Cross-Cultural Personal Selling: Agentsâ€™ competences in international personal selling of services

CROSS-CULTURALPERSONAL SELLING

Anna AntczakBarbara A. Sypniewska

Agents’ competencesin international personal

selling of services

Cross-Cultural Personal Selling

Anna AntczakBarbara A. Sypniewska

Cross-CulturalPersonal Selling

Agents’ competences in internationalpersonal selling of services

Anna AntczakVistula UniversityWarsawPoland

Barbara A. SypniewskaUniversity of Finance and ManagementWarsawPoland

ISBN 978-3-319-55576-8 ISBN 978-3-319-55577-5 (eBook)DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-55577-5

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Contents

Introduction xv

1 The Notion of Competence 1

2 Personal Selling in the Service Sector as One MarketingPromotional Tool 35

3 Competences in International Personal Selling 57

4 Personal Sellers’ Competences—Research Remarks 83

5 The Role of Agent’s Characteristics and Competencesin Personal Selling in Higher EducationSector—Research Remarks 107

6 Conclusions 141

Index 157

vii

List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Relative impact of promotion activities. Source Adaptedfrom Langeard and Mayer (1975: 255) 38

Fig. 2.2 The role of personal selling in the overall marketingprocess. Source Own elaboration based on Blythe(2000: 260) 41

Fig. 2.3 Steps in the personal selling process. SourceOwn elaboration based on Armstrong and Kotler(2013: 434) 45

Fig. 2.4 Contemporary sales process elements importance.Source Own elaboration based on the literature analysis 46

Fig. 2.5 The structure (levels) of the educational productat university level. Source Own elaboration 54

Fig. 3.1 Cultural model of personal selling interactions.Source Adapted from Macquin et al. (2000: 76) 65

Fig. 5.1 Scree plot for the elements of an agent’s activities.Source Elaboration based on own research 111

Fig. 5.2 Scree plot for evaluation of an agent’s activities.Source Elaboration based on own research 111

ix

Fig. 5.3 Average results for the importance of certain elementsof an agent’s activity among the Asian and Europeanrespondents—statistically significant differences.Source Elaboration based on own research 115

Fig. 5.4 Average results for the importance of certain elementsof an agent’s activity with respect to sex among theEuropean respondents—statistically significant differences.Source Elaboration based on own research 123

Fig. 5.5 Average results for the importance of certain elements of anagent’s activity among the respondents from Central andSouth Asia—statistically significant differences.Source Elaboration based on own research 136

x List of Figures

List of Tables

Table 1.1 Competence according to management levels 8Table 1.2 Differences between individual and organizational

competences 12Table 1.3 Division of competences 13Table 2.1 Personal selling functions and possibilities

of their replacement 50Table 3.1 Time-related cultural differences 62Table 3.2 Influence of culture on face-to-face negotiations 64Table 3.3 Sales strategy 67Table 3.4 Winners’ success strategies 69Table 3.5 Characteristics of professional vendor 70Table 4.1 Spearman’s q rank correlation estimate between age

of the respondents and the answers in individualscales and subscales 86

Table 4.2 Average results for competence indicators among menand women with statistical significance test 87

Table 4.3 Frequency distribution within the motivation scalewith statistical significance test 89

Table 4.4 Frequency distribution within the customer orientationscale with statistical importance test 90

xi

Table 4.5 Frequency distribution within the coping with stressscale with statistical importance test 92

Table 4.6 Frequency distribution within the learning scalewith statistical importance test 93

Table 4.7 Frequency distribution within the knowledgeand experience scale with statistical importance test 95

Table 4.8 Frequency distribution within the interpersonalcommunication scale with statistical importance test 96

Table 4.9 Frequency distribution within the leadership scalewith statistical importance test 99

Table 4.10 Frequency distribution within the attitude towardswork scale with statistical importance test 100

Table 5.1 Average results for the importance of certain elementsof an agent’s activity among the Asian and Europeanrespondents with statistical significance test 113

Table 5.2 Average results for evaluation of an agent’s behaviorand activity among European and Asian respondentswith statistical significance test 117

Table 5.3 Frequency distribution—opinions of Asianand European respondents on the role of the agentor university representative in choosing the university 119

Table 5.4 Frequency distribution—opinions on factorsinfluencing Asian and European respondents’ decisionsabout choosing the university 119

Table 5.5 Frequency distribution—opinions of Asian andEuropean respondents with respect to the importanceof the first impression 120

Table 5.6 Average results for the importance of certain elementsof an agent’s activity with respect to sex among theEuropean respondents with statistical significance test 122

Table 5.7 Average results for evaluation of an agent’s behaviorand activity among European respondents with respectto sex with statistical significance test 124

Table 5.8 Frequency distribution of opinions on the roleof the agent or university representative in choosingthe university with respect to sex of the Europeanrespondents 125

xii List of Tables

Table 5.9 Frequency distribution—opinions of Europeanrespondents on the importance of the first impressiondepending on sex 126

Table 5.10 Average results for the importance of certain elements ofan agent’s activity among the European respondentswith respect to age with statistical significance test 127

Table 5.11 Average results for the importance of certain elements ofan agent’s activity with respect to sex among the Asianrespondents with statistical significance test 129

Table 5.12 Average results for evaluation of an agent’s behaviorand activity among Asian respondents with respect tosex with statistical significance test 131

Table 5.13 Frequency distribution of opinions on the role of theagent or university representative in choosing theuniversity with respect to sex of the Asian respondents 132

Table 5.14 Frequency distribution—opinions of Asian respondentson the importance of the first impression depending onsex 132

Table 5.15 Average results for the importance of certain elements ofan agent’s activity among the Asian respondents withrespect to age with statistical significance test 133

Table 5.16 Frequency distribution of opinions on the role of theagent or university representative in choosing theuniversity with respect to age of the Asianrespondents 134

Table 5.17 Average results for the importance of certain elements ofan agent’s activity among the respondents from Centraland South Asia with statistical significance test 135

Table 5.18 Frequency distribution of opinions on the role of theagent or university representative in choosing theuniversity among the respondents from Central andSouth Asia 137

Table 5.19 Frequency distribution—opinions of Central andSouthern Asian respondents on the importance of thefirst impression 138

List of Tables xiii

Introduction

Personal selling, being one of the oldest tools of marketing promotion and modesof selling, is now being reactivated, especially with respect to services, which arecustomer sensitive. Services that have to be individualized and offers that need tobe presented in detail and described directly to the customer are the subject of themodern personal selling process. Services which are vulnerable to cultural, age andgender differences are very difficult to be successfully sold to customers originatingfrom diverse cultural “zones”. For agents or personal sellers, it is crucial to beaware of these differences and to know customers’ expectations. Proper prepa-ration for this process becomes even more important if it is to be carried out in aculturally complex environment. Thus, personal sellers are required to possessunique skills, characteristics and competences. Most importantly, however, theyhave to be aware of cultural differences between nations and learn how to adaptthe offer and their own behavior to the needs, requirements and expectations ofcustomers coming from diverse parts of the world and thus also different cultures.Therefore, in the coming decades, cross-cultural personal selling will be one veryimportant tool in the promotion and selling of specific services, as globalizationreaches the most remote places in the world, making even small companiesculturally sensitive. For these reasons, personal sellers’ competences will becomemore and more important also in the context of customers’ requirements in thisrespect. Nowadays, agents have to possess more specific skills and characteristicsthan used to be the case in the past.

xv

The main objective of this study is to present an analysis of the personalselling process within the international environment and of agents’ competencesnecessary to succeed in personal selling. This theoretical part is followed byextensive empirical research aimed at checking which competences are perceivedby agents themselves as being most valuable in personal selling as well asexamining the customer perspective. The first part of the research was con-ducted among very experienced personal sellers, and the second part amongundergraduate and graduate students who were recruited from fifteen countries,three continents and four different cultural “zones”.

The main research topic addresses the question of which agents’ compe-tences, skills and characteristics are most required within the internationalenvironment and whether they are culturally sensitive. Specifically, it seeks todetermine which of these competences are age and/or gender sensitive as well aswhether there are significant differences in perception with respect to diversecultures (values, religions, traditions, cultural and educational background, etc.).The main working hypothesis is that taking into consideration the culturalheritage of more conservative and patriarchal cultural backgrounds, Asian andAfrican respondents will tend to pay more attention to communication skillsand will be more vulnerable to the impact of the agent’s first impression thantheir European counterparts. Competences related to customer orientation andknowledge about the product are expected to play a crucial role for allrespondents due to the specificity of the product (e.g. the higher educationsector). From agents’ perspective, the most important competences incross-cultural personal selling in the field of services should be customer ori-entation and communication skills as well as learning and the ability to adapt.

The study is developed over five main chapters. Chapter 1 discusses issuesrelated to the competences necessary in personal selling. Chapter 2 is devoted tothe personal selling process with special focus on its specificity in services andespecially in the field of higher education. The last theoretical chapter (Chap. 3)presents the specificity of personal selling within the international environmentas well as agents’ competences necessary in cross-cultural personal selling. Thetwo remaining chapters are devoted to empirical research and analysis of itsresults related to the perception of agents’ competences by the personal sellersthemselves (Chap. 4) and their customers (Chap. 5). The concluding chapterpresents the overall and general outcome, as detailed discussion of particularresults is provided in individual chapters.

This book will enable readers to understand the theoretical background ofpersonal selling, and gives advice as well as presenting the extensive empirical

xvi Introduction

research results with special emphasis on the competences, skills and qualifica-tions of personal sellers which are necessary for successful, effective and efficientpromotion campaigns focused on customers from different cultural back-grounds. The monograph is unique in its empirical approach and delivers acomprehensive analysis of customer preferences with respect to personal sellingof services across cultures. The in-depth research includes respondents fromfifteen different countries and four different cultural “zones”, and offers adetailed and high quality analytical approach based on statistical analysis. This inturn allows us to present and analyze the research results in a way that is veryinteresting both from a scientific point of view, and from a practical perspective.The monograph’s organization allows the reader to get acquainted with thetheoretical aspects of personal selling and to relate these to the particularempirical results of our study, which cannot be found in any other publication.The monograph should be of great interest to all scholars (and nowadays, thereare a lot of them) interested in international personal selling as well as thecultural differences that are significant in selling personal services, and is par-ticularly valuable in adding to existing research through its extensive empiricalanalysis.

The book is primarily addressed to academics who are interested in mar-keting and promotion with special attention given to personal selling and thecompetences necessary in these fields. The content of the book will be of specialinterest to people dealing with international markets, where cultural differencesplay a crucial role in marketing processes. Nowadays, especially in the servicesector, the factors which enhance the effectiveness of personal selling areextremely important. The research presented here will appeal to scholarsinterested in the subject theoretically, and also to practitioners who wish toimprove their knowledge and skills in the field of personal selling and tounderstand how agents’ competences influence the decisions of customers.

Introduction xvii

1The Notion of Competence

The notion of “qualifications” appeared in management studies at thebeginning of the 20th century, whereas the notion of “competence”started to be used only about 25 years ago.Competences are studied by representatives of several scientific disci-

plines; each of them takes a specific approach to their study (Nosal 1999:88–89). For example:

• praxeology—the general theory of human action, which deals with thegeneral sense of the notion “competence”;

• law—this deals with drawing and classifying (ordering) competenceranges on the individual level and on the level of organization(charter);

• sociology—this deals with the degree of compliance of competenceswith the course of different kinds of managerial, political, scientificand other careers, as well as with the social patterns of competences;

• psychology—this analyzes competences in their functional aspect asmechanisms for the regulation of action.

© The Author(s) 2017A. Antczak and B.A. Sypniewska, Cross-Cultural Personal Selling,DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-55577-5_1

1

1.1 Competences and Qualifications

Some authors use the notions of competences and qualifications inter-changeably, considering them corresponding. However, other authorsidentify differences and distinctions between the two notions.The authors of various encyclopedias, phrasebooks or dictionaries of

loanwords define qualifications as knowledge stock, expert education,experience and skills required for the job or for the tasks assigned to agiven post. Competences, on the other hand, are defined as a range ofproxies or authorizations, responsibilities and accountabilities for a givenposition (Skorupka 2002; Kopaliński 1989; Biczyński and Miedziński1991; Pszczołowski 1978).Butkiewicz (1995: 29–30) also distinguishes competences and quali-

fications. He claims that professional qualifications are “a system ofknowledge, skills and attitudes determining the execution of professionaltasks. Professional qualifications consist of the following factors: the levelof general education, professional knowledge, professional skills (espe-cially the degree of proficiency, ability to organize and enhance work)and psychophysical qualifications. An important feature of qualificationsis (also) professional ethics.” Butkiewicz (1995: 29–30) cites the defi-nition of competence proposed by the PWN Dictionary of Loanwords(1980)—“competences are a range of knowledge, skills and responsi-bilities, a range of proxies and authorizations to act and decide, havingrationale and qualifications to give opinions and judgements”.Butkiewicz (1995: 29–30) believes that from this perspective qualifi-

cations occur as a personal feature, and therefore can be described as aconcept broader than competences. However, since competences refer totaking up some actions, and thus, professional activity, the concept isbroader than that of qualifications, since they embrace the feature ofresponsibility, which is not included in the notion of qualifications.Nevertheless, it seems that the distinction proposed by Butkiewicz is notsharp enough to clearly define what competences are and what qualifi-cations are.The notion of “qualifications” can be encountered in terms of quali-

fication scales, which contain elements providing information about an

2 A. Antczak-Barzan and B.A. Sypniewska

employee’s education by means of school reports, certificates and lengthof service.Competences, on the other hand, are identified in terms of the

decision-making powers assigned to a given post or employee. Manyauthors also emphasize the fact that competences are expressed by actionand concern those aspects which are related to job performance.Competences thus include knowledge, skills expressed in behavior, aswell as individual characteristics.Initially, “competences”were understood in their narrow sense as a legal

capacity to fulfill tasks, whereas “qualifications” were defined as the abilityto operate effectively and proficiently; thus, people often talked about highor low qualifications. One could also encounter talk of qualifications aseither sufficient or inadequate to perform tasks in a given position. Such anarrow definition of “qualifications” appeared mainly in the scales con-cerning required qualifications, and nowadays it can be also found in thepublic sector (Oleksyn 2006: 17). It should also be noted that in the firstdefinitions of “competence”, its particular elements (the range of duties,authorizations, responsibilities) were associated with each other and werewritten into the terms of the “duty register”.1 This was essential for theorganizations belonging to the public sector (Oleksyn 2006: 17).Chełpa (2003) also tries to differentiate between competences and

qualifications, indicating an interesting approach presented by KanungoandMisra, which treats competences as a notion superior to qualifications.The authors think that the competences grow out of qualifications anddevelop on them. The competences are generalized features of an entity(emotional, intellectual and orienting—attitudes), which cause executionof potential tasks, those unstructured and new as well. Qualifications, onthe other hand, are more concrete and time focused. These are alsoindividual features, which favor the effectiveness of task implementationand are solid in terms of content (Kanungo and Misra 1992).Having analyzed the definition of competences and qualifications,

Chełpa formulates his own definition; however, he refers to the work ofexecutives and uses the term qualifications, since in his view, it is moreembedded in the Polish tradition of human resources managementand organization. Thus, he defines qualifications as “a system of execu-tive’s interpersonal features, his capabilities (psychological features and


knowledge), which thanks to the interaction and applying them in one’sbehavior, can manifest themselves through professional skills (efficiency)”(Chełpa 2003: 18).Such an approach is presented by Ludwiczyński, who claims that

competences comprise, among others, knowledge, skills, values, motivesand attitudes. The author believes that knowledge and skills are “morevisible, that is to say, external elements of competences, while values,motives and attitudes are hidden competences elements and as such aremore difficult to evaluate and change” (Ludwiczyński 2002: 290–291).Those visible external elements are easier to shape by means of variousforms of training, whereas the hidden elements are much more difficultto assess and change (Pocztowski 2001: 169). It may also be said that allskills are interrelated, which means that “cultivation of some of themdoes not take place without affecting the rest” (Rakowska 2002: 24).However, it should be also emphasized that the acquisition of skills itselfis not enough for an employee to be competent because “a competentemployee is a person who, thanks to proper attitude and individualcharacteristics, will be eager and able to positively use the acquiredknowledge and skills” (Rakowska and Sitko-Lutek 2000: 17).Therefore, the competences may represent an employee’s abilities to

behave in a particular way, consistent with the expectations of anenterprise. In such a case, we may recognize that an employee has thedesired competences; but when an employee’s behavior is below expec-tations, it can be assumed that they do not have competences required toperform the proper organizational role (Ludwiczyński 2006a: 264). Sucha perception of competence includes its two-dimensional definition: onone hand, it refers to performing a particular job at which a given personis competent; on the other hand, it refers to a behavior underlyingcompetent performance. In the second case, we talk about competencesin a behavioral context, competences which describe the behaviorsunderlying effective performance. In practice, most commonly bothapproaches are used, which is referred to as a hybrid approach(Woodruffe 1991; Wnęk-Kolaska and Woźniakowski 2003). Such aperception of competence might confirm the validity of the thesisaccording to which, from a practical point of view, competence is anotion broader than qualifications.


In the literature on management concerning the knowledge of man-agers, many authors also emphasize that acquiring certain managerialskills does not guarantee having the competences of a manager. Such anapproach implies that to be competent, a manager should translate theirknowledge and skills into effective performance (Antonacopoulou andFitzgerald 1996: 28). Competence is therefore understood as theemployee’s ability to use their knowledge in specific professional con-texts. Hence, it is important to gain new experience on the basis of atheory of learning through work. It means that while formulating adefinition of competence, one should associate it exactly with perfor-mance and promptitude. Taking the above into consideration, it is worthquoting Thiery, Sauret and Monod, who point out three characteristicfeatures of the notion of competence:

• competence is characterized both by operational nature and pur-posefulness—it makes sense only in relation to an activity, it is acompetence to act;

• it includes an ability to adapt and act effectively in a given situation, inspecific conditions; adaptability is a competence element;

• in a dynamic way, it combines various elements—knowledge, practicalskills, way of reasoning and behaving, etc.—of which it is composed,to come forward to meet the need of adaptation (Thierry, Sauret andMonod 1994: 173).

