Cinthia B Satornino
University of New Hampshire, Marketing, Faculty Member
Research Interests:
People with the personality traits of Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy (i.e., the dark triad) are prevalent in the sales profession. Yet research into sales performance drivers tends to focus on positive personality traits.... more
People with the personality traits of Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy (i.e., the dark triad) are prevalent in the sales profession. Yet research into sales performance drivers tends to focus on positive personality traits. The authors examine the dark triad’s effect on salesperson performance and reveal some conditioning factors that influence these links. A longitudinal study that pairs surveys and objective performance data from a national insurance agency reveals the complex effects of dark triad traits on performance over time. Another study, based on data from a direct sales organization and employing social network analysis, relies on partial least squares structural equation modeling to determine the role that the social structure plays in conditioning the relationship between dark triad traits and performance. The results yield insights into both the challenges and the opportunities that dark traits present for managers and scholars.
Research Interests:
Sales education is on the rise and for good reason. Statistics say that sales jobs will continue to grow at a rapid rate over the next few years. Many universities are preparing their students to start their careers in the professional... more
Sales education is on the rise and for good reason. Statistics say that sales jobs will continue to grow at a rapid rate over the next few years. Many universities are preparing their students to start their careers in the professional selling function through the inclusion of sales education in their business curriculum. Yet little research exists that investigates the relationship between sales education and sales performance on graduating from a college of business. This article seeks to fill this void in the sale pedagogy literature by assessing, empirically, the relationship between what is learned in university sales programs and the actual selling behaviors of recent graduates from these programs (vs. students who did not receive formal sales education in their undergraduate programs). Likewise, the relationship between sales education and extrinsic and intrinsic performance indicators is investigated. The findings suggest that university sales education is a significant contributor to sales rep performance. However, the results on the behaviors taught and those used in day-to-day selling were mixed.
Research Interests: Marketing, Influence, Marketing Education, Sales Management, Personal Selling, and 10 moreHiring Decisions, Professional Education, Hiring, Sales Training,marketing, Curriculum and Pedagogy, Selling, TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT AND SALES FORCE PERFORMANCE, Selling and Sales Management, Salesperson Performance, and Sales education
Research Interests:
Blockmodeling is viewed often as a data reduction method. However, this is a simplistic view of the class of methods designed to uncover social structures, identify subgroups, and reveal emergent roles. Worse, this view misses the... more
Blockmodeling is viewed often as a data reduction method. However, this is a simplistic view of the class of methods designed to uncover social structures, identify subgroups, and reveal emergent roles. Worse, this view misses the richness of the method as a tool for uncovering novel human resource management (HRM) insights. Here, we provide a brief overview of some essentials of blockmodeling and discuss research questions that can be addressed using this approach in applied HRM settings. Finally, we offer an empirical example to illustrate blockmodeling and the types of information that can be gleaned from its implementation.
Research Interests:
Relationships inside the company help boost sales performance, write Willy Bolander and Cinthia Satornino
Abstract That artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to provide significant benefits is generally accepted by both practitioners and scholars. However, the dark side of AI is less discussed, and less understood. In this paper, the... more
Abstract That artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to provide significant benefits is generally accepted by both practitioners and scholars. However, the dark side of AI is less discussed, and less understood. In this paper, the authors first classify the wellspring of AI benefits in both B2C and B2B settings. In B2C settings AI benefits are primarily via customized experiences, while B2B AI benefits are manifested via business efficiencies. Next, guided by the relationship marketing literature, the authors identify the drivers of the dark side of AI - lack of trust and power asymmetries, with lack of trust being a stronger factor in B2C settings and power asymmetries being a stronger factor in B2B settings. Finally, the authors provide an organizing framework for understanding both the bright side and the dark side of AI, in both B2C settings and B2B settings. This paper is differentiated from prior work by its focus on B2B settings (most focus on B2C settings), and by its focus on the dark side of AI (most focus on the bright side of AI).
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Research Interests:
Purpose Previous research studies assume that influential consumers (“influentials”), who play a powerful role in the marketplace, are persuasive (or not) based on innate, static personality traits. By contrast, this paper proposes an... more
Purpose Previous research studies assume that influential consumers (“influentials”), who play a powerful role in the marketplace, are persuasive (or not) based on innate, static personality traits. By contrast, this paper proposes an emergence-based view of influentials. Grounded in dynamic self-concept theory, this research establishes that individuals possess an “influential” self-concept that can be activated by firm-originated communications. Specifically, the authors examine the impact of firm feedback on the three dimensions of influentials (and the corresponding traits and behaviors): who they are (propensity to connect with others), who they know (WOM) and what they know (expert power). Design/methodology/approach The study tests whether an influential self can be evoked by marketers using a longitudinal experimental test with data collected in three periods. The data are analyzed using a multi-mediation model and partial least squares structural equation modeling. Findings...
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Research Interests:
Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of LEM participation on moral identity. Lateral exchange markets (LEMs) enable ordinary people to monetize idle personal resources such as cars, homes, gadgets and skills. Despite... more
Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of LEM participation on moral identity. Lateral exchange markets (LEMs) enable ordinary people to monetize idle personal resources such as cars, homes, gadgets and skills. Despite its champions portraying actors in these exchange as moral citizens of society, recent findings suggest that egoistic motives drive participation. A salient moral identity motivates behaviors that show social sensitivity to others and enable cooperative actions. Given that platform-providing firms rely on users’ cooperative behaviors to facilitate lateral exchange, understanding factors that affect moral identity can have important implications for the success of such business models. Design/methodology/approach In this research, the authors move away from the ideological discourse behind actors’ motivations, to provide a pragmatic explanation of how participation erodes moral identity. The authors apply a social cognitive framework to examine how ...
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Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Sales education is on the rise and for good reason. Statistics say that sales jobs will continue to grow at a rapid rate over the next few years. Many universities are preparing their students to start their careers in the professional... more
Sales education is on the rise and for good reason. Statistics say that sales jobs will continue to grow at a rapid rate over the next few years. Many universities are preparing their students to start their careers in the professional selling function through the inclusion of sales education in their business curriculum. Yet little research exists that investigates the relationship between sales education and sales performance on graduating from a college of business. This article seeks to fill this void in the sale pedagogy literature by assessing, empirically, the relationship between what is learned in university sales programs and the actual selling behaviors of recent graduates from these programs (vs. students who did not receive formal sales education in their undergraduate programs). Likewise, the relationship between sales education and extrinsic and intrinsic performance indicators is investigated. The findings suggest that university sales education is a significant cont...
Research Interests:
Although the study of salesperson performance traditionally has focused on salespeople's activities and relationships with customers, scholars recently have proposed that salespeople's intraorganizational relationships and... more
Although the study of salesperson performance traditionally has focused on salespeople's activities and relationships with customers, scholars recently have proposed that salespeople's intraorganizational relationships and activities also play a vital role in driving sales performance. Using data from 286 salespeople in a unique social network analysis, the authors explore the effects of salespeople's intraorganizational relationships on objective salesperson performance as well as the role of political skill in developing intraorganizational relationships. The results indicate that two types of social network characteristics (i.e., relational centrality and positional centrality) contribute substantially to salesperson performance. Moreover, salespeople's political skill is shown to be an antecedent to relational centrality but, surprisingly, not positional centrality. This finding demonstrates that researchers should not assume that all centralities represent simil...