Assistant Professors Nawar Chaker and Prachi Gala examine the tension that may arise when salespeople attempt to simultaneously perform the role of salesperson and friend.
Nawar Chaker and Prachi Gala, assistant professors of marketing in the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business, co-authored the paper “The divergent effects of organizational identification on salesperson and customer outcomes in a friend-selling context,” which was published by the Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management (JPSSM).
Chaker and Gala co-authored this paper with Lisa L. Beeler, assistant professor of marketing at Ohio University, and Alex R. Zablah, professor of marketing at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville.
The authors predicted the role of stress may have both positive and negative consequences in a friend-selling context. Chaker and Gala tested these ideas using survey data provided by salespeople and their customers and found that organizational identification reduces friend-selling stress. They also found that the organizational identification-friend-selling stress relationship is contingent on friend-selling frequency and network size.
Additionally, friend-selling ambiguity decreases sales performance and customer trust and friend-selling conflict has divergent consequences, leading to positive customer responses but negative salesperson outcomes.
JPSSM, published on behalf of the Pi Sigma Epsilon National Educational Foundation, is devoted to the publication of peer-reviewed articles in the field of sales management that deal with new issues, topics, methodologies, theories, concepts, tools, models or applications in sales and selling.
Chaker joined Elon after completing his doctorate in business administration with a concentration in marketing from the University of Tennessee. He has worked in marketing, sales, distribution and engineering. His research focuses on topics in marketing strategy, personal selling, sales management, and cross-functional sales relationships.
Gala came to Elon in 2018 after earning her doctorate in business administration with a concentration in marketing from the University of Mississippi. Her research interests lie in marketing strategy and marketing-finance interface. Prior to her academic career, Gala worked as a business technology analyst and as a marketing strategist.