On the basis of the above assumptions, the authors proposed theirown definition of competences, which seems to be appropriate, for itincludes content related not so much to the competence components,but indicates further the functional importance of their use. The authorssay that competences comprehend “knowledge, experience, attitudes, aswell as the employee’s promptitude in given conditions and the ability toadapt to changing conditions”. Distinguishing competences and quali-fications in this case comes down to determining the employee’s currentpotential. Competence carries within itself an element of driving force,while qualifications are a static notion. Taking into consideration thecausative element of a given feature as a possibility to act effectively andachieve goals, it is possible to replace some elements of qualifications with


competence elements. And so, when the “desired personality traits”enshrined in qualifications are replaced with the “desired attitudes atwork”, we obtain a change of the concept’s categorization. It is thereforeenough to take into account the effectiveness of an activity, so as tochange the context of a notion (Kopijer 2001: 20).Thus, in their deliberations, specialists of the subject present different

approaches towards differentiation of the notions qualifications andcompetence. The classic approach towards qualifications takes intoaccount mainly the elements related to professional education or expe-rience. This is a narrow understanding of qualifications. It includes,however, those elements which are easy to measure and, in practice, easyto verify, e.g. by evaluation of general knowledge or length of service.However, even in practice, we encounter other qualifications compo-nents. In the qualifications models created by (different) organizations,we may encounter skills and psychological traits of an employee whichare difficult to measure. In their qualifications models, many authorsinclude those components which determine the effectiveness of per-formed tasks—knowledge, psychological traits and skills. It should alsobe noted that the above components are also specified by the specialistsof the subject as part of competence.While studying the literature concerning individual competences, we

can observe that the scope of meaning of this notion is defined in manyways by specialists in the field of organization and management. By usingbasic domains of knowledge, the specialists of the subject construct theirown competence definitions, taking into account its components andtheir importance for the organization. As we may observe, many authorsadmit that employees’ competences are most commonly examined fromboth a narrow and a broad perspective. From a narrow perspective, theauthors identify them with skills, as well as with the proficiency withwhich they are used (Louart 1995; Oleksyn 1997; Levy-Leboyer 1997;Rakowska and Sitko-Lutek 2000). From a broad perspective, on the otherhand, they connect them with their causative potential, associate themwith knowledge and work experience, and pay attention to the practicalaspect of the use of skills by employees (Jabłoński 2005; Oleksyn 2001).In the literature on the subject, we may also encounter definitions of

competence which list its components in terms of their use in identifying


those who are the most effective at work (Gick and Tarczyńska 1999;Pocztowski and Miś 2000; Armostrong 2000; Becker et al. 2002;Ludwiczyński 2006a; Filipowicz 2004). Taking the above into account,many experts of the subject base their definitions on Boyatzis’s theory.Although he formulated it a long time ago, the present studies relate tohis work, determining the nature of competence in a similar way “aspermanent properties of an entity forming a causality with the highand/or above average results at work achieved by an individual, whichhave their measurable dimension” (Pocztowski 2001: 169).While considering the above definitions, one should however raise a

question about the meaning of the notions of “highest effectiveness”,“outstanding or good results” and the “appropriate level”. These notions,used in the reference literature, are related to the terminology of efficiency,effectiveness or proficiency, which might be understood as notions deter-mining the goals set by an organization for an employee to achieve(Drucker 1976, 1994; Karney 2000; Nogalski and Śniadecki 2001;Piotrowski 1996; Emerson 1926; Obuchowski 1997; Chmiel 2003;Schönpflug 1983;Hockey 1996; Brumbach 1988). It should be also addedthat due to the growing competitiveness between enterprises, organizationshave to observe, define and set goals in terms of effects, taking into accountthe human resources they currently administer, and those that they cur-rently need or will need in the future. Taking the above concepts intoconsideration, it is interesting to define individual competences in terms oftheir usefulness as an important source of the company’s success, as well asin terms of realizing the company’s strategy and achieving the company’sgoals (Rostkowski 2002; Strykowska 2000; Sajkiewicz 1999; Król 2002,2006; Whiddett and Hollyforde 2003; Armstrong 2004).We can therefore recognize, as Nosal does, that defining competence

itself is:

entirely consistent with our intuition (colloquial understanding) and withpsychological knowledge about mechanisms determining high competencesor their lack. Competences concern the psychological bases (mechanisms) ofacquisition, transfer and loss of competences as different mental disposi-tions. The important thing is whether one’s mental dispositions are corre-lated with the efficient performance on a given position, and which of theseplay the most important role (Nosal 1999: 90).


Moreover, the diversity found in defining competence might also resultfrom the way it is analyzed. For some authors, it is the competencecomponents that are significant, while for others, it is more general issuesthat gain importance. The common ground for almost all authors is theemployee’s skillful use of their competences. This concerns the way inwhich an employee uses their attributes to effectively perform the tasks inthe position they hold. The opportunities appearing on the market, whichplay an increasingly important role in the desire to succeed, determine theneed for constant adjustments of the employee’s competences.

1.2 Types of Competences

The experts of the subject consider classic the division of managerialcompetences proposed by Katz, who popularized in the 1960s the ideasdeveloped by the famous management theorist Henri Fayol (Martyniak1989). Two skills (technical and administrative) identified by Fayol havebeen supplemented by yet another researcher, Mann. He added to the listthe ability to deal with people (Katz and Kahn 1979: 485). Katz, on theother hand, divided managerial skills into technical, human relations (in-terpersonal) and conceptual (Table 1.1). This represents the most populardivision of managerial skills. Among technical skills, Katz includedknowledge of methods, techniques, procedures and the ability to useprofessional tools connected with a given domain. Human relations skillscomprise knowledge of human behaviors and relationships, the ability tounderstand feelings, attitudes and motivations, while conceptual skills areunderstood as general analytical skills, logical thinking, creativity, deduc-tive reasoning, predicting outcomes and changes (Katz 1974: 33–42).

Table 1.1 Competence according to management levels

Top executives Conceptual competence Interpersonalcompetence

Middle managersLowest levelmanagers

Technical (specialized)competence

Source Adapted from Katz (1974)


The level of a manager’s particular skills depends on the managementlevel. At lower levels, it is the technical skills that are the most significant;interpersonal skills gain more importance at the middle level, nonethe-less, they are crucial at every level; conceptual skills have the greatestimportance at increasingly higher management levels. Obviously, at thehighest level, it is important to have and to use all kinds of skills, yet themost crucial one is the ability to think globally, to coordinate and treat anorganization as a whole (Stoner et al. 1999: 33).Other authors of contemporary books on the subject also propose a

similar division, which is made with respect to the analysis of managerialskills; however, some publications use different terminology. The term“managerial skills” is replaced with “qualifications” and “managerialcompetences” in their universal meaning. Bearing in mind the divisionproposed by Katz, Listwan distinguished three types of competences:

• Technical competences—they consist in the ability to use professionalknowledge, methods or techniques in one’s work.

• Conceptual competences—they represent the ability to embrace abstractor general ideas and to use them in different situations, the ability toperceive an organization as a whole, as well as to evaluate and seize theopportunities.

• Interpersonal competences—these include the ability to understandpeople and to influence their behavior. These competences are com-posed of actions such as: communicating, leadership and motivating(Listwan 1995: 22–23).

Moreover, Listwan outlines the approach of the qualification model,which consists of knowledge, skills and personal traits. He indicates theneed for managers to have knowledge of economy, law, organization andtechniques, decision-making skills in the recognition process, and for-mulating and solving problems. The above characteristics are coupledwith human personality (features), with intellectual properties (intelli-gence, flexibility of thinking, innovativeness), with temperament (dy-namism, sense of initiative), with character (balance, responsibility, etc.)and with the motivational sphere (Listwan 1995: 23).


Guca, for example, distinguishes the technical, interdisciplinary andconceptual skills of a manager. Technical skills concern “particularoperational requirements, while interdisciplinary skills requirepsycho-sociological and economic knowledge, etc.”. Conceptual skills areunderstood as “skills of interpreting analyses and problem solving” (Guca1998: 48). Kossowska, on the other hand, divides skills into technical,social and conceptual. Technical skills represent “the ability to use tools,methods and technology of a given specialty”. Social skills constitute “theability to cooperate with other people, to understand them, to motivatepeople and groups”. Finally, by conceptual skills Kossowska understandsthe “mental ability to coordinate and integrate all the interests andactivities of an organization” (Kossowska 2001: 50).

1.3 Individual and OrganizationalCompetences

Król presents a division of competences in terms of the roles they play inan organization. The author features corporate competences as the keyones. They support the implementation of the organization’s missions,which are then particularized in the descriptions of the positions, wherethe competences specific for a given position are also included. Thus, shedistinguishes, among others: base competences (cognitive, social, per-sonal), executive competences (business, company-related, managerial),one-level competences (referring to positions with similar requirements)and multi-level competences (referring to the wide range of positionswith different requirements) (Król 2006: 82).The term “key competences” has also been used by Oleksyn.

According to him, they are important for an organization, a position, aswell as for an employee because they constitute the strengths of a givenorganization and lead to the implementation of tasks and responsibilitiesassigned to a given position. As for individual employees, their keycompetences define them by distinguishing, among others, their personaltraits (Oleksyn 2006: 20–21).Rostkowski and Zimowski, on the other hand, indicate two types of

competences relating to an organization—“common (generic competences)


and specific (narrow competences)” (Rostkowski and Zimowski 2000:29–30; Wodecka-Hyjek 2001: 83). These are specified as follows:

1. Common competences:

• Understanding of the company’s activities:

– knowledge of products and services,– knowledge of major competitors.

• Supporting teamwork:

– ability to solve complicated problems,– ability to make the right decision.

2. Specific competences:

• Knowledge of specific software.• Knowledge of the selected customers’ behavior.• Knowledge of selected regulations such as the Labor Code.

Taking into consideration the competences of an organization, it hasto be emphasized that they differ from individual competences, for theyinclude various parameters. Table 1.2 presents these differences.Even though the differences between individual and organizational

competences are considerable and cover different areas, one should notforget that they are interrelated due to the influence they have on each other.The organizational competences determine an organization’s actions, whichcannot, however, be realized without employees’ specific competences,which in turn can be developed according to the organization’s needs.Several specialists of the subject divide competences by combining

individual competences with organizational competences. They distin-guish, among others: professional, position-related, functional compe-tences and those connected with performance. Applying such anapproach, Armstrong divides them into general and specific, thresholdand performance, as well as differentiating competences. The division ofcompetences proposed by Armstrong is presented in Table 1.3.General and specific competences refer to all people working in a given

profession, regardless of the organization in which they work, to the


groups of related positions, occupational categories, e.g. scientists, spe-cialists, sellers, etc., as well as to particular functions, i.e. competencesassociated with roles. Threshold competences, on the other hand, arebasic competences, which are required for a given position, regardless ofthe results achieved by a given person. It is such a division that isinvolved in performance competences.The notion of threshold competence was already described in

Boyatzis’s theory. He considered as a threshold, that level of competencewhich allows an individual to perform a job in an acceptable manner.However, when an individual reaches a critical level, by achieving highercompetences, they might not be helpful after all in performing his or herjob. Threshold competences are those for which it is not possible to findcausality connecting them with perfect job performance (Lees andCordery 2002: 71).While defining competence in terms of the basic features, Boyatzis

concluded that competence does not have to be congenital like personal

Table 1.2 Differences between individual and organizational competences

Range Individualcompetences Organizational competencesArea Characteristic features of a

human beingOwned by an organization,they are developed byindividual employees

Interdependence Determined by the coursesof action in professionalactivity

Presented as a list ofresources and capabilitiesof an organization,expressed throughefficiency and businessresults

Identification Behavior analysis Market analysis andevaluation of businessprojects

Diagnosis Individual contribution totask implementation

Specify the market segmentsin which the company iscompetitive in the shortand long term

Connections Combination andcoordination ofknowledge, skills andindividual assets

Formed by the combinationand integration ofindividual competences

Source Own elaboration based on Levy-Leboyer (1997: 119)


traits because we can learn a competence just as we can acquire knowl-edge or skills, e.g. the ability to play a particular social role.In theory and practice, it is recommended to combine organizational and

individual competences. What underlies management is a conviction thatin conditions of turbulent changes in the company’s environment, there is agrowing need to invest more in competences, which is caused by therequirements regarding the organization’s and employees’ behavior. Suchan investment should be associated with long-term effects, since it isthey that allow implementation of the desired goals of each organization(survival and development). It is worth noticing that the above processextends over a long period due to its implementation in practice, whichis time-consuming. Apart from presenting the division of competences,Oleksyn demonstrates the above-mentioned interrelationships of particular

Table 1.3 Division of competences

General and specificcompetences

Threshold andperformancecompetences

Differentiatingcompetences

Relate to all the peoplewho work in a givenprofession regardlessof organization andfunction performed

Threshold competences—core competencesrequired for a givenposition, which does notmean division intothose who achievebetter or worse results

Define characteristics ofpeople achieving goodresults in contrast tothe characteristics ofpeople who are lesseffective in action

Relate to theorganization: allemployees or a groupof related positions,the nature of which issimilar but performedat different levels

Competences relating toaction—associated withthe division into thosewho achieve specificresults or not

Used to define the levelof possessing a givencompetence as positiveor negative indicators

Include occupationalcategories (managers,scientists, specialists,etc.)

Relate to particularfunctions(competencesassociated with roles)

Source Own elaboration based on Armstrong (2004: 245)


competence elements, indicating the importance of the coexistence of both.Thus, the author distinguishes (Oleksyn 2006: 19):

• Competences of an organization, which determine the character andthe results of the organization’s activity.

• Professional competences.• Position-related competences, which are associated with job

requirements.• Real competences possessed by individuals.• Competences that it is possible to acquire, which might be achieved by

different people. They determine the direction of professionaldevelopment.

Among the competences of an organization, Oleksyn includes:

• Management and directional competences—they involve the ability toadminister in an effective, efficient and ethical way. They relate tospecific people; thus, they can be considered personal competences;moreover, they represent a part of the company’s culture.

• Competences of the employees and associates—they include theaccumulated competence components of former and presentemployees, i.e. knowledge, skills, experience, education, psychophys-ical features, internal motivation, health condition, abilities, predis-positions, attitudes and behaviors, power to act; they also include thecomponents of all the people cooperating on the basis of outsourcing,as well as the external consultants, designers and experts.

• Knowledge and collective memory—databases, management systems,various information resources, i.e. all resources of the society in whicha given organization operates.

• Competences adopted from the outside—patents, licenses, utilitymodels, software and other intangible assets.

• Competences in the field of products and technologies—they are keycompetences for an organization and they relate to the goods andservices, their utility, prices, values and brands.

• Social competences relating to the cooperation with internal andexternal environment as well as to ethics—public relations, organization


and management ethical codes, pro-social culture of an organization,eco-developmental management, paying attention to social problems.

Oleksyn also indicates universal, specific and personal competences,some of which are common for an organization, managers and employees,while some are significantly different. Within the universal competencesOleksyn additionally distinguishes the following competences:

• Those universal for an organization—associated with the mission,vision and strategy, effective and efficient performance, the ability toself-finance, generate profits, cooperate, respect law and adopt goodmanners.

• Managers’ competences—connected with the implementation of themission, vision and strategy, with professional management skills,abilities to reconcile the interests of the whole organization with thepart administered in cooperation with the environment, the man-agement of entrusted resources, as well as in representing anorganization.

• Competences of all employees—effectiveness and efficiency of per-formance, independence, responsibility, honesty and loyalty, ability tocooperate.

• Competences of employees of the enterprise sector—business orien-tation, focus on the customer and their needs, creative thinking andinnovativeness, smooth communication skills, flexibility and theability to develop.

As for specific competences, Oleksyn distinguishes competencesspecific for an organization (they depend on the products and marketswith which a given organization functions, as well as on its clients) andfor managers and employees (they are strictly linked with specific com-petences of a given organization, e.g. pilots’ lack of acrophobia, and withprofessional competences, e.g. musicians’ ear for music). Finally, personalcompetences, according to Oleksyn, represent all the personal advantages(knowledge, skills, abilities) a person possesses, even though he or shemight not use them in his or her current professional work.


Furthermore, Oleksyn distinguishes professional and position-relatedcompetences. The author claims that the limit of their use in an orga-nization is not clear. He believes that professional competences takeshape within the framework of a social process, regardless of the orga-nization; it is only certain details that change in the process of work. Themedical profession provides a good example—doctors, regardless ofwhere they work, perform their profession in accordance with medical artand knowledge, as well as ethical principles. Position-related compe-tences, on the other hand, concern the character of a given position,regardless of who occupies it at a given time. Moreover, they aredetermined by an organization and they contain lists of competencesrequired for a given position (Oleksyn 2006: 21–35).

1.4 Competences Versus Effectivenessof Activity

When talking about effectiveness criteria, one has to distinguish betweenindividual, team and enterprise criteria. Among the most importantindividual criteria, Oleksyn includes:

• performing tasks according to standards established for a given position;• sales value (turnover);• the amount of work in terms of manufacturing given products, car-

rying out projects, conducting cases, considering applications, etc.;• the quality of work in terms of the quality of products, norms, labor

laws or technology, etc.;• labor costs in terms of maintaining the relationship between costs and

the result, etc.

Establishing individual effectiveness criteria requires an organization toclearly specify requirements and to inform employees about them. If theyare not established or if they are unclear, it may lead to an escalation inthe assessment of the behavioral criteria, which despite being veryimportant, are not of so great significance in the development or survivalof an organization in a turbulent and competitive market.


Another effectiveness criterion is the teamwork. Here we candistinguish:

• performing team tasks—the content of work, the quality of perfor-mance, implementation costs or due date;

• sales value (turnover) achieved by a team (department, shop, etc.);• costs of work—reducing the cost of a product, service, guarantee

repairs, etc.;• entering a business transaction or problem-solving by a team (e.g. of

negotiators), etc.;• increasing the organization’s profits thanks to the work of a whole

team.

The effectiveness criteria which are easiest to establish and use in arecriteria at the level of the organization. They include among others:

• financial results;• profits;• profitability index;• sales income.

The effectiveness criteria at the level of the organization, includingmetrics such as production profitability, lucrativeness, receivables turn-over ratio and accounts payable turnover ratio, profits per employee, etc.,are important for the evaluation of an entire enterprise and seniormanagement, but not so much for personal managers (Oleksyn 1995:44–47).The objectives of the work effectiveness evaluation on the level of the

organization include:

• motivating employees;• rewarding effective work;• strengthening the organization’s value system;• establishing strengths and weaknesses of an organization;• identifying training and development needs;• developing remedial actions in case of poor results.


The objectives on the level of employees concerning the evaluation ofeffectiveness include:

• determining one’s own effectiveness;• establishing training needs for the purposes of increasing one’s own

effectiveness;• determining such a level of self-effectiveness that results in increasing

remuneration by means of, e.g. a bonus, a prize, the possibility ofpromotion or reassignment (Widdett and Hollyforde 2003: 115–116).

