6%) and outdoor (n = 8, 6%); Trips and slips on snow (n = 20, 16%) and in snow-free conditions (n = 12, 10%) and Unknown (n = 10, 8%). We observed the following patterns regarding fall circumstances and participants' health: those who fell i) during positional change had the poorest functional status; ii) due to environmental reasons (indoors) had moderate physical function, but high levels of comorbidity and fall risk increasing medications; iii) in snow-free environments (outdoors) appeared to have a poorer health and functional status than other outdoor groups. Conclusions: Our findings indicate that patterns exist in relation to the falls circumstances and health characteristics of people with hip fracture which build upon that previously reported. These patterns, when verified, can provide useful information as to the ways in which fall prevention strategies can be tailored to individuals of varying levels of health and function who are at risk for falls and hip fracture.