In the process of work, the evaluation of its effectiveness is thereforeextremely important both for an organization and for employees or ateam of employees. Regardless of the form and objective of conductingthe evaluation of work effectiveness, it is important to observe the per-formance of a given person and to refer to the implementation of workobjectives by this person, to the desired behaviors’ models, to the real-ization of specific plans or to the competence model.The competence model might be a point of reference for a set of

behaviors important during the implementation of tasks for particularpositions or during the performance of particular tasks. It can also be aframe of reference concerning purposeful actions associated with gatheringinformation to assess work effectiveness. Therefore, it is crucial to establishwhich competences are required for a given position, and which determinehigh results from work (Widdett and Hollyforde 2003: 119–120).Moreover, it is interesting that, according to Drucker, effectiveness is

something that can and should be learned. Although it is measured bymeans of (among others) the evaluation of so-called “hard results”, theprocess of achieving them is influenced by many factors. Among them,some authors include: registering the duration of task implementation,eliminating redundant activities, conceptual analysis including consid-ering what is final, bringing out of ourselves and others what is best,taking care of one’s development through practice, rational action (whatshould be done and in what order), making effective decisions (togetherwith solicitude for ethics and conducting analyses) (Drucker 1994:181–189), leadership skills, motivating, influencing the subordinates or


team members, managing people, and communicating (Kałużny 1996:73–74). Other specialists distinguish different factors influencing man-agers’ effectiveness and efficiency, e.g. personality, experience and expec-tations, behavior, characteristics, task requirements, culture and rules ofconduct in an organization, behavior of colleagues (Tokarski 1998: 200)and knowledge, especially expert knowledge, which, according to somespecialists of the subject, is a predictor of the quality of job performance(also known as wisdom, pragmatic knowledge, crystallized intelligence,practical intelligence, intelligence as knowledge).

1.5 Competences at Work and in Action

The literature on the subject also presents a division of competences withrespect to their impact on the performed job and their meaning for it.Pocztowski (2001: 169, 2007: 118) divides competences into twocategories:

• threshold competences—this group is constituted by competenceswhich are essential for performing a given job, e.g. knowledge and skills;

• differentiating competences—they involve competences the possessionof which differentiates an effective employee from others, e.g. atti-tudes, motives, values.

This division distinguishes functional types of competences, whichmight be used to single out specific competences associated with per-forming a particular function by a manager. It is also possible to determinethe threshold level of a given competence sufficient for mediocre taskimplementation and distinctive in terms of work efficiency. Moreover, bymeans of treating competences integrally as a set of different traits,knowledge and skills, and at the same time by taking into account theirfunctional importance, one can shape in a desired direction particularcompetence components. What might prove helpful here is an interestingcomparison of competences to an iceberg proposed by L.M. Spencer andS.M. Spencer, where “knowledge and skill constitute its visible part, while


the hidden part comprises motive, trait and self-concept. The surfaceelements are relatively easy to shape through training. The invisible ele-ments of competence are more difficult to assess and develop” (Spencerand Spencer 1993: 11). It must also be added that the authors distinguishfive types of competences (1993: 9–11):

• motives—what we think about or what we want and what galvanizesus to action;

• traits—physical traits and the way of reacting to external stimuli,situations and information;

• self-concept—attitudes and values that guide our behavior or our ownidea of our image (e.g. belief in our own strengths and weaknesses);

• knowledge—information we have on given subjects;• skill—abilities to perform specific tasks.

The eternal question posed by several specialists of the subject con-cerns how individual competences can influence the achievement ofsuccess now and in the future, both by employees and managers as wellas, in consequence, by an organization (Nogalski and Śniadecki 2001;Listwan et al. 1996; Banajski 1997).In his discussion of effectiveness, Drucker emphasizes that being an

efficient manager requires developing five habits of mind (1994: 186):knowledge of the time devoted to perform tasks; knowledge of expectedresults; focusing on strengths and not on weaknesses; creating vision andits implementation, consistency in execution of plans; focusing on themain fields, in terms of which major achievements might yield out-standing results.Nowadays, many specialists recognize that managerial competences are

considered in the context of social psychology, that is to say they aretreated as complex mental dispositions, improved in the process of theiruse, and which require constant application. We lose them or acquirethem in a way directly or inversely proportional to how often we usethem. We learn new activities which, after getting into our stride,become our new (acquired) competences (Nosal 1999: 86–93). Thus, wecan talk about (Bukowski 2005; Hoffmann 1999):


• results of learning, i.e. the observable effects of completing certaintasks by employees;

• standards or quality of the performed job;• the traits of individuals recognized as competent.

As for the first point, it is the compliance of the level of knowledgewith the task’s difficulty that is important. Therefore, if we determine thecriteria for completing the task, then we can easily measure the effect ofthe realization of this task—whether the employee had the requiredknowledge or whether he or she appropriately used already possessedskills. The second factor represents a combination of organizational andindividual objectives. The standard refers, among others, to the notion ofthreshold and differentiating competences as well as to the feedback andthe unification of work rules in different parts of an organization. The lastpoint refers to hidden traits and characteristics of competent individuals,which manifest themselves in their way of performing their job(Bukowski 2005: 30).Chełpa highlights an interesting approach towards hidden knowledge

proposed by Wagner, according to which the hidden knowledge concernsmanagers’ self-knowledge and skills, and the knowledge of other peopleand tasks. Knowledge and skills of a person are associated withself-understanding, self-motivation and structuring behavior in workconditions. As for knowledge and skills directed at other people, they areconnected with understanding their motivation and affecting them asindividuals or as operating in a group. Implicit knowledge, concerningtask implementation, has a situational and time context referring to thecontent and results of the performed job as well as to the method andlength of the realization of the objectives (Wagner and Stemberg 1990).Thus, it becomes important to share one’s knowledge, not only explicitbut also implicit knowledge. That is because implicit knowledge, based onexperience, might prove helpful for a lot of employees during the exe-cution of complex tasks. Each type of knowledge—explicit or implicit—should therefore always be applied; otherwise, it will be subject to theprocess of aging and decline. That is why each individual must share theirknowledge (Perechuda 2005: 13–14). Sharing knowledge should betreated as a condition of the effectiveness of activities strategy, and


a manager should act as a knowledge integrator who coordinates thisknowledge (Karpowicz 2003: 123).Wawrzyniak presented a statement based on the research saying that

knowledge in an organization involves four aspects: “know what”, “knowwhy”, “know how” and “know who”. The last of these, “know who”,concerns knowledge about the people who know best how to act effec-tively. According to Wawrzyniak, it is knowledge “about experts whosecommitment makes it possible to use other knowledge resources”. To“know who” also refers to employees, for it should be clear who can dowhat, what potential and intellectual assets he or she possesses and whathis or her weaknesses are (Wawrzyniak 1999: 18).

1.6 Techniques of Competences Analysisand Research

The study of competences cannot be conducted in isolation from anorganization. According to many authors, the organizations, while con-ducting the study of competences, develop lists of competences includingthose associated with the organization’s strategy, tough competences(knowledge indispensable at work and skills) as well as soft competences(e.g. motivations and behaviors), which are aimed at making possible theeffective and flexible behaviors of employees in new and changing situ-ations (Borkowska 2006: 18).The competences themselves can be defined and described in different

ways. However, they should be defined in such a way that they areadapted to the requirements which are connected with the scope of theiruse (Juchnowicz and Rostkowski 2003: 238). In practice, competencesspecific for one enterprise might represent a set of competences forfurther division into different components for another enterprise in sucha way that, for example, the ability to work in a team might be perceivedas a focus on achieving goals with simultaneous ability to cooperate withothers (Rostkowski 2004: 161–188). It might mean that there is nogeneral definition (description) of a given competence for all enterprisesor positions. A detailed description of competences should include thecharacter of work in a given organization for which it is drawn up. The


same competence will be differently described for a trade company thanfor, let’s say, public administration. For example, the competence“communication” might be defined as “an ability to efficiently exchangeinformation and knowledge with others” or as “an ability to maintaingood relations with a client”.The result of the analysis of competences is a formation of a com-

petence model (profile). The competences profiles are a combination ofthe descriptions of competences for particular positions, groups, trainingprojects, etc. Thus, in the whole process of the competence analysis, themost important thing is to operationalize the competences, i.e. totranslate them into the indicators on behavioral levels (Filipowicz 2004:41–45).In order to accurately identify the desired competences, one has to

properly select the methods of gathering information and ordering it onthe competence list. The literature on the subject proposes differentmethods concerning the creation of competence or occupational profiles.Among the first to talk about competence profiling were McClelland(1973), Boyatzis (1982) and Spencer (1983).The process of analyzing competences involves the following stages:

defining the effectiveness criteria of work, choosing the employees whoachieve average and high results, i.e. selecting the sample illustrating theestablished criteria, gathering information, analyzing the tasks andfunctions, analyzing the characteristic traits of job performance, assessingspecific cases of behavior, analyzing data together with designing thecompetence model, testing the created model, studying its content, andpreparing the application of the competence model in the personnelselection process (Pocztowski 2007; Chmiel 2003; Spencer 1983;Hooghiemstra 1992).The overview of the literature shows that several methods and iden-

tification techniques are used in the competence analysis. Those mostoften applied include (Rostkowski 2004: 170–171):

• Examining the company’s documentation—studying the company’smission and vision as well as long-term strategy, which containinformation on the required competences. Additional informationmight also be found in documents concerning the metrics associated


with achieving specific results by individuals, e.g. sales volume ormeeting objectives.

• Survey—used when it is necessary to gather information from severalpeople as well as when there are difficulties in applying othermethods and the study must be conducted within a short period.Standardized surveys and questionnaires prepared for specific enter-prise are used. They provide information about skills and specificfeatures.

• Interviews—we distinguish group interviews (expert panel) fromindividual interviews—the distinction is made with respect to thenumber of people interviewed. Interviews can also be structured (e.g.based on job analysis) or unstructured (based on critical incidents).

• Direct observation and simulations—aimed at revealing those fea-tures currently possessed by employees that correlate most closely withgood or very good work results. We distinguish: observations at theworkplace (e.g. through “a fake client” ), self-observations (e.g.keeping a self-observation journal), and simulations in terms of, forexample, an Assessment (Development) Centre.

• Self-observation work journals—making notes of successive activi-ties by employees each time, for example, a change occurs. The notesare complemented by an observer, who, most commonly, is an out-sider (Levy-Leboyer 1997: 45).

Armstrong (2004: 252, 263) believes that the competence analysis isassociated with the functional analysis (establishing competences for agiven position) and the behavioral analysis (determining the dimensionsof behavior which influence the competences connected with the activityeffects). We distinguish a few methods of conducting the competenceanalysis. They include:

• Consulting the experts—using an expert to develop a list of compe-tences on the basis of his or her idea of “what matters”. This methodcarries the risk that the selected competences might be inadequate,immeasurable or unrealistic for an organization. For example, the list ofcompetences might be too general and it might not contain descriptionsof detailed competences.


• Structured interview—the list of competences is prepared by theexpert and through interviews with the employees. Firstly, the key orbasic results areas are determined; then, the analysis of behavioral traitswhich differentiate the tasks’ executors on various competence levels.Questions such as “which positive or negative behavioral indicatorsfavor achieving satisfying effects or hamper them?” are posed. Specificindicators are combined with the events illustrating effective behaviors.The most preferred procedure is applying the inductive method,which, starting from concrete behaviors, groups them into sets ofcompetences. Further work in the form of workshops, during whichpositive or negative behavioral indicators are analyzed, is generallypreferred.

• Workshops—for a group of people who have specialized knowledgeor work experience. The course of workshops is as follows:

• analyzing the organization’s key competences (determining what itshould be good at, if it wants to be successful);

• defining the areas of competences concerning work positions (keyactivities performed by people playing appropriate roles);

• analyzing competence structure by using examples of effective be-havior (that most probably will bring the desired results).

Real examples of particular behavior are presented. The group analyzesthe answers dividing them into several groups which again are defined bymeans of real examples of behaviors. The person who runs the workshopis responsible for the group’s work, and assists in determining the set ofcompetences dimensions illustrated by means of the examples based onbehavior.

• Functional analysis—a method applied in order to define the stan-dards based on the competences for the needs of NationalOccupational Classification. This method introduces differentiationbetween tasks, that is to say activities undertaken at work, and func-tions, which constitute the objectives of these activities. It starts withthe description of the key objective of a given profession, and then, thekey functions are determined. The final result of this analysis does notrepresent behavioral definitions of competence dimensions.


• Critical incident technique—obtaining data concerning efficient orless efficient behavior, which is associated with the real life examples.

• Analysis of the repertory grid technique—this is applied in order toestablish dimensions which differentiate good standards of action fromthe bad ones. It makes it possible to define the features indicating basicelements indispensable for efficient operation. The technique is based onKelly’s constructs, i.e. the way we perceive the world. The analysis helpspeople to express their views by referring to specific examples. It alsofacilitates determining behavioral features of competences required for aparticular position.

The question of “which method to choose?” arises. For those who donot have much time for applying time-consuming techniques like thecritical incident technique or the repertory grid technique, the bestmethod is the workshop. The functional analysis, on the other hand,might be applied when the basic goal is to develop and complement thestandards of the National Occupational Classification.

1.7 Competence Profiles and Evaluation

A competence profile is a set of professional competences characteristic ofa given position. We can distinguish a few types of competence profiles.Among others, they include:

• job requirements profile, which determines competences required for agiven position;

• employee’s competences profile, which is obtained through the anal-ysis of competences of a candidate or an employee who would assumethis position;

• professional aptitude profile, which is created as a result of comparingthe above profiles (Ludwiczyński 2006b: 168–170);

• desired competences profiles—they describe desired competenceswithin tasks and activities on a current or future position;

• current competences profiles—they describe current competences, i.e.such as they are at the moment of drawing up their description.


The basis of the competence profiles structure is constituted by thedescriptions of given competences, including the levels of their fulfill-ment. Competence profiles might describe an employee, a position, anorganizational role, a team of employees, a group of positions or a wholeorganization (Rostkowski 2004: 172–173).The next stage, after a proper identification, description and elabo-

ration of a competence profile, is the evaluation of the use of particularcompetences.The evaluation accompanies each management process in an organi-

zation. In the case of competences, we assess competences of employeesand of managers at each level. The objectives of such assessment might bevaried. Competences might be evaluated from the point of view ofvarious aspects (Oleksyn 2006: 232–239):

• selection of employees or forms of cooperation, manner of conductingrecruitment;

• amount of remuneration;• promotion or demotion;• employees’ development;• changes in the work content.

If we want to evaluate competences, we have to choose an appropriatemethod. Regardless of which competence we are going to measure, weshould strive to acquire as much information about an employee or agroup of employees as possible. We can distinguish a few basic methodsof measuring competence. They include (Filipowicz 2004: 66–96):

• Observation scales—they represent translating the description ofcompetences into behaviors. Observation scales are described includ-ing the employee’s level of competence acquisition. The competencedescription created in compliance with the previously discussed pro-cedure and written as an observation scale might be used by theemployee (for self-assessment), by superiors (they obtain hints as tohow to assess), or by consultants (for use in assessment centers). Theobservation scale refers to observable aspects of human functioning.This is made through, for example, writing down all the behaviors


characteristic of a given competence, and then attributing to themparticular levels of mastering corresponding to the characteristics ofthe adopted scale of competence measurement. The scales formed inthis way eliminate the need for interpretation. Thanks to applyingobservation scales, everyone can assess their own competences withoutoverrating.

• Competence tests—usually, these are easy to use; they can be papercopies or electronic versions. Electronic tests may be more convenientfor the person who fills them in and the results analysis is usually madeusing a computer. If the examined competences were preciselydefined, the results are relatively reliable. Generally, a test consists of afew questions describing given behaviors characteristic of a specificcompetence. Then, the scale of answers is determined (e.g. good, bad,yes, no, I have no opinion, hard to say).

• 360-degree feedback—this method involves the participation ofassociates, superiors, clients and subordinates. The criteria must becomprehensible and clear for all participants of the process; thus,developing the forms is not easy. The forms are created using theobservation scales. The 360-degree feedback is a very laborious andexpensive method because for the process of evaluation to proceedproperly, there is a necessity of conducting many professional exercisesdesigned for all its participants. As for the advantages, they include, forexample, the possibility of showing how a given employee uses theircompetences in different areas of functioning. It also allows applyingthe results to the employee’s functioning in a group, answering thequestion concerning the support of the group in competence devel-opment of the assessed person. Moreover, the method makes it pos-sible to look broadly at a given competence and the way it is used,thereby allowing the planning of the process of the respondent’sdevelopment.

• The assessment center—this is the most advanced method ofemployee competence and potential evaluation; however, it is also themost laborious one. The assessment of the level of mastering particularcompetences is nevertheless extremely accurate and consistent withreality. In this method, it is important to examine/assess each


competence twice. The accuracy and precision in its executiondepends mainly on the skills, knowledge and training of the assessor.It is preferable that they are psychologists.

• Participant observation—the use of this method is appropriate forthe evaluation of competences of people whose work is associated withperforming specific tasks, e.g. sales representatives. An employee isobserved during their work. After a few hours, an experienced observercan determine the level of the use of each examined competence.

• Surveys—by means of surveys, the respondents make a scaledassessment of a given competence, and they can give their opinions onthe level of its use. Usually, the surveys are used in the working processof those already hired. The behaviors are evaluated in terms of bothconvergence and divergence of particular determinants of a givencompetence. An overall assessment of competences is presented onlyafter summing up particular determinants included in the evaluationof a given competence. The respondents of surveys give scores whichsuggest how effectively specific behaviors or activities demonstrate theuse of competences and how often they can be observed (e.g. 5—Icannot say, 4—highly effectively, 3—effectively, 2—not very effec-tively, 1—ineffectively) (Whiddett and Hollyforde 2003: 124–130).

Summing up, the presented approaches towards defining and ana-lyzing competences obviously do not exhaust all the views encountered inthe literature. The approaches to defining competences are many andgenerally useful mainly for specific organizations, branches and positions.They are also defined quite arbitrarily in terms of their character orcontent, which is why the experts of the subject, while designing variousanalyses, do not attach much importance to their name, but ratherconcentrate precisely on the content, trying to choose such means andprocedures that guarantee achieving the desired goals.

Note

1. This is a document that defines the tasks of the individualorganizational units of a company.


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2Personal Selling in the Service Sectoras One Marketing Promotional Tool

2.1 The Essence of Promotion, Its Functionsand Goals

Building effective customer relationships is not an easy task, and it iscertainly a long-term process in which successful communication plays avery important role (sometimes even constituting the competitiveadvantage of the company). Promotion comprises all activities connectedwith communication techniques aimed at informing, influencing andpersuading customers to buy or use a particular product or service.Promotion involves various activities of the company aimed at ensuringthat customers are aware of the product’s existence as well as its positioningand persuading customers that the product is better than the competingone and reminding them why they may want to buy it. Promotion can alsobe understood as a set of means by which the company communicates withthe market, and provides information about its activities and products(including services). Its task is therefore to strengthen the impact of eachelement of the marketingmix, reflecting the unique features of the product(including quality), packaging, price, appearance, availability, etc.


35

Currently, the marketing communication mix consists of eight tools:advertising, sales promotion, direct marketing, public relations andpublicity, personal selling, events and experiences, online and socialmedia marketing, and mobile marketing (Kotler and Keller 2016).Clearly, the communication mix has to be blended according to thepurpose of communication and the objectives the company has set(McDonald and Wilson 2012). Of course, it is also related to many otherfactors such as the product itself and its life cycle, competition, marketsegmentation, marketing strategy and budget, target market, customerpreferences, etc.The process of developing effective communications consists of certain

stages, namely: identification of target audience, determination of objec-tives, designing communications, selecting channels, establishing budget,deciding on media mix, measuring results and managing integrated mar-keting communications (IMC). Identification of target audiences is acrucial starting point for promotional activities. Communication will differwith respect to the target audience, which is why this step is so important.The next phase is identification of objectives, in other words, it is necessaryto answer the following question: why are we undertaking these commu-nication activities; in order to achieve what? Once the answer is clear, it ispossible to move forward to the very design phase. Here, according toKotler and Keller (2016), there is a need to formulate message strategy(what to say), creative strategy (how to say it) and message source (whoshould say it). The next step is to establish communication channels andhere the choice is between personal and non-personal (mass) channels.Equally important is a proper integration of communication channels.Then, one of the most difficult decisions has to be made, namely estab-lishing budget. Decision-makers can choose to use a number of methodsto set the budget: the method of affordability (what we think is affordableand ignoring marketing as an investment tool), the percentage-of-salesmethod (justification for the actual percentage), the competitive-paritymethod (achieving share-of-voice parity with customers, but do they knowbetter?), or the objective-and-task method (estimating the cost based onobjectives and tasks which have to be performed in order to achieve thesegoals) (Kotler and Keller 2016). Once the budget is set, the next phaserelates to the selection of tools, in other words designing the


communication mix. It has to be appropriately adapted to the targetaudience, the product itself, reflect the communication objectives and fitthe budget. Once the communication campaign is over, there is a need tomeasure its results (impact), i.e. to assess awareness of the existence of theproduct, and the success of encouragement to trial and purchase. Finally,according to the American Marketing Association, managing the IMCprocess is “a planning process designed to assure that all brand contactsreceived by a customer or prospect for a product, service, or organization arerelevant to that person and consistent over time” in which media coordi-nation and the very implementation of the IMC play an important role.The core of promotion is marketing communication in order to:

• increase sales;• attract new customers;• encourage new customer loyalty;• encourage trial;• create awareness;• inform about the product and/or company;• remind potential customers;• reassure new customers;• change attitudes;• create an image;• position a product;• encourage brand switching;• support a distribution channel.

Promotion solves problems involved in reaching a group of potentialcustomers through product information, and creating a climate con-ducive to the transaction at the same time. In practice, it is possible todivide marketing communication tools into two basic categories (Rydel2001): image building and referring to emotions (mainly advertising andpublic relations) or activities affecting the direct response (sales promo-tion, some forms of direct marketing and personal selling). These toolsaffect buyers with different strength in different phases. The ones whichrefer to emotions influence customers more before and after purchase,

2 Personal Selling in the Service Sector … 37

while sales promotions and personal selling are most effective during thepurchase (Fig. 2.1).The use of promotional tools is also related to the stage of the product

life cycle. At launching and in early stages of the product life cycle, publicrelations and advertisement are used. In maturity and in the declinephase, it is useful to add sales promotion, while personal selling isappropriate regardless of the product life cycle; however, the objectivesand the approach to the client will be different.Taking into account the definitions of promotion and its two basic

kinds, it is possible to distinguish its functions’ structure: main function,basic functions and specific functions with basic functions being the coreones:

• informative—to inform;• stimulating (persuasive)—to shape behaviors and motivation;• competitive—to be effective through product attractiveness.

All these functions have one overriding task—communication leadingto a company’s permanent market presence. Of course, there are also

Before purchase During purchase After purchase

AdvertisingPublic relations

Personal sellingSales promotion

Fig. 2.1 Relative impact of promotion activities. Source Adapted from Langeardand Mayer (1975: 255)


special functions played by particular promotion tools. The informa-tional function aims at making the company, brand and product knownto the customer, thus it educates the customer and builds brand con-sciousness. Stimulation or persuasion is designed to evoke certain actionsof customers through revealing deficiencies and shaping their needs,presenting how these needs can be satisfied, modeling preferences andbuilding customer loyalty. The competitive function’s role is to establishthe non-price instruments of market rivalry (attractiveness of own pro-motional activities and the ability to disrupt the promotional campaignsof the competitor). In order to be able to fulfill its functions, promotionactivities have to fulfill certain criteria (Ace 2002). First, they must bephysically seen as well as noticed (attention must be given to them). Theyalso have to be interesting and relevant to the customer, and appealing(positive attitude towards the conveyed message and its object). Finally,promotion should make the customer undertake some action.The purpose of promotion is to increase sales by increasing the

number of consumers or increasing the amount of money left by oneconsumer in the shop. Before starting the promotional activities, it isimportant to fix the overall goal, target market, to decide whether toinclude the most essential information in advertising or to give only theprice of the product, to select the media and to set the budget to be spenton a promotional campaign. When selecting the media, the choice isbetween internal and external forms. Internal media include: shop dec-oration, product presentation, shop windows, labels, posters anddemonstrations. External media are for example: press, radio, television,cinema, Internet, brochures, catalogs and stadiums. When taking deci-sions, it is important to consider which audience we want to reach, whatare the costs, at what time and how often they will be applied. Thisdepends on the industry, range and financial resources which areavailable.One intention of promotional activities is setting the brand in the

mind of the buyer (a set of visible and invisible values that distinguish theproduct from others). Brand is a legal, economic and intellectual value ofthe company, as well as a part of the market value. Brand protects theproduct against competition, enhances customer loyalty, and symbolizesthe quality of the whole company. The customer is often convinced that


branded products are of high quality, which means they are purchasedmore eagerly.1 Promotion is also needed while launching a new product(to convey basic information about the product), gaining new customers,maintaining and increasing sales as well as the market share andobtaining competitive advantage (Sztucki 1999).

2.2 Personal Selling as a Promotional Tool

Personal selling is one of the basic sales and promotional tools, being apart of integrated (carefully coordinated) marketing communications(IMC), which are nowadays shifting away from mass marketing(Armstrong and Kotler 2013). The simplest definition is given byArmstrong and Kotler (2013: 385), which defines personal selling as“personal presentation by the firm’s sales force for the purpose of makingsales and building customer relationships”, which includes “sales pre-sentations, trade shows and incentive programs”. In other words, thisinstrument is about presenting the company’s offer directly to the cus-tomer during conversation in order to conclude the transaction. Suchcontact may take place at the initiative of the company or the client.Personal interaction may be realized on a face-to-face basis, by telephone,e-mail, video or online conference, or any other means (channels). It isusually of an informative character and its aim is to persuade the client tobuy, solve different types of problems or sustain the relationship. Themain features differentiating personal selling from other forms of pro-motional activities are personal confrontation, maintaining relationshipsand feedback (Kotler 1984).The role of personal selling as one promotional tool from the whole

marketing point of view is also quite significant. Due to the two-waycommunication model used in the personal selling process, it requiresdirect marketing information delivery and creates immediate feedback formarketing-mix activities as a whole, which constitutes its uniqueness(Fig. 2.2).The scope of personal selling in marketing is relatively large (compared

with traditional sales), as it covers not only retail sales, catering or service,but also other forms of direct interpersonal contacts. Since the buyer


contacts the seller face-to-face, it allows the production of a friendlyatmosphere, appropriate to convince customers about the advantages ofthe product and the benefits they can gain by buying it. Thus, personalselling must be characterized not only by grace and kindness, but alsoorganization and professionalism. In a way, it is used by various com-munication senders—vendors, politicians in the fight for voters, doctorsto patients, students during exams. It has particular application in themarket for intermediate goods and some services (e.g. bank and insur-ance sectors, but also tourism and education). Other indications for theuse of personal selling are when there is a small number of buyers andlarge geographical spread of buyers. This tool is applied when the pro-duct is complicated and learning its operation requires professional help,when the price of the product is not constant but negotiated, or in thecase of elective and rare purchase products. Recipients of personal sellingactivities can be very different, from brokers through clients of theindustrial market and professionals ending up with consumers.The main goals of personal selling are as follows: drawing attention to

the product, maintaining interest and arousing desire to possess andpurchase the product. It relates to the AIDA model2 illustrating the waythe customer reacts to promotional activities and what is the

Marketingstrategy

Distributionstrategy

Productstrategy

Price strategy

Promotionstrategy

Advertisingstrategy

Salespromotion

Publicrelations

Personalselling

Marketingresearch

Marketinginformation

Clients,consumers,audience

Fig. 2.2 The role of personal selling in the overall marketing process. Source Ownelaboration based on Blythe (2000: 260)


psychological basis for it. AIDA is the acronym standing for: attention,interest, desire and action.Personal selling is useful especially at the stage of shaping the buyer’s

preferences, convictions, desires and actions (purchase) due to theinteraction process present between the seller and the buyer allowing forquick adjustments (Armstrong and Kotler 2013). The active engagementof the buyer is greater in personal selling than in any other promotionaltool, which is achieved through a longer-term commitment.

Personal selling performs the following functions:

1. Providing information about the product, its properties, cost of use,conditions of purchase, etc.

2. Gathering information about the demand as well as the needs andpreferences of the customers.

3. Obtaining feedback.4. Winning over buyers for the company (submission of tenders, taking

orders, networking).5. Convincing customers and supporting sales through help, advice,

instructions, explanations, presentations and minimizing the risksassociated with the purchase, etc.

6. Creating the image of the company and a positive attitude in cus-tomers towards the enterprise (the style of interpersonal relations,service quality, etc.).

7. Organizing logistics activities—warehousing, transportation, etc.

Personal selling often constitutes a link between the company and thecustomer enhancing customer loyalty (which is often called salesperson-owned loyalty, which means that the customer is loyal to the companydue to and through the salesperson). Salespeople also represent thecompany to the customer as well as the other way around throughmanaging the relationship and introducing customers to the company.All these activities are of course linked to the coordination of marketingand sales, and management of the sales force, which can be defined as“planning, organizing, leading and controlling personal contact programsdesigned to achieve profitable customer relationships” (Armstrong andKotler 2013: 423). The process includes designing sales force strategy


and structure which is in turn linked with recruiting, selecting, training,compensating, supervising and evaluating salespeople.Personal selling has certain attributes compared to other promotional

tools. It is the only marketing communication tool which requires per-sonal contact making it a two-way communication model. Thus,personal selling is sometimes called “the interpersonal arm of the pro-motion mix” (Armstrong and Kotler 2013: 421). This in turn allows forfast feedback on the one hand and it is easy to measure the effectivenessof undertaken actions on the other. Finally, it results in a direct increasein sales. The obvious advantage of personal selling is high flexibility andeasy adaptation to different situations, two-way communication (feed-back), customization of the message as well as a positive atmosphere,suitable to convince the customer about the benefits of a product orservice (the impact of sales staff in bringing about a purchase). It alsogains high customer attention: unlike the other promotional tools, it haspersuasive impact and contains interactivity. The added value withrespect to personal selling is the possibility of reaching out to differentand less accessible market segments and potentially more powerful per-suasion. It also brings in specific knowledge—direct interaction ensuresbetter transmission of knowledge than mass advertising. In specificsituations, it gives the possibility of trial-use, while the consumer’scontact with the company (through the seller) should facilitate a decisionon purchase (Prymon 2010: 37–38). It also enables the client’s problemto be solved. Finally, “personal selling can also be persuasive in trans-lating positive attitudes into a concrete forward plan, through the con-sultative problem-solving process which is difficult to achieve by othermeans” (McDonald and Wilson 2012: 265). Salespeople can use theirdeep and specific knowledge about the product, but also about the cus-tomer to achieve their goal or help in tailoring the product specifically tothe customer’s needs. Moreover, they can also negotiate price, deliverydetails or special requirements for the customer. All the above showsthat personal selling can play an important strategic role in the com-munication process between the company and its customers(McDonald and Wilson 2012). However, personal selling is expensive, asit requires professional training for the sales personnel and the costs ofmaintaining and updating customer databases are high. It is also labor


intensive and can reach only a limited number of customers. Personalselling is also often perceived as unwanted acquisition, which in turn caninfluence negatively the company’s image and reputation, especiallywhen performed improperly.Summing up this part, it is worth reiterating Kotler’s (2013) six types

of activities carried out within personal selling: searching for new cus-tomers; communication with an existing or potential client to provideinformation about the product or service; sale—contact with the cus-tomer, which aims at closing the transaction; customer service beforebuying, during and after purchase; the collection of feedback, which islater used in the process of marketing planning; and deciding on allocationof available supplies of goods or resources to provide the services. It isimportant to remember that in personal selling continuous training andeffective methods of motivation play a very important role not only for theimplementation of ongoing quantitative sales targets, but also for mar-keting and strategic business. Vendors, to be able to successfully performall the above-mentioned tasks, apart from the training and motivation,also need to possess certain qualifications, skills, abilities and competences.The personal selling process is composed of seven steps (Fig. 2.3):

1. Prospecting and qualifying is the process of choosing the appropriate(i.e. those who are most likely to respond positively to a salesperson’sundertakings) potential customers and their relevant qualification.

2. Preapproach in which salespeople want to get to know as much aspossible about potential prospective customers (likes and dislikes,preferences, buying styles, etc.) in order to be able to prepare them-selves properly and make the next steps easier.

3. Approach, which is a meeting of the salesperson with the customer inwhich the most important part is the successful opening of the rela-tionship while the most important action undertaken by the sales-person is listening to the customer.

4. Presentation and demonstration is based on the salesperson telling the“value story”, i.e. showing the reasons and ways in which the productmay solve the customer’s problems and the most important element atthis stage is the idea of helping the customer by providing professional


and concrete information combined with good interpersonal com-munication skills.

5. Handling objections is a step in which the salesperson in the mostpositive way is trying to seek for objections, clarify them and over-come them turning them into possible opportunities (reasons to buy).

6. Closing is encouraging the customer to place an order and closing thesale.

7. Follow-up is a very important step in building further relationshipand loyalty; its aim is to check up on the customer’s satisfaction andclarify all the concerns the customer may have, which also serves thefuture facilitation of the repeat purchase.

In this respect, if performed properly, personal selling delivers a uniquecustomer value and builds a mutually valuable and long-term

Prospecting andqualifying

Preapproach Approach

Presentation anddemonstration

Handlingobjections

Closing

Follow-up

Building and maintaining profitable customer relationships

Fig. 2.3 Steps in the personal selling process. Source Own elaboration based onArmstrong and Kotler (2013: 434)


relationship. Thus, Armstrong and Kotler (2013: 437) rightly claim that“value setting requires listening to customers, understanding their needs,and carefully coordinating the whole company’s efforts to create lastingrelationships based on customer value”.The sales process through personal selling has changed profoundly

with the flow of time. The old approach assumed that most effort shouldbe put to the closing of the transaction following the presentation of theproduct while evoking the customer’s interest was marginalized. In thenew approach, it is the other way around, the greatest role being playedby gaining the customer’s trust and the identification of his or her needs(Fig. 2.4). This well illustrates the shift from the sales and productmarketing orientations towards market and customer orientations.This issue is also connected with the styles of sales approaches.

Nowadays, the most desired style is the one set for solving the customer’sproblems and is perceived to be most effective (focus on how the productmay solve these problems). Other styles may be either ineffective (cus-tomer orientation) or show too little interest in the customer (displayingthe product) or both (buy or leave). It is also dependent on customer’spreferences (types) and the product itself.

40%

30%

15%

15%

Creating confidence

Analysis of the customer's needs

Presentation of the product (offer)

Closing of the transaction

Fig. 2.4 Contemporary sales process elements importance. Source Own elabora-tion based on the literature analysis


2.3 Personal Selling: Special Applicationin Services

At the very beginning, it is worth asking: what is a service? Surprisingly, itis not easy to provide a definition which would distinguish properlybetween goods and services. Nevertheless, it is possible to claim thatservices relate to deeds, efforts and performances (Hoffman and Bateson1997). Marketing of services3 has become an issue of interest relativelylate—in the 1980s. This is very surprising as the services sector is thebasis of the gross domestic product (GDP) in most countries. Marketingof services does not differ substantially from the “classical” approach tothe marketing of goods. However, the service, being a specific product,requires a slightly different approach to certain elements, particularly themarketing mix (Antczak 2011). The classic four P’s of the marketing mix(product, price, promotion, place) are no longer sufficient to approachservices adequately. In time, this formula was improved, based on therecognition that it did not contain all the relevant elements from themarketing point of view. This is how the five P’s and later the seven P’sformula were established. The other elements of the “extended” mar-keting mix are: people, process and physical evidence. People deliverservices, they promote and sell products. Service quality is a key source ofcustomer retention and brand differentiation. Skills, manner and ap-pearance are important, especially in the marketing of services. Process ishow customers are handled from first to last point of contact. It dealswith: procedures, controls, accessibility, information flows, payments,booking, speed and timing of delivery, etc. Physical evidence is: form ofthe service, place of availability, facilities, ambience, layout, etc.It is also necessary to pay special attention to the specific characteristics

of services, namely: intangibility, heterogeneity, perishability, inseparability(of the service with the service provider as well as the service “creation”process with consumption) and temporary ownership (non-ownership).Intangibility of services relates to their non-material character; they cannotbe touched. We buy someone’s experience (e.g. advisory services), skills(maintenance services), knowledge (e.g. education services), impressions(e.g. entertainment services) or emotions (e.g. tourism services), which


become ours for a moment. Perishability is connected with the impossi-bility of storage: services frequently “exhaust” with the process of “pro-duction” which is also simultaneous to the process of consumption (e.g. ameal in a restaurant, legal advice or education). Variability (heterogeneity)is characterized by a desire to offer the same quality every time, whichsupports the process of building and strengthening the image and brand.Standardization in the case of services is difficult and may concern onlycertain areas, since the human factor has a huge impact on the wholeprocess of delivering services (services’ providers and recipients), and itincludes such aspects as humor, mood, reaction to environment, experi-ence, etc., which are rather immeasurable, difficult to predict or define.However, quality control (its level) in the case of services plays an extremelyimportant role. Inseparability is based on the close relationship between theservice itself and the service provider. It mainly depends on the serviceprovider how the service will be “executed” and delivered, decides the levelof the recipient’s satisfaction, as well as the quality of the product.Furthermore, services are usually “produced” and “consumed” at the sametime, which creates a kind of a bond between the service provider and therecipient causing their inseparability. Non-ownership (or temporaryownership) refers to the fact that in buying a service the customer does notbuy the right to own it (as in the case of goods). Typically, the customergains access only to the knowledge, skill or item that is lent him for a certaintime, when the service is performed.In the case of services, promotional mix functions in a slightly different

way to the case of goods. It is important to pay attention to physicalevidence elements and to turn the intangible—images—into more tan-gible elements—concretes (Hutt and Speh 1998). Undoubtedly, sellingservices uses the same tools, namely advertising, sales promotion, directmarketing, personal selling and public relations, but there is a growingimportance of other tools, such as sharing of experiences and organiza-tion of events, as well as the element of so-called word of mouth.A well-chosen event of a promotional nature combined with the sharingof experience is often one of the most effective ways to promote services,because the consumer is personally involved in some activity and canexperience it, feel a bit of what he could get (gain) by buying the service.


This is also why personal selling plays a special and specific role in theservices communication mix. Here, building a relationship based on trustis crucial, as the customer cannot see, feel or touch the service in advance.The advice, knowledge and professionalism of the salesperson are of evengreater value than with respect to goods.Personal selling consists of certain stages or phases (as discussed in the

previous section) only named differently here: attracting buyers, con-ducting a meeting/conversation, presentation of the product, convincingabout the reasons to purchase, transaction and maintaining the contact,which are supposed to translate into (result in) support in brandingefforts as well as building and enhancing customer loyalty (leading in theend also to recommendation according to the brand pyramid developedby Ronald Luskin (1997)). At each stage sellers need to present differentskills to be able to approach the potential customer effectively.In prospecting and qualifying (attracting buyers) the most important

features of personality, character and skills will be those which are linkedto the abilities of strategic thinking, entrepreneurship, analytical thinkingand experience. Similar competences will be needed in the preapproachphase, but they have to be accompanied by client orientation (definingcustomers’ needs). In the approach (conducting a meeting/conversation),presentation and demonstration, as well as handling objectives (per-suading about the reasons to purchase), entrepreneurship, client orien-tation and proper stress handling will be important with communicationskills, knowledge, professionalism, experience and proactiveness beingcrucial at this point. In closing the transaction most important isentrepreneurship (ability to control and to take risk), client orientation(cooperation, building relations and identification of needs and a sense ofthe right time), communication skills (persuasion, verbal and non-verbalelements) as well as experience, proper stress handling and strategicthinking. Finally, during the follow-up (maintaining the contact) theleading role will be played by strategic thinking, customer orientationand communication skills, sometimes followed by knowledge andexperience, as this stage is directed at reinforcement.Some marketing specialists claim that it is possible to find replace-

ments for all the functions performed by personal selling and salespeople(Table 2.1). Some of them can be truly effective, especially when


customers have less time and do not want to be so much engaged by theprocess of buying. Nevertheless, in case of more sensitive products, wherepersonal contact is crucial for making the final decision, replacement willsimply not work. There are specific products (e.g. Hi-Fi, automotivebranch or educational sector) for which nothing can replace personalselling at almost any step. It is the salesperson, his or her competences inapproaching the client, presenting the offer, professionalism and relia-bility in answering questions and solving customer’s problems, that playsthe key role. Also, the search for prospective customers seems to be moreeffective and efficient when done by salespeople than through the analysisof data (which is also very often collected using secondary sources whichare not necessarily the most relevant for a given company).Nowadays, marketing starts where customer needs appear (shift from

supply to demand focus). Thus, the customer constitutes both thebeginning and termination of the selling process. Especially with respectto services, we can observe a shift towards solutions-focused selling (alsocalled customer-focused selling or consultative selling: Arnett andBadrinarayanan (2005)). As Sharma et al. (2008) claim, “solutions arecustomized and integrated offerings of goods and services that are

Table 2.1 Personal selling functions and possibilities of their replacement

Function ReplacementSearch for potential clients Database or databases systemEvaluation of potentialcustomers

Data analysis, credit references, reaction todirect communication

Preparation to approach Development of effective client approachtechniques based on information from variousdatabases

Contact with the client Correspondence, advertisement on theInternet, direct response advertisement

Presentation of the offer Individualized correspondence, negotiationsthrough e-mail

Reaction to objections andanswering questions

Online information system

Transaction Online contract, electronic payment, electronicorder form

After purchase service Direct correspondence

Source Adapted from Blythe (2000: 261)


designed to solve a particular customer need/want or problem”. Thus,here the most important issue is that salespeople are about to offersolutions to customers (through offered goods or services). The process ofsolution selling involves the definition of the customer’s requirement, therequisition of the goods/service, the customized integration of goods andservices, goods/service deployment and any possible post-purchase sup-port (Sharma et al. 2008). It means that a lot of attention is paid topreparing a customized offer which meets the buyer’s needs, require-ments and preferences in order to satisfy them. More emphasis is alsoplaced on the two-way communication (Vargo and Lusch 2004) anddialogue with the customer (with a special focus on asking and answeringquestions and solving problems).There are some fundamental premises (Vargo and Lusch 2006: 44)

suggested as being relevant to personal selling with special attention paidto services: the application of specialized skills and knowledge is thefundamental unit of exchange; goods are distribution mechanisms forservice provision; knowledge is the fundamental source of competitiveadvantage; the customer is always a co-creator of value; a service-centeredview is customer oriented and relational. In this respect, it is worthnoticing that specialized skills and knowledge are becoming more andmore important to customers, so there is a need for companies to employhighly skilled people to perform personal selling effectively and effi-ciently. Salespeople, on the other hand, are becoming more informationagents than persuasion agents (shift in preferred skills).While considering services, relationship selling, being a sales tactic in

which the seller works on building relationships with people instead ofusing traditional sales tactics, is a very important approach, also used inpersonal selling. The aim is to be recognized in the marketplace, likedand perceived as reliable. This makes the environment in which sales arethe natural result. Relationship selling is based on authenticity, genuineconcern and honesty. It is not a sales technique that can be simulatedwithout possessing those basic qualities. The goal of relationship selling isto know a large group of prospective people and to possess as many aspossible repeat customers who are essential to the longevity of a firm intoday’s competing markets (Boundless Marketing 2015).


Relationship selling is effective when the following requirements aremet (Boundless Marketing 2015):

• You like the people you want to sell your service or good to.• Caring about their problems is essential. When you tell them how

your product will solve those problems, you are helping them, notselling to them.

• You have to be reliable and evoke trust, so first of all you have to fullybelieve in your good or service and be honest.

• You must be patient. Relationships take time to grow, and cannot berushed.

• You need to have a plan. Building the right relationships will nothappen by accident.

It also means that salespeople have to possess certain competences,slightly different from those which were important while performing thetraditional personal selling activities.

2.4 Usefulness of Personal Sellingin Promoting Higher Education Services

Personal selling is a very important element of the promotional mix withrespect to educational services. People who have direct contact withconsumers create imaginary ideas about the product and have often asignificant impact on buyers through their appearance, speech, manners,charisma or the ability to establish relations. Salespeople have a signifi-cant role to play (Pietraszek 2014). It is their level of knowledge, mannersand professionalism in the approach to solve the customer’s problemwhich determines whether the customer establishes a bond with thebrand (cooperation or recommendation). In practice, this means thenecessity of careful selection of salespeople and the range of their train-ing. With respect to higher education services, these people are eitherexternal agents knowing the company’s offer or representatives of theuniversity or institution (specially trained academic staff and/or


admission officers with marketing background). Thus, the importance ofhuman factors in making contacts cannot be overestimated.A significant difficulty in promoting educational units is to convince

consumers that they will lead in the future to personal benefits—in thiscase intellectual benefits, resulting later in further development and therealization of aspirations and goals at the educational unit. This is allassociated with honesty and moral responsibility of those people who areinvolved in marketing activities in educational institutions. Simpleattributes characteristic for the given educational unit are identified mostfrequently (the equipment, professionalism of the academic staff, inter-national cooperation, position in rankings, well-known alumni, recog-nition on the labor market, etc.). The most essential characteristics of theactual product such acquired knowledge, skills, competences and atti-tudes are not taken into consideration as they are perceived to benon-marketing ones. Nevertheless, the very educational offer is more andmore often a subject of detailed questions from the future students whilethey have contact with agents or university representatives. With respectto educational services, the creation of a false image is hard to expose in ashort time, which is why the reliability and professionalism of salespeopledealing with education are so important (Antczak 2011).As was already mentioned, the educational product is a very specific

one. Firstly, it is probably the most intangible service. Secondly, itsstructure with respect to higher (academic) education (Fig. 2.5) consistsof the core product, actual product (basic and expected product) andaugmented product together with the potential one (Kotler and Keller2016). Level one is the most basic level and simply consists of whatpeople set out to buy and what benefits the producer would like theirproduct to offer to the buyers. Levels two and three are about translatingthe list of core product benefits into a product that people will buy.There may be competitor products offering the same benefits, so the aimat this stage is to design a product that will persuade people to purchaseyour product (competitive advantage). The fourth and fifth levels involveidentifying the additional non-tangible benefits that the product can offerand prospects for future development of the product. These are veryimportant levels which often distinguish the product from that ofcompetitors and make the customer decide about the purchase. As


presented in Fig. 2.5, the augmented product is the most complex onewith respect to the educational product, which makes it even moreimportant. This should not be surprising, as the future expectations andnon-tangible elements of educational products are the crucial ones.Personal selling in the educational sector is most often realized by

presentation of the offer to potential clients by the unit’s representativesor agents, participation in educational fairs or visits in lower level schools(Krzyżak 2000). In the case of universities while recruiting students fromabroad the process involves either visiting high schools or colleges.Presentation of the offer may also relate to the sample of the educationalproduct in the form of a lecture, case study, workshop, simulation game,etc. (Hall 2007) which are aimed at encouragement and evoking the“wow!” reaction (positive emotions and impressions) leading towardsstimulating a desire to be a part of the project. Taking all the above into

Core product

Actual product

Augmentedproductknowledge

competencesskills curricula

content of classes

value of education

way of delivering knowledge

social,cultural activities,programs

professional career prospects after graduation

additional classes, seminars, scientific clubs

position in rankings

administration services

location and physical conditions

online recruitment

grading

prestige

equipment

internationalization

study profiles

academic staff

certifications

Fig. 2.5 The structure (levels) of the educational product at university level.Source Own elaboration


consideration, the skills, competences and knowledge of salespeople withrespect to personal selling of educational services are crucial and cannotbe overestimated.

Notes

1. This section is partly based on Antczak-Barzan and Antczak (2014: 40–43).2. Other, more recent models include: AIDAS (AIDA plus satisfaction);

AIDCAS (AIDAS and added “c” standing for confidence); DAGMAR(unawareness, awareness, comprehension, conviction, action); hierarchyof effects (awareness, knowledge, liking, preference, purchase);AISDALSLove (with new elements being: search, like, share and love);CAB (cognition, affect, behavior); TIREA (thought, interest, risk,engagement, action); REAN (reach, engage, activate, nurture); andNAITDASE (need, attention, interest, trust, desire, action, satisfaction,evaluation).

3. The discussion of the specificity of services is based on Antczak-Barzanand Antczak (2014: 21–22 and 85–87).

ReferencesAce, C. (2002). Effective promotional planning for e-business: A practical guide to

planning and implementing a promotional plan that works. Oxford:Butterworth-Heinemann.

Antczak, B. (2011). Usługi edukacyjne – rynek taki sam jak inne? Józefów:WSGE.

Antczak-Barzan, A., & Antczak, B. (2014). Building effective customer relation-ships: Marketing and public relations activities and tools. Józefów: WydawnictwoWyższej Szkoły Gospodarki Euroregionalnej.

Armstrong,G.,&Kotler, P. (2013).Marketing: An introduction.Harlow: Pearson.Arnett, D. B. & Badrinarayanan, V. (2005). Enhancing customer-needs-driven

CRM strategies: Core selling teams, knowledge management competence,and relationship marketing competence. Journal of Personal Selling & SalesManagement, 25(4).

Blythe, J. (2000). Marketing communications. Harlow: Pearson EducationLimited.

Hall, H. (2007). Marketing w szkolnictwie. Łódź: Wolters Kluwer.


Hoffman, K. D., & Bateson, J. (1997). Essentials of services marketing. Orlando,FL: Dryden Press.

Hutt, M., & Speh, T. (1998). Business marketing management: A strategic view ofindustrial and organizational markets. Orlando, FL: Dryden Press.

Kotler, P. (1984). Marketing management analysis, planning and control.London: Prentice-Hall.

Kotler, P., & Armstrong, G. (2014). Principles of marketing. Harlow: Pearson.Kotler, P., & Keller, K. (2016). Marketing management. Harlow: Pearson.Kotler, P., & Kotler, M. (2013). Market Your Way to Growth: Eight Ways to

Win. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.Krzyżak, M. (2000). Działanie promocyjne szkół i uczelni. Marketing w

Praktyce, 12.Langeard, E., & Mayer, J. (1975). Principes et pratique du marketing. Paris:

PUF.Luskin, R. (1997). Personality is key to brand loyalty. Business Advice.McDonald, M., & Wilson, H. (2012). Marketing plans: How to prepare them,

how to use them. Chichester: John Wiley.Pietraszek, M. (2014). Promocja. Reklama i public relations w małej firmie.

Gliwice: Helion.Prymon, M. (2010). Kategoria wartości w procesach i narzędziach komunikacji

marketingowej. In B. Pilarczyk & Z. Waśkowski (Ed.), Komunikacjarynkowa. Ewolucja, wyzwania, szanse. Poznań: Wydawnictwo UniwersytetuEkonomicznego.

Relationship selling: Boundless marketing. Boundless. Retrieved July 21, 2015,from https://www.boundless.com/marketing/textbooks/boundless-marketing-textbook/personal-selling-and-sales-promotion-14/types-of-selling-93/relationship-selling-463-886/

Rydel, M. (Ed.). (2001). Komunikacja marketingowa. Gdańsk: OśrodekDoradztwa i Doskonalenia Kadr.

Sharma, A., Iyer G., & Evanschitzky, H. (2008). Personal selling ofhigh-technology products: The solution-selling imperative. Journal ofRelationship Marketing, 7(3).

Sztucki, T. (1999). Promocja - sztuka pozyskiwania nabywców. Warszawa:Agencja Wydawnicza Placet.

Vargo, S. L., & Lusch, R. F. (2004). Evolving to a new dominant logic formarketing. Journal of Marketing, 68(1).

Vargo, S. L., & Lusch, R. F. (2006). The service-dominant logic for marketing:Dialogue, debate and directions. Armonk, NY: Sharpe.


https://www.boundless.com/marketing/textbooks/boundless-marketing-textbook/personal-selling-and-sales-promotion-14/types-of-selling-93/relationship-selling-463-886/



3Competences in International

Personal Selling

3.1 Specificity of InternationalPersonal Selling

At the outset, it is necessary to reiterate the power of globalization.Global trade has increased significantly in the past decades. Globalizationhas an important impact on almost every company and these companiesin turn are forced to compete in the global marketplace. To do that,companies have to apply international marketing, i.e. the application ofmarketing principles across national boundaries (Antczak-Barzan andAntczak 2014: 101). Hence, the main difference between domestic andinternational marketing is that marketing activities take place in morethan one country. It is also more complicated, since there are at least twolevels of uncertainty instead of one. Uncertainty is created by theuncontrollable elements of all business environments, but each foreigncountry in which a company operates adds its own unique set ofuncontrollables. Competition, legal restraints, government controls,weather, indecisive consumers, and any number of other uncontrollableelements can, and frequently do, affect the profitable outcome of good,


57

sound marketing plans (Antczak-Barzan and Antczak 2014: 102).Marketers cannot control or influence these factors, but instead mustadjust or adapt to them in a manner consistent with a successful out-come. Marketing objectives are achieved through shaping the control-lable elements of marketing decisions (product, price, promotion anddistribution) within the framework of the uncontrollable elements of themarketplace (competition, politics, laws, consumer behavior, level oftechnology, and distribution). Hence, international environmental forcesinclude: marketing controllables (the successful manager constructs amarketing program designed for optimal adjustment to the uncertaintyof the business climate); domestic uncontrollables (this includeshome-country elements that can have a direct effect on the success of aforeign venture: political forces, legal structure, and economic climate);foreign uncontrollables (the problem of uncertainty is further compli-cated by a frequently imposed “alien status” that increases the difficultyof properly assessing and forecasting the dynamic international businessclimate) (Antczak-Barzan and Antczak 2014: 103).Promotion activities, constituting one of the basic strategies of the

marketing mix, at the international market level do not differ withrespect to their aim from domestic market activities. Thus, their objec-tives are building product and/or brand awareness, encouraging trial,strengthening positive attitudes towards the product and/or the company(brand), increasing sales and building customer loyalty. Marketingcommunication encounters many restraints and potential problems whiledealing with global markets:

• language constraints;• cultural obstacles (most importantly: gender, beliefs, morality, values

and religion issues, attitude towards directness/indirectness, explicit-ness, humor, level of sophistication, content of the information, levelof formality and differences between popular and traditional cultures,symbolism, aesthetics, design);

• attitude of local societies towards marketing communication, espe-cially advertisements (including advertising regulations);

• infrastructure (access to the media, including the Internet, otherfacilities like billboards, etc.);


• business practices (important in personal selling and direct marketing,but also partly in public relations);

• legal issues (sometimes also political issues).

Personal selling, as a tool of promotion and a method of selling, iscrucial for companies directly involved in the international market,especially those involved in the service sector. Personal selling can also bean effective method to overcome certain marketing barriers. It may helpto explain the product, its advantages and to build a stronger relationshipwith the customer from culturally distant areas. Thus, companies mayeither decide to employ intermediaries or agents or act through their ownpersonnel. This decision is an effect of the function of the company’sinvolvement in the market. The degree to which the company decides toenter the market (presence, mode of entry, etc.) will determine the size ofthe personal sellers team as well as its composition (company represen-tatives, agents, intermediaries). Native agents (intermediaries) are used bytrading companies or those dealing with exports. Relying on interme-diaries in the international market is efficient either if there is no need ofcompany representatives’ involvement (the product does not requirespecific knowledge) or if the market is very sensitive with respect tocultural issues. Companies may decide to hire three types of people aspersonal sellers: employees from the home country, from a third countryor locals. In the first case, home country employees become a part of aninternational company. This solution is expensive, may be difficult forthe employee (adaptation issues, cultural barriers, lack of connections)and for the company (hard to find people willing to go). It is used in caseof products whose selling success depends on and requires passing on tothe customers very specialized and detailed information. Third-countryemployees have the advantage of being more “multicultural” or at leastpartially adapted to different cultures; they can often speak many lan-guages and they have experience and knowledge about habits, businesspractices and modes of communication in different business environ-ments. They adapt more easily and are less expensive, but do not possessas much product knowledge as home country specialists. Local sellersrecruited from the host country have the best knowledge of the businessenvironment, practices as well as culture (high cultural sensitivity and


awareness), but are less well educated with respect to product knowledgeand as in the case of agents, they can work for a few companies, so theywill also sell products of competitors. Therefore, appropriate training andmotivation tools are necessary in the process of local representatives’employment. Managing personal sellers who are recruited from differentbackgrounds and have different approaches can be also a challenge.Interaction with the customer is the easier, the less culturally distant

the two persons are. Thus, it is crucial to be acquainted with manyaspects of business and cultural etiquette (e.g. eye-to-eye contact—maybe perceived as aggressive or the lack of such contact may be perceived asdishonesty; a personal relationship before business negotiation in somecultures is required whereas in others—it is not very well regarded, etc.).All aspects of national and cultural characteristics have to be taken intoconsideration (individualism versus collectivism, distance, attitude totime and manners, elements of femininity and masculinity, etc.) as wellas organizational contexts. These can be either low context when culturesuse formal, direct communication that is verbally expressed, or highcontext when cultures use extensive non-verbal information to conveythe message. All the above implies that cultural sensitivity is crucial forsuccessful personal selling, which is why companies often rely on localrepresentatives or agents, equipping them with proper product knowl-edge. However, in case of complicated services (e.g. education), thisprocess is very long-term and not always effective.The most critical challenges in the global selling process are: the

impact of culture on the salesperson and the customer, the influence ofglobal sales environment on business practices and etiquette as well as theeffect of technology (differences in technological advancement) on thesales process globally (Johnston and Marshall 2016). Taking into con-sideration cultural differences, norms, beliefs, values, moral standards,etc., standardization is not the best approach, especially in the personalselling process. Language, not as a conveyor of the message (communi-cation) itself, but as a broader provider of the cultural context, also playsa very important role. Understanding properly the meaning of the words,their context and differences in their perception may affect the final salesresult (successful or not). Therefore, language plays a crucial role ininternational relationship selling—the necessity of finding a mutually


understood context for the meaning of words which would be set upculturally for both—the seller and the customer.

3.2 Cross-Cultural Personal Selling

Aswasmentioned above, when dealingwith the international environmentin business, one has to take into consideration cultural differences, espe-cially the following components of culture: communication, religion,education, aesthetics, social organizations, technology, time and values andnorms (Honeycutt et al. 2003). With respect to communication, it iscrucial to pay attention to the very manner of speaking (e.g. speakingwithout raising the voice and slower than usual if the conversation isconducted in a non-native language for the customer unless the client isfluent in the language, but without exaggeration so that the customer doesnot feel underestimated), and the choice of words and phrases (avoidingjargon, slang, idioms, proverbs or sophisticated terms). Equally importantis non-verbal communication, which can work in our favor or against usand it is often this element of communication which plays the key role anddetermines the overall success. It is closely connected with building trustand confidence and establishing the overall relationship, which has to beperformed with patience and caution. Another issue which is important inbuilding relationships with the customer, thus also significant in the per-sonal selling process, is approach to time. Time, as perceived by mostWestern cultures, is seen as a tangible commodity (Usunier and Lee 2009),which means it is economized (the approach of “time is money”).However, time is perceived differently in various other parts of the world. Itis not so precisely measured and haste or time-pushing can be offensive.These and other differences of time perceptions are presented in Table 3.1.The final element of Table 3.1 is also related to the degree the culture

is traditional or not. The more traditional the society is, the more theimpact history will have on culture, habits and values.Following the model proposed by Macquin et al. (2000), there are five

categories of cultural variables influencing all kinds of business negotia-tions and building relationships processes, thus also personal selling.These are antecedent (existing before the relationship starts), concurrent


Table 3.1 Time-related cultural differences

Basic problem/Culturalorientation

Cross-cultural varieties

Is time money?Economization of time Time is perceived as a scarce resource or,

conversely, as plentiful and indefinitelyavailable

How to schedule tasks?Monochronism Only one task is undertaken at any (preset)

time, following a preset schedule. An“agenda society”

versusPolychronism Multiple tasks undertaken simultaneously.

Appointment times, if set, are flexible. Timeis less important than the context of thesituation

Is time a continuous line?Linearity (L) versus cyclicity(C) of time

Time is perceived as linear, separate blocks (L),or with an emphasis on the daily, yearly andseasonal cycles (C)

How should we emphasizepast, present and future?

Temporal orientations:– towards the past The past is considered as important. Resources

must be spent on teaching history andbuilding museums. Oral and writtentraditions are important. The basicassumption is that roots are implanted in thepast and no plant can survive without itsroots

– towards the present The “here and now” approach. Although notalways enjoyable, the present must beaccepted for what it is: the only true realitywe live in

– towards the future Easily and precisely envisaged and plannedfuture. Project oriented, prepared for thelong-term, appreciate the achievements ofscience, etc. The future is inevitably “biggerand better”

Source Adapted from Usunier and Lee (2009: 19)


(parallel to the negotiation process, being process-specific interactionsand conditions based elements) and consequent variables (outcomes ofthe relationship built), but also the influence of some culturally basedcharacteristics (uncertainty avoidance, power distance, collectivism/individualism, masculinism/feminism and time orientation) on some ofthe antecedent and concurrent variables (Macquin et al. 2000). Research(theoretical and empirical) conducted by Macquin and colleagues revealsseveral interdependencies with respect to the positive or negative impactof culture on building relationships, which are illustrated in Table 3.2.The whole process of the variables’ interactions and interconnections

(dependencies and influences) is presented in Fig. 3.1.Macquin et al. (2000) put forward some hypotheses related to the

influence of cultural differences on the personal seller’s behavior towardsthe customer and their mutual relations:

1. At the initiation stage of a business relationship, a salesperson will be more(less) likely perceived as a partner of the customer when individualism ishigh (low).

2. A salesperson will be more (less) likely to favor riskier business agreementswhen cultural uncertainty avoidance is low (high).

3. The salesperson’s contact is higher (lower) in the customer’s firm hierarchywhen uncertainty avoidance is low (high).

4. The stronger (weaker) the cultural short-term orientation, the more asalesperson will choose short-term (long-term) selling strategies.

5. A salesperson will favor (non-) business matters when starting the sellingprocess in short-term (long-term) orientation cultures.

6. A salesperson will be more (less) likely perceived as a partner of thecustomer in a “feminine” ( “masculine”) culture.

7. The salesperson contact is higher (lower) in the customer’s firm hierarchywhen cultural power distance is low (high).

8. A salesperson will be more likely to include more (less) people in thedecision-making process when power distance is low (high).

9. A salesperson will be more (less) likely perceived as a partner of thecustomer when power distance is low (high).


Table 3.2 Influence of culture on face-to-face negotiations

Variables Cultural variables

PDI IND MAS UAI LTO OC HCAntecedentRespect for buyer +KPerceived partnership +RConcurrentEquality strategy −T** −T**Problem-solving approach −G** +T** +M**

−KSoft-sell approach −KSelf-interest schema +T** +T**

+B**Hierarchy schema +B**Strategy riskiness −RStrategy LTO +RNegotiators’ attractiveness G*Willingness to trust −KOpening length +K −R +RLevel of decision-making +H −R

−RNeed for stable relationships −H

−LConfrontational relationships +H +H

+S*Structured negotiation +H

+LPerseverance +HProbing lengthNegotiation speed −LClosing speed +RNumber of people contacted −RConsequentNegotiators’ profits +G**Partners’ satisfaction −G

B: Brett and Ocumura (1998); G: Graham (1994); H: Hofstede and Usunier (1996); K:Kale and Barnes (1992); L: Lewicki (1997); M: Mintu-Wimsatt and Gassenheimer(2000); R: Macquin et al. (2000); S: Tse (1994); T: Tinsley and Pillutla (1998)PDI: power distance; IND: individualism; MAS: masculinity; UAI: uncertaintyavoidance; LTO: long-term orientation; OC: openness to change; HC: high context**: p < 0.05; *: p < 0.10Source Adapted from Macquin et al. (2000: 73)


This research shows that very important elements of cultural diversity,such as attitude towards individualism, uncertainty avoidance, time,masculinity and power distance have substantial influence on the qualityof relations built between the salesperson and the customer. It clearlyindicates that customers from different cultures will require diversifiedapproaches, which in turn implies that the salesperson needs to possessdistinctive features, skills and competences to be successful and effective.

3.3 International PersonalSelling: Necessary Competences

In the current competitive market, companies oriented at commercialsuccess focus on such sales strategy which is associated with the forma-tion of distinctive activities (competitive advantage). In the past,

CULTUREuncertainty avoidance

power distancecollectivism / individualism

masculinism / feminismtime orientation

CONDITIONSsettingtiming

PROCESSlevel of decision making

number of people connected

opening lengthprobing length

strategy riskinessstrategy / long term

orientation

GOALScommunality

specificity

BACKGROUND FACTORS

perceived partnership

ConsequentConcurrentAntecedent

OUTCOMESclarity

evaluation criteriacontinuity

Fig. 3.1 Cultural model of personal selling interactions. Source Adapted fromMacquin et al. (2000: 76)


a talented seller was a person who could inform about the product and itsvalues and benefits in a clear and transparent manner. Currently, there isa need for people who not only inform, but also create added value,helping the customer to save time and money. Vendors, especially per-sonal sellers, are moving away from incitement and introduce the strategyof advising or solving problems. There are a lot of theories concerningsales strategies and they mainly focus on the code of conduct for salesactivity and behavior (Table 3.3).All the activities presented in Table 3.3 are versatile and include rules

for dealing with any kind of sales. However, in personal selling, a majorrole in a company’s communication with the market is played by theseller who also provides information about the products. It is the vendorwho delivers expert advice on the benefits of the products and their use.Thanks to the agent, the company obtains current information ondemand, fashion trends, the wealth of customers in a given region orcompetition and its products. Finally, the personal seller is an ambas-sador of the company represented. Given the above, it is very importantto properly prepare the seller and develop sales strategy so that its resultsmay be as effective as possible. Each stage of the sales process shouldtherefore be thoroughly comprehended and rehearsed during workshops.The above-mentioned stages of an effective sales process are universal

and can be applied to any form of sales. Garfield (1986) identified thequalities of sellers achieving the best results in sales. These are: the abilityto take risk, having a strong sense of mission, ability to solve problems,taking care of the client, and skillful planning of business meetings.McMurry (1968) on the other hand, claimed that the ideal personalityfor the position of vendor is a person who has an irrepressible need togenerate and preserve influence on others. Direct contact with the cus-tomer requires the seller to act skillfully and professionally. Active andcreative participation of the seller in the client’s decision-making processmay be a decisive moment in balancing of arguments, guiding the pro-cess from the very beginning, thereby increasing the chances of finalizingthe transaction (Marciniak 1997).There were many attempts to identify concrete features and skills

important for succeeding in sales. One such attempt was undertaken by


Table 3.3 Sales strategy

Sales process stages DescriptionPlanning Determining what needs to be done, mode of

realization and time required (the more precise andcomprehensible, the better). Defining the objectiveand preferred outcome with the ways to reach both

Organization Collecting all necessary measures to achieve theobjective or a particular task

Interpersonalcommunication

There are a lot of tactics making communicationmore effective: pauses before answers tocustomer’s questions, asking clarifying questions,using feedback and appropriate timing andintonation

Motivation It is important to motivate sellers, to raise theirself-esteem, which stimulates them to look for newopportunities. Positive attitude and support forothers are also very important

Sharing competences Learning through sharing experience, giving adviceand stimulating to search for solutions and showinitiative

Training Training should concern primarily methods ofworking with the customer, establishing friendlyand reliable relationships, recognizing customer’sneeds and requirements, coping with competitionand methods of communication

Effective team It is crucial for the team to know the leader, the goaland the strategy in order to achieve success. Theteam should focus on improvement and each of theteam members should have a prescribed roleaccording to the personality, skills andpredispositions to properly use the potential andreach the effect of synergy

Direct supervision Supervision and evaluation of all activitiesStrategy of workingwith the client

Identification of the most desired customer and theways to win this client—recognizing the needs andpreparing the offer accordingly

Time organization Formulation of clear objectives and plans,establishing priorities and setting balance betweenthe necessary and the urgent

Thoughts control Creating a clear vision of the goals and activities;taking risk, but also responsibility for own decisionsand actions; coping with failures. Activities shouldbe cohesive, real and full of engagement of thewhole team

Source Own elaboration based on: Tracy and Scheelen (2002)


Altman (2003) who created an open catalogue of successful vendor’sattitudes:

1. Only a seller who is delighted with his offer and one hundred percentconvinced to it, manages to convince the customer.

2. Only a trader who can arouse fascination of the customer will “reallysell” something.

3. Only vendors who make positive impression of a nice and trustworthyperson during the first meeting manage to create a good relationshipbased on the emotional bond with the customer.

Altman (2003) also claims that until the trader believes in himself andconfirms this belief in his work, he will not be successful. However, if heis not successful he will not pass over the failure, but try to draw con-clusions as to why the failure occurred.The above-mentioned competences make the process of sales man-

agement easier (Dwyer et al. 1987; Kiechel 1988; McAdams 1987;Patten 1995). There are also various strategies which are supposed toresult in a high turnover in sales (Table 3.4).As already mentioned, the real image of the company is created by its

vendors and their professionalism. A good seller should be like an actor whois able to control customers’ emotions, dominate the client and give themsatisfaction by meeting their requirements. Professional selling is aimed atsolving customers’ problems. The vendor should understand the client’sproblem and then help him to solve it, which why the seller has to possessspecific knowledge and competences (Kotra and Pysz-Radziszewska 2001).Table 3.5 presents these features, which, according to many researchers,should be in the possession of professional vendors.Being aware of the above-mentioned characteristics allows vendors to

develop their own competences. These rules apply to both beginners andprofessionals who want to further master their skills. Success in sales isalso dictated by sufficient knowledge of the client’s behavior. It relates tounderstanding the customer, his needs, requirements or decisions(Garbarski 1994). It helps in selecting methods and techniques fordealing with a particular person in order to effectively influence thecustomer’s decisions about the purchase.


Table 3.4 Winners’ success strategies

Strategy DescriptionStrength of persuasion throughemotions

During meetings with customers,emotional engagement takes place,which helps to increase the strengthof persuasion

Advantage resulting fromself-control

Remaining calm, self-confident andcreative in difficult situations. Fullfocus on finding the optimal solution

Basing strategy on knowledge Possessing huge knowledge andexperience which can be referred toin order to find solutions

Self-esteem resulting from positiveexperiences

Earlier successes help keeping faith inown skills

Charisma resulting from faith(confidence)

Self-confidence and product-reliability(its attractiveness)

Self-confidence resulting fromcompliance of character with theprofession performed

Choosing profession according tocompetences and predispositions

Quick successes in immediate sales Desire to achieve success as quickly aspossible, which is why it is necessaryto start with the least pleasant tasks

Creative ideas New creative ideas and unusualstrategies which are unique anddistinctive

Realization of objectives with fullcommitment

Determination of goals and theirrealization with determination andflexibility

Success in long-term perspective isdetermined by strong emotionalbonds

Skills allowing strong long-termrelations with customers to be built

Overcoming failures by positiveinner dialogue

It is important to motivate oneself evenin difficult situations through inneroptimism by rushing towards newactivity with engagement,recognizing new opportunities

Motivation through the vision of thefuture

Speaking about the future, ability toproject future trends and attractingcustomers with these visions

Motivation through newcompetences

Investing in new knowledge, skills andfuture opportunities, participation intraining

(continued)


Researchers emphasize the importance of recognition of customers’behavior. The seller can adapt his behavior to the client’s behavior and inthis way, build mutual friendly relations. This bond between the cus-tomer and the seller may consequently result in permanent cooperation,based on the positive relationship and relaxed atmosphere. In furthercontacts, the seller must not neglect the past contribution to the processof building such a relationship. This means that most attention should bepaid to the client at the beginning of cooperation, but later, this has to bemaintained based on mutual trust and respect. A lot of researchers pay

Table 3.4 (continued)

Strategy DescriptionHighest position resulting from quickpresentation of benefits

Presentation of competences andreliability in first meetings with thecustomer

Self-supervision according to thefactors of success

Overcoming failures easily and treatingthem as a source of new experience

Source Own elaboration based on Altman (2003: 27–29)

Table 3.5 Characteristics of professional vendor

Feature DescriptionExtensiveknowledge

Extensive product knowledge and competition awareness

Psychologicalskills

Ease in establishing relationships and dealing with differenttypes of clients

Special skills Ability of linking emotions with logic, presenting oneself asa committed professional, inducing positive feelings,inspiring confidence and listening carefully to thecustomer (empathy), enthusiasm and optimism

Honesty Honesty in undertaking all proceedings, openness andloyalty towards the company

Way of behavior Friendly attitude, punctuality, appropriate dress, kindnessand confidence, manners, way of communicating with theclient

Communicationskills

Face-to-face, on the phone, in writing

Faith/confidence Self-confidence, faith in own skills and the ability to sell theproduct, believing in the offered product and thecompany’s image which is represented by the seller

Source Own elaboration based on Kotra and Pysz-Radziszewska (2001: 123)


much attention to establishing such relationships based on creatingbonds with customers based on the client’s satisfaction, which in turnresults in customer loyalty (Urban and Siemieniako 2005, 2006, 2007;Urbanek 2004, 2005; Garbarski 1998; Jetmański 2006; Szymczak andUrbaniak 2006; Awdziej 2007).Personal selling means that the vendor enters the client’s territory in

the selling process and is a guest there. Such situations can be uncom-fortable for the seller and involve stress generating factors, especiallywhen refusal or even attack and reluctance on the part of the customertakes place. Therefore, the competence of coping with stress is of par-ticular importance.Analyses of the international arena in the context of personal selling

should take into consideration the phenomenon of hybridization(Magala 2005). Hybridization is a situation where selected traits andmanners of management that have been verified in one country aretransposed to a system in another country. By means of hybridization ofcertain theories or patterns of operation, equally effective forms ofindividual management areas (including the sales process) can be adoptedby the culture of another country, while taking into account the culturalcontext. This means that many cultures influence the individual who isthus not a recipient of a single culture. The Anglo-American model ofmanager education spreading over the entire business world may be anexample of this. Teachers in each country provide instruction on triedand trusted concepts in other countries, chiefly the USA or Great Britain,and there are differences only in terms of examples that are under dis-cussion as they are taken from the country where a lecture is delivered.Adapting tried and trusted theories in various countries is genuinelyuseful, though the cultural context must be considered.Using patterns, e.g. in selling, may help understand the international

business situation. The very adoption of patterns may be one of the mostimportant factors in demonstrating effectiveness when acting on thepoint of contact of different cultures. In line with the theory ofhybridization, the application of patterns in the sales process taking placein a multicultural environment may lead to success. A sales process thatworks in one cultural environment may be employed in another, ifdifferences are considered.


In such a case, some aspects must be taken into consideration, e.g.whether a rational, emotion-free presentation style should be adopted orotherwise should be infused with humor and emotions. Should criticalissues and problems be ignored and should one concentrate only onpositive things? Should one be formal or informal in contacts with cli-ents? In some cultures, expression of emotions (e.g. with a tone of voiceor gesture) is normal and acceptable. In others, however, expressingemotions is not tolerated and is interpreted as a sign of weakness or lossof self-control.Cultural differences may practically be found in all kinds of everyday

activity, which may have influence over business activity too; forexample, the form of greeting, the art of conversation, clothing con-ventions and styles, working hours, and the time of doing shopping areaffected. Values are also significant as they are deeply rooted in people asattitudes and have a huge impact on their behavior. Values are standardsor rules that are important in life. They also shape attitudes towards themost significant aspects of life, such as relations with other people andthe perception of time and nature. Values define the way we feel, thinkand behave and reflect the cultural background. In order to understandhow people think, it is necessary to understand their system of values.Understanding different values is the very thing that may bring a sellercloser to achieving effectiveness in acting at the point of contact ofcultures.Hofstede defines culture as a group phenomenon shared by people

who live within the same community. The organization where they workor the country or region where they live may constitute such a com-munity. Hofstede (2011) points to a certain programming of the mind,which individual members of a culture or a group of people are subjectto. Such programming of the mind is concerned with the manner ofthinking reflected by behavior of the members of a community and thusserves as a basis for distinguishing one community from another. Cultureis imprinted on the minds of its members as well as all the minds of allpeople or institutions that cooperate with one another (including con-tractors, subcontractors, stakeholders, etc.), and such collective pro-gramming of the mind distinguishes members of one organization fromanother.


Hofstede (2011) singled out five dimensions of culture: uncertaintyavoidance, power distance, masculinity/femininity, individualism/collectivism, and long-term orientation. According to Hofstede, uncer-tainty avoidance is a dimension that describes how people deal withuncertainty or respond to a threat and denotes the level of sensitivity ofemployees to changes in situations that are difficult to predict. A low level ofuncertaintymakes it easier for people to deal with the unknown as they havethe sense of being safe and having a secure future; time means freedom tothem; they believe that one should not display emotions; they are ready totake risks; and a sense of peace and lack of stress is important for them.A high level of uncertainty is tantamount to constant changes, conflicts,intolerance, and preference for formal regulations. Members of this com-munity are less motivated; they often experience anxiety and stress; theybelieve that time ismoney, approve of dominance and expressing emotions,show lower propensity to take risk, and avoid competition.The dimension named power distance is concerned with a formal

hierarchy of values and social and organizational positions. If the dis-tances are small, everybody is equal, the relationship with superiors isdemocratic in character and amicable, whereas if the power distance islarge, there is hierarchical inequality, autocracy, lack of trust amongemployees and money is considered the ticket to freedom, while othersare to blame for failures and mistakes.The masculinity/femininity dimension defines the attitude to various

aspects of functioning. Masculine values include, among others: rivalry,aggressiveness, self-confidence, excess of ambition, obtaining materialgoods, and life subordinated to work; money, things, and success are veryimportant; and the basis for acting is ambition. Feminine values include:cooperation, caring for others, working atmosphere; the quality of life isimportant; working to live; sensitivity to others’ misfortunes; work istreated as a mission.In individualistic cultures, the individual is prioritized; each person

takes care of their own business; awareness of the “self” is important aswell as orientation at oneself and one’s own needs. In collective cultures,teamwork is prioritized, which serves as support for each group member;the group is like a family; the awareness of “we” is important; friendshipis valued.


The functioning of the members of a community is considerablyinfluenced by the type of their culture and the other way around, themembers of a community influence the shape of the culture, especially theform or the manner of functioning. As far as functioning is concerned,diversity can turn organizational or national culture into a source ofcompetitive advantage. However, several important differences and theresultant proprieties must be observed. In one culture, sending non-verbalmessages endowed with excessive gesticulation is an acceptable part of thecommunication process but in another it may be a sign of disrespect. Theestablished manner of greeting or type of clothing in an organization maydiffer considerably across cultures, and the differences do not only arisefrom, for example, rituals but also the meaning assigned to them. Somecultures put greater emphasis on action than on reflection. For example, insome countries a trade decision must be taken as soon as possible and aresponse must be given likewise, whereas in others, quite the opposite isimportant. In some cultural circles, analysis and logic matter, whereas inothers statistical and substantive data are respected, and there are stillothers that value intuitive decision-making. As far as interpersonal rela-tions are concerned, there are two extreme options. In some culturalcircles, it is important to establish close interpersonal relations and basebusiness and business dealings on that, while in others, personal relationswith people should not play a major role.Trompenaars (1993) is another well-known author dealing with cul-

tural differences and dimensions, who formulated the following typologyof cultures on the basis of his research: universalism/particularism, neutral/emotional, specific/diffuse, and achievement/ascription. Universalist cul-tures (e.g. the USA) are characterized by a high degree of law observance,submission, a sense of supreme obligation, and a conviction that there is asingle, right way to attain one’s goal. In contrast, in particularistic cultures(e.g. China, Spain), emphasis is placed on interpersonal relations and trusttowards others; there are also various ways to achieve goals. In neutralcultures (e.g. Japan, Great Britain), communication takes place in a subtleway and physical contact is reserved for the closest people. Emotions inemotional cultures (e.g. in China, Mediterranean countries) are expresseddifferently than in neutral ones, that is, in a more open way, with muchnon-verbal communication (body language). In a specific culture (Great


Britain, the USA, France), the individual’s approach to relations withothers is direct, extroverted, people do not avoid confrontation. The sit-uation is contrasting in cultures with a diffuse attitude towards relationswith others (such as China, Spain, Sweden). In this case, people combinepersonal relations with business ones, avoid confrontation and directness;they are introverted. In cultures oriented at achievement (e.g. the USA,Great Britain, Sweden), the status of a person is dependent on theircompetences. Whereas in cultures based on ascription (e.g. China, Japan,Spain), the status of a person and respect result from a social position,gender and education.Another well-known typology of cultures is GLOBE (Global Leadership

and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness) developed under the directionof Hous et al. (2004), which distinguishes eight dimensions: assertiveness,future orientation, performance orientation, humane orientation, genderegalitarianism, uncertainty avoidance, power distance, and individualism/collectivism. Assertiveness is related to the degree of readiness for con-frontation, competitive behavior, and hardness of character, the degree ofmodesty, sensitiveness, and submissiveness. Countries that are consideredmore assertive are the USA, Spain and Greece, and those less assertive areSweden, NewZealand and Switzerland. Future orientation (e.g. Denmark,theNetherlands) is concernedwith amore pronounced attitude oriented tothe future, for example, through making savings. The authors considerRussia, Argentina and Poland as countries with lower future orientation. Inthose countries, people prefer to spend themoney they earn in order to gainimmediate satisfaction. The next dimension-performance orientation isconcerned with undertaking initiative and confidence in achieving goals. Incountries with high performance orientation (e.g. the USA, Taiwan, NewZealand), members of the society see achieving high results as a culturalvalue. In countries with low performance orientation (e.g. Russia,Argentina, Greece), greater importance is attached to tradition and loyaltyin relations with others. Humane orientation relates to the degree to whicha culture values certain traits, such as, among others: compassion, sup-porting others, altruism, kindness, being just, and caring for the old.Countries highly humane orientated (e.g. Indonesia, Egypt, Malaysia) arecharacterized by tolerance and social harmony, whereas countries with lowhumane orientation (e.g. Germany, Spain, France) attach greater weight to


power, social position and possession of material goods. A description ofthe remaining dimensions is consistent with the one offered by Hofstede.The above deliberations on cultures should not be treated as uncon-

ditionally binding signposts indicating behaviors in various businesssituations. They may only serve as clues for learning about businessbehaviors and understanding the motives and values behind the behav-iors displayed by individuals from various cultures both with respect tomanagement in general and its various areas as well. On the one hand,there are some assumptions and elements existing in all business dealings;on the other hand, it is stressed that what actually exists is a compositionof human traits. It may be concluded that there is no culture withoutpeople and cultural traits are a signpost for employees telling them whatdirection the organization is moving in and what is important for it.Without doubt, being part of a national culture, subculture and social

class influences purchase decisions in the sales process and cultural pro-gramming has an impact on values and preferences. This is exactly whatsellers should take into account when they draw up their sales plan.Interpretation of purchase preferences prevailing in a given culture isimmensely important for sellers. There are many sources of knowledgeabout purchase behaviors and decision-making processes. These issuesarouse the interest of scientists (e.g. general psychologists, economist-psychologists, economists), marketing experts, sales practitioners and per-suasion experts (e.g. politicians and political marketing experts) as well asresearchers investigating negotiations. Each group may present a dissimilarpoint of view since each may have a different approach to learning aboutpurchasing mechanisms or different objectives in this respect. Knowledgemay thus be fragmentary and it is important to have an interdisciplinaryapproach to the sales process. In the case of multicultural selling, suchinterdisciplinarity should encompass the traditions and customs of coun-tries where sales are conducted. Science has made huge progress in terms oflearning about the mechanisms of purchasing; for example, behavioralpsychology, psychology of advertising or even neurophysiology whichattempts to examine the buyer’s mind. Knowledge of these issues should beused in the development of various competences in personal selling.


Considering the phenomenon of hybridization, one may assume theuniversality of some competences consistent with the tactics used in theselling process, including its very first stage, which have been developedon a global scale. In accordance with the above and since the humanbeing functions in the world, a seller engaged in personal selling shouldhave the competences appropriate for such a role: the knowledge, abilitiesand skills necessary to perform tasks related to selling; and adaptation tochanges in the environment.Analyzing the sales process, it should be concluded that regardless of

the market (i.e. whether it is regional or global), sellers should have suchselling competences as: knowledge and understanding of the product, theability to influence others, achievement orientation, initiative, the abilityto understand other people, customer orientation, self-confidence, theability to build relations, analytical thinking, conceptual thinking, theability to seek information, awareness of the client, and ease of estab-lishing contact and maintaining it.The competence of time management is also indispensable; as a cat-

egory of behavior, it may be described as the skills of planning, settinggoals and self-discipline. The way we treat time has a very powerfulinfluence on the way we organize cooperation with the clients and otherpeople. Cultures perceive time sequentially (as a series of successiveevents) or synchronously (where the past, present and future are inter-twined) (Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner 1997). The perception oftime is significant in the sales process and each seller should be aware ofthe influence it exerts in various cultures.As far as selling competency in the international environment is con-

cerned, it is necessary to have the competence of knowledge not onlyabout all the aspects of a product but also about the selling techniques,which allows one understand the process and use the relevant skills.A seller presenting a product should demonstrate knowledge on preparingthe presentation itself (e.g. use multimedia techniques in PPT) – aboutthe application of various forms of presentation or the choice of measuresand arguments suited to the type of client. During presentation, the sellermight meet objections from the client so it is important to know one’sown limitations and be able to cope with the objections and at the sametime actively and quickly seek information about the reasons for refusal.


From the point of view of psychology, the sales process carries a heavyburden affecting the human psyche. Merely understanding and knowl-edge of the sales process and selling techniques are not enough to ensurethat each selling action will end in success. As far as personality is con-cerned, it is important to have many traits that influence the effects ofselling. When it comes to personality-related conditions that are signif-icant in personal selling in the international arena, some universal humantraits are important, among others: patience (showing understanding andtolerance towards people and events), empathy (displaying authentic carefor people, the ability to listen and adapt to the style of the interlocutor),loyalty and trust (earning loyalty and trust of others), composure (re-maining calm in difficult situations charged with emotion), openness (tothe other human being and their needs), self-confidence (faith in one’sown capability, abilities and effectiveness), intellectual potential (wideinterests and a desire to undertake activity aimed at broadening one’sabilities), being capable of coping with ambiguity and stress, beingself-reliant (performing individual tasks and taking responsibility forthem), engagement (complying with obligations while engaging one’sabilities, knowledge and energy and at the same time stirring engage-ment), self-motivation (the ability to motivate oneself in times ofadversity), and personal ethics (reflected in the hierarchy of values).The client’s needs are probed at the very initial stage of selling. It is

important to have the competence of understanding the client’s situationand their needs that a product may satisfy. The client wants to be under-stood and served correctly and have the sense that time has been devoted tothem. Building relations and trust is an important long-term process thatoften requires commitment on the part of the seller. Several immenselysignificant skills are combined here, which have been mentioned earlier.The world literature offers various descriptions of the seller who has

been successful in personal selling. The competences that are frequentlyenumerated are important from the perspective of international sales.Experts enumerate, among others: work/performance orientation, theability to influence others, a strong need to achieve, the ability to planand organize, the ability to take calculated risk, having a strong need togain new experiences and develop oneself, interpersonal sensitivity andempathy, resistance to stress, the ability to analyze and synthesize data,


and the ability to set high working standards. Behaviors displayed in thesales process include, among others: diligence in fulfilling goals, adjust-ment and the ability to learn from mistakes, developing a sales strategy,and presentation skills. The category of psychological elements of sellingincludes: motivation to achieve (as assessment of one’s own potential andabilities, faith in one’s own strength even in difficult situations, high levelof aspiration), intellectual traits (quick thinking, the ability to makedecisions, creativity, communicativeness), emotional traits (reactivity,resistance to pressure, independence, and emotional stability), andinterpersonal relations (understanding the behaviors of others, the degreeand accuracy of evaluations). Sellers are expected to be emotionallystable, which is understood as remaining calm even under stress andmaintaining control during a crisis; optimism; and overcoming failures.Customer orientation involves the seller putting the client first so thattheir needs can be satisfied, which is achieved by meeting theirrequirements and needs while at the same time caring for them. The skillof building positive relations with clients relates to the ease of establishingthem, individual approach, coping with a difficult client or their angerand frustration, and careful listening to others. The competence relatedto organization of work is very important in the sales process; it isconcerned with determining priorities appropriately, planning, drawingup schedules, monitoring and controlling progress, predicting variouscircumstances, and meeting deadlines.Regarding the psychological aspect of selling, the biggest enemy of

success in personal selling is fear and doubt in oneself and one’s ownpowers. Fear of failing and rejection is a subconscious one. Such a per-spective may influence self-appraisal. A person who likes themselves andhas an optimistic perception of their activity becomes better in what theyare doing, which in the case of the sellers is: seeking potential clients,recognizing their needs, presenting a product or service, responding toobjections and doubts, closing sales, and gettingmore clients. Self-appraisaldetermines not only personal achievement but also professional success.Every good seller would like to convince their clients to close a deal and

strives to win. Regardless of the country of operation, the relevant literaturecharacterizes the successful seller as the one who is full of true joy of lifecombined with the spirit to fight, has great power of influence and


endurance as well as a personality able to persuade people. Requirementsconcerning abilities in personal selling are varied and depend on the salescycle and character of the product. However, it is important to have skills inpersuasive communication, to be influential, and simultaneously capable ofbuilding relations with clients. It is also vital to know the product and themarket. The sellers dealing with direct sales are commonly believed to beclever experts trained in convincing, who do not have very high qualifi-cations. In such a case, the sales process does not end with success.Authors writing about selling in the new millennium, such as Jeff

Thull (2003) and Mike Bosworth (2011), claim that the selling processshould depart from a rigid framework, structure and presentation and aninformal conversation should be favored. The advocates of adaptiveselling fiercely criticize the traditional approach to sales based onsequential steps of presentation. The contemporary seller should be ableto actively listen and adapt their behavior during a conversation to theclient’s perspective.Based on the analyses of the literature, it may be assumed that the

models of cultural differences characteristic of societies do not need to bereflected in all the aspects of management but only from the perspectiveof the national cultural. In line with the theory of hybridization, adap-tation of various solutions that lead to success of an organization and itsmembers may be of huge significance in terms of competitiveness.As far as the predictors of success in selling are concerned, individual,

organizational and cultural factors are immensely important and affectthe direction of development of some sellers’ competences. Competencesare like knowledge and skills assets that accumulate over time facilitatingeffective selling; noticing and transposing the most effective solutions inthis respect on the international arena may be enormously important.

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Jetmański, B. (2006). Poznaj profil swojego klienta. Marketing i Rynek, 1.Johnston, M. W., & Marshall, G. W. (2016). Contemporary selling: Building

relationships, creating value. London: Routledge.Kale, S., & Barnes, J. (1992). Understanding the Domain of Cross-National

Buyer-Seller Interactions. Journal of International Business Studies, 23(1),101–132.

Kiechel, W. (1988). How to manage salespeople. Fortune, 14(3).Kotra, K., & Pysz-Radziszewska, A. (2001). Marketing w teorii i praktyce.

Poznań: Wyd. Wyższej Szkoły Bankowej.Lewicki, R. J., Saunders, D. M., & Minton, J. W. (1997). Essentials of

negotiations. Irwin.Macquin, A., Rouziès, D., & Prime, N. (2000). The influence of culture on

personal selling interactions. Journal of Euromarketing, 9(4).


Magala, S. (2005). Cross-cultural competence: Theories, tool-kits and applications.London: Routledge.

Marciniak, K. (1997). Sprzedawca – niedoceniany element marketingu.Marketing i Rynek, 11.

McAdams, J. (1987). Rewarding sales and marketing performance. ManagementReview, 4.

McMurry, R. N. (1968). How to build a dynamic sales organization. New York:McGraw-Hill.

Mintu-Wimsatt, A., & Gassenheimer, J. B. (2000). The Moderatinf Effects ofCultural Context in Buyer-Seller Negotiations. Journal of Personal Selling andSales Management, 20(1), 1–9.

Patten, D. (1995). Marketing w małej firmie. Kraków: Wyd. ProfesjonalnejSzkoły Biznesu.

Szymczak, J., & Urbaniak, M. (2006). Satysfakcja klienta jako wyznacznikdziałań przedsiębiorstwa. Marketing i Rynek, 12.

Thull, J. (2003). Mastering the complex sale. New York: Wiley.Tinsley, C. H., & Pillutla, M. M. (1998). Negotiating in the United States and

Hong Kong. Journal of International Business Studies, 29(4), 711–728.Tracy, B., & Scheelen, F. M. (2002). Nowoczesny menedżer sprzedaży.

Warszawa: Muza S.A.Trompenaars, F. (1993). Riding the waves of culture. London: Brealey.Trompenaars, F., & Hampden-Turner, C. (1997). Riding the Waves of Culture.

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House.


4Personal Sellers’ Competences—Research

Remarks

4.1 Methodology of the Research

The main goal of the research was identification of key competenceswhich are essential in the personal selling processes, especially withrespect to the intercultural environment. We also formulated specificresearch questions as follows:

• Which individual competences play an important role in personalselling?

• What is the relation between sex and age of salespersons and indi-vidual competences?

• Which set of competences is the most important in reaching thehighest efficiency in personal selling in relation to sex and age?

In order to answer these questions and fulfill the aim of the research, weformulated a few working hypotheses:

• High efficiency in personal selling is determined by possessing a cer-tain set of competences.


83

• There is a relation between a concrete set of competences and thesalesperson’s sex and age.

• There exists a set of competences characteristic for a given genderand age.

The research was conducted using the survey method with the use of aspecially prepared questionnaire composed of two parts. The first onecontained questions concerning specific competences: customer orien-tation, interpersonal communication, leadership, motivation, attitudetowards work, coping with stress, knowledge and experience, andlearning. The second part of the questionnaire contained questionsrelated to the determination of the respondents’ age, sex and length ofwork in personal selling. The construction of the questionnaire beganwith the choice of surveyed competences. Operationalization of com-petences led to the final construction of the questionnaire. Each com-petence was addressed with several questions (a different number ofquestions for each competence). A five-point Likert scale was used as abasis for answers. The reliability of the tool was tested through statisticalanalysis using Cronbach’s alpha test. This method is based oninter-correlation of indicators between the tool’s items, i.e. between allthe questions that are a part of a given scale (competence). The higherthe alpha indicator, the more correlated are the answers to questionsspecifying a particular competence. The Cronbach’s alpha range is from0 to 1, with a value close to 1 interpreted as indicating high reliability ofscales (Bedyńska and Cypryańska 2007: 154). The reliability waschecked for the overall indicator (the sum of all questions concerningcompetences) and for concrete subscales of a given competence.The reliability estimates related to the whole questionnaire and to

individual scales proved to be not only acceptable, but they were high inmost cases. The lowest reliability was related to the “motivation” scale,which means that respondents answered least coherently within thecorresponding scale. Although the reliability of the scale is low, it reacheda minimum limit value for the experimental research. The highest reli-ability estimate was recorded for the whole questionnaire and the“leadership” scale, which means that respondents answered coherentlywithin this scale.

84 A. Antczak and B.A. Sypniewska

The research was conducted during group meetings of sellers as well asindividual meetings and it was always preceded by the same short state-ment concerning the process of filling in the questionnaire. Respondentswere informed that the survey was anonymous and the answers givenshould only relate to tasks performed as a personal seller. The timerequired to properly complete the survey was approximately 40 min.In order to analyze the research results and verify hypotheses, we used

many specific statistical tests, taking the 0.05 as the threshold value:Cronbach’s alpha, Pearson’s chi-squared test for independence (x2),Spearman’s q rank correlation and Pearson’s r correlation.

4.2 Description of the Focus Group

The research was conducted among 141 respondents: 35 men (25%) and106 women (75%) aged 20–68, who were all personal sellers. The analysisshows that respondents were mostly middle-age people (age average was43; M = 43.01 and SD = 9.89). The choice of the focus group was tar-geted, which means that the group of respondents reached the highest salesaccording to data provided by the companies they represented.All respondents had over 7 years’ work experience in personal selling

and approximately 17 years of overall work experience, which indicatesthat they had extensive practical experience, which can lead to theconclusion that experience is a factor contributing to high effectiveness inpersonal selling.

4.3 Analysis of the Research Results

At the beginning, the analysis concerned the dependencies between ageand particular scales. Table 4.1 presents Spearman’s q rank correlationestimates between age of the respondents and the answers in individualscales and subscales.It was possible to notice statistically significant positive correlations

between age and the quality of communication, openness to learning andtwo subscales in leadership scale: self-confidence and optimism and


responsibility. It means that older respondents identify themselves morewith these scales and subscales.Table 4.2 presents average results for competence indicators among

men and women and statistically significant differences which werechecked with the t-Student test for independent groups.Statistical analysis did not reveal any significant differences between

groups. The greatest concentration of average values among men con-cerned customer orientation and learning competences (4.41), whileamong women, it was learning competence (4.55). The lowest average

Table 4.1 Spearman’s q rank correlation estimate between age of the respon-dents and the answers in individual scales and subscales

Age

Scale Subscale q pCustomerorientation

Satisfying customers’ needs 0.157 0.064Recognizing customers’ needs 0.103 0.227Positive customer relations 0.139 0.101

Interpersonalcommunication

Flow of information 0.125 0.142Selection of response style 0.109 0.202Coherence of verbal andnon-verbal communication

0.073 0.398

Quality of the communication 0.267** 0.001Ability to listen 0.017 0.847

Leadership Self-confidence 0.264** 0.002Optimism and responsibility 0.205* 0.016

Motivation Need for achievements -0.165 0.053Need for power 0.007 0.936Need for affiliation 0.136 0.111

Attitude towardswork

0.099 0.244

Coping with stress Reacting in difficult situations 0.008 0.926Mobilization 0.000 0.996

Knowledge andexperience

Product knowledge 0.025 0.771Basic knowledge about salemethods

-0.025 0.766

Noticing cause-and-effectrelationships

0.017 0.841

Knowledge, skills, experience 0.100 0.240Learning Inquisitiveness and curiosity 0.019 0.825

Openness to learning 0.233** 0.006

q—Spearman’s q correlation rank; p—bilateral statistical significance; **—p < 0.01Source Elaboration based on own research


value of all competences was observed for coping with stress (men—3.96;women—4.09) and motivation (men—4.11; women—4.07). Thismeans that respondents have well-developed competences related to thecustomer: satisfying their needs and maintaining proper relations withthe client. Respondents are also oriented to the learning process: theywant to acquire new knowledge, not only in terms of products offered,but also in terms of sales methods. The results also show that respondentsdo not cope well with stress. This competence is understood as the abilityto act effectively despite emotions, tensions, conflicts or failures and timepressure. This result is surprising, because the sellers who achieve highsales results can be expected to be able to deal with vague and uncer-tain situations, or the case of failures. Also surprising are the resultswithin the competence of motivation. This competence concernsself-motivation to accomplish tasks and continue professional develop-ment as well as the need for achievements, power and affiliation (con-stituting the three subscales according to McClelland’s theory andincluded in the questionnaire). Low average value of this competencemay be caused by several aspects like job burnout or the disappearance ofone of the motivation subscales, which was researched through thequestionnaire. For the needs of the research, each sub-competence wasoperationalized. The need for achievement concerns the need for

Table 4.2 Average results for competence indicators among men and womenwith statistical significance test

Men Women Statistical test

Competence M SD M SD t df pCustomer orientation 4.41 0.44 4.46 0.54 -0.53 139 0.600Interpersonalcommunication

4.16 0.48 4.23 0.53 -0.68 138 0.497

Leadership 4.40 0.52 4.30 0.49 1.01 138 0.312Motivation 4.11 0.51 4.07 0.47 0.41 138 0.685Attitude towards work 4.21 0.57 4.32 0.56 -0.98 138 0.328Coping with stress 3.96 0.53 4.09 0.53 -1.22 138 0.224Knowledge andexperience

4.37 0.40 4.49 0.48 -1.26 138 0.210

Learning 4.41 0.44 4.55 0.47 -1.51 138 0.133

M—average; SD—standard deviation; t—test’s statistics; df—degrees of freedom;p—bilateral statistical significanceSource Elaboration based on own research


achieving goals and success at work, self-motivation skills, openness tochallenges, perseverance and patience in achieving the objectives, as wellas interest in the problems to be solved. The need for power means theneed to influence the environment, forcing other people’s subordination,the need to achieve high position in the organization, as well as evokingstrong emotions in other people. The need for affiliation addresses theneed to maintain friendly relations with others, the desire to be liked,accepted and being a part of the “family” in the workplace, as well ashaving confidence in other people. As the analysis of the frequencydistribution of responses indicates, most respondents have the need forachievements followed by the need for affiliation. In contrast, the needfor power reached the lowest results. Table 4.3 presents the whole fre-quency distribution of the answers given by men and women with thestatistical significance test.As the statistical analysis showed, there are no statistically significant

differences between gender and motivation subscales. The highest resultswere obtained with respect to the need for achievements subscale and thepercentage value is the same for both men and women. This result is notsurprising, because personal sellers who want to achieve the highestresults should be characterized as having the need to achieve objectivesand gain success. Lower scores in the need for affiliation subscale are alsoreasonable, as belonging to a group of colleagues in the personal sellingsector does not matter so much. Building positive relationships with thecustomer is much more important than taking care of relationships withother colleagues. It is the customer orientation scale of competenceswhich respondents, both women and men, rated the highest. Table 4.4presents the frequency distribution of the answers given by men andwomen within this scale.As the statistical analysis showed, there are no statistically significant

differences between gender and customer orientation subscales. Thefrequency distribution of responses shows that the highest results wereobtained in the satisfying customers’ needs subscale. Respondents alsorecognized that they were oriented on recognizing customers’ needs. Inthis regard, men achieved slightly higher results than women.Respondents also focused on maintaining friendly relations with cus-tomers and influencing actively the development of long-term


Table

4.3

Freq

uen

cydistributionwithin

themotiva

tionscalewithstatisticalsignificance

test

Motiva

tion

Sex

No

Rather

no

Idonot

know

Rather

yes

yes

x2df

p

Nee

dfor

achieve

men

tsM

n0

02

1221

0.92

30.82

0%

0%0%

5.7%

34.3%

60.0%

Fn

02

540

58%

0%1.9%

4.8%

38.1%

55.2%

Total

n0

27

5279

%0%

1.4%

5.0%

37.1%

56.4%

Nee

dforpower

Mn

17

917

13.42

40.49

0%

2.9%

20.0%

25.7%

48.6%

2.9%

Fn

430

2041

10%

3.8%

28.6%

19.0%

39.0%

9.5%

Total

n5

3729

5811

%3.6%

26.4%

20.7%

41.4%

7.9%

Nee

dforaffilia

tion

Mn

05

414

120.99

30.80

4%

0%14

.3%

11.4%

40.0%

34.3%

Fn

09

1445

37%

0%8.6%

13.3%

42.9%

35.2%

Total

n0

1418

5949

%0%

10.0%

12.9%

42.1%

35.0%

n—

number

ofresponden

ts;%—percentageofthegroup;x2—

Pearson’s

chi-squared

indep

enden

cetest;df—

deg

rees

of

free

dom;p—

statisticalsignificance

SourceElab

orationbased

onownresearch


Table

4.4

Freq

uen


thecu

stomer

orien

tationscalewithstatisticalim

portan

cetest

Customer

orien

tation

Sex

No

Rather

no

Idonot

know

Rather

yes

Yes

x2df

p

Satisfyingcu

stomers’

nee

ds

Mn

00

019

163.50

20.17

4%

0%0%

0%54

.3%

45.7%

Fn

00

441

61%

0%0%

3.8%

38.7%

57.5%

Total

n0

04

6077

%0%

0%2.8%

42.6%

54.6%

Recognizingcu

stomers’

nee

ds

Mn

00

122

125.21

30.15

7%

0%0%

2.9%

62.9%

34.3%

Fn

01

844

53%

0%0.9%

7.5%

41.5%

50.0%

Total

n0

19

6665

%0%

0.7%

6.4%

46.8%

46.1%

Positive

customer

relations

Mn

00

117

170.73

30.86

6%

0%0%

2.9%

48.6%

48.6%

Fn

01

546

54%

0%0.9%

4.7%

43.4%

50.9%

Total

n0

16

6371

%0%

0.7%

4.3%

44.7%

50.4%

n—

number

ofresponden


Pearson’s

chi-squared

indep

enden

cetest;df—

deg

rees

of

free

dom;p—


SourceElab

orationbased

onownresearch


relationships. Within this subscale, the frequency distribution ofresponses shows that men also achieved higher results, but the differencesbetween answers were not significant. Similar differences in the responsesbetween men and women were achieved on the recognition of customers’needs subscale. Respondents affirmed that they recognized customers’needs. In addition, they admitted that they were able to ask appropriatequestions in a particular situation and give a polite and clear explanation.As mentioned previously, respondents generally have problems with

coping with stress. The frequency distribution of responses within thecoping with stress competence is presented in Table 4.5.The statistical analysis proved that there were no statistically significant

differences between gender and subscales concerning coping with stress.The frequency distribution of the responses indicates that women canbetter cope with situations of strong emotional agitation and are able tolook for solutions under time pressure. It means women are capable ofhigher mobilization, while 20% of men chose the answer “hard to say”,which demonstrates uncertainty of reaction and behavior in difficult andunexpected situations. Respondents who answered positively admittedthat they were able to recognize the increase of emotional tension both inthemselves and others, undertaking appropriate measures to reduce thiseffect at the same time. Moreover, they confirmed they reacted in acontrolled manner despite tensions and emotions; nevertheless men feltmore uncertain in such situations than women, which can make themobilization for action more difficult.The highest average value of the competence indicators for both

women and men was gained with respect to learning. Table 4.6 presentsthe frequency distribution of answers for men and women in therespective scale.There is a statistically significant dependence between gender and the

inquisitiveness and curiosity competence subscale. Definitely, morewomen answered positively, which means that women think that theyask inquisitive questions to understand the problem and seek solutions,are more curious and open to learning. Moreover, they draw conclusionsfrom their own mistakes. The analysis of frequency distribution ofresponses shows that both genders evaluate their openness to newknowledge and tasks similarly. They carefully analyze their successes and


Table

4.5

Freq

uen


theco

pingwithstress

scalewithstatisticalim

portan

cetest

Copingwithstress

Sex

No

Rather

no

Idonot

know

Rather

yes

Yes

x2df

p

Rea

ctingin

difficu

ltsituations

Mn

01

621

70.16

30.98

4%

0%2.9%

17.1%

60.0%

20.0%

Fn

02

1862

23%

0%1.9%

17.1%

59.0%

21.9%

Total

n0

324

8330

%0%

2.1%

17.1%

59.3%

21.4%

Mobiliza

tion

Mn

01

719

86.91

30.10

7%

0%2.9%

20.0%

54.3%

22.9%

Fn

01

771

26%

0%1.0%

6.7%

67.6%

24.8%

Total

n0

214

9034

%0%

1.4%

10.0%

64.3%

24.3%

n—

number

ofresponden


Pearson’s

chi-squared

indep

enden

cetest;df—

deg

rees

of

free

dom;p—


SourceElab

orationbased

onownresearch


Table

4.6

Freq

uen


thelearningscalewithstatisticalim

portan

cetest

Learning

Sex

No

Rather

no

Idonot

know

Rather

yes

Yes

x2df

p

Inquisitiven

essan

dcu

riosity

Mn

00

416

1513

.21*

*2

0.00

1%

0%0%

11.4%

45.7%

42.9%

Fn

00

044

61%

0%0%

0%41

.9%

58.1%

Total

n0

04

6076

%0%

0%2.9%

42.9%

54.3%

Open

nessto

learning

Mn

00

016

180.08

10.77

4%

0%0%

0%47

.1%

52.9%

Fn

00

046

58%

0%0%

0%44

.2%

55.8%

Total

n0

00

6276

%0%

0%0%

44.9%

55.1%

n—

number

ofresponden


Pearson’s

chi-squared

indep

enden

cetest;df—

deg

rees

of

free

dom;p—


SourceElab

orationbased

onownresearch


failures treating them as a valuable lesson and use encountered problemsas an opportunity for development; they are also willing to experimentand take on new tasks.High average values for both sexes were also obtained within the

knowledge and experience competency. Table 4.7 shows the frequencydistribution in each subscale.Statistical analysis revealed no statistically significant differences

between gender and knowledge and experience subscales. Within theproduct knowledge subscale, both men and women recognize that theyhave basic knowledge about the products they offer as well as theiradvantages and usage, which is sufficient to sell products. However, inthe case of this subscale men gave more negative and hesitant answersthan women. When it comes to knowledge about sales methods, tech-niques and tools needed to perform the seller’s task, both women andmen affirmed that they possessed such knowledge. The results of theanalysis of the frequency distribution of responses indicate that womenbetter understand complex situations and relationships, recognize therelationship of cause and effect, and quickly associate events and datawhich are seemingly not related. Over 11% of men admitted that theyfound it difficult to determine whether they possessed such skills. Bothwomen and men admitted that they had the knowledge, skills andexperience to perform tasks in a professional way and that they constantlyupdated their knowledge in sales at the same time.A similar average value was gained by men and women within the

interpersonal communication scale. Table 4.8 shows the frequency dis-tribution of responses for this competence.Statistical analysis showed no statistically significant differences

between gender and interpersonal communication subscales. In the caseof the flow of information subscale, there were more women who wereundecided, which means that they are worse than men in assessing theirskills with respect to clarity and precision of information and their effi-ciency of communication. All respondents understand the likely impactof their message on the recipient, but men seem to be more affirmative inpossessing this skill. However, in the case of the style of response, moremen are undecided if they are able to adjust an appropriate style andterminology to the situation and audience. More women admit that they


Table

4.7

Freq

uen


thekn

owledgean

dex

perience


portan

cetest

Knowledgean

dex

perience

Sex

No

Rather

no

Idonot

know

Rather

yes

Yes

x2df

p

Product

knowledge

Mn

01

017

173.46

40.48

4%

0%2.9%

0%48

.6%

48.6%

Fn

12

336

63%

1.0%

1.9%

2.9%

34.3%

60.0%

Total

n1

33

5380

%0.7%

2.1%

2.1%

37.9%

57.1%

Basic

knowledgeab

out

sale

methods

Mn

00

017

181.04

30.79

1%

0%0%

0%48

.6%

51.4%

Fn

01

144

59%

0%1.0%

1.0%

41.9%

56.2%

Total

n0

11

6177

%0%

0.7%

0.7%

43.6%

55.0%

Noticingcause-and-effect

relationships

Mn

00

422

94.81

20.09

0%

0%0%

11.4%

62.9%

25.7%

Fn

00

651

48%

0%0%

5.7%

48.6%

45.7%

Total

n0

010

7357

%0%

0%7.1%

52.1%

40.7%

Knowledge,

skillsan

dex

perience

Mn

00

119

153.00

30.39

2%

0%0%

2.9%

54.3%

42.9%

Fn

12

144

58%

1.0%

1.9%

1.0%

41.9%

55.2%

Total

n1

22

6373

%0.7%

1.4%

1.4%

45.0%

52.1%

n—

number

ofresponden


Pearson’s

chi-squared

indep

enden

cetest;df—

deg

rees

of

free

dom;p—


SourceElab

orationbased

onownresearch


Table

4.8

Freq

uen


theinterpersonal

communicationscalewithstatisticalim

portan

cetest

Interpersonal

communication

Sex

No

Rather

no

Ido

not

know

Rather

yes

Yes

x2df

p

Flow

ofinform

ation

Mn

00

120

141.66

20.43

5%

0%0%

2.9%

57.1%

40.0%

Fn

00

1058

37%

0%0%

9.5%

55.2%

35.2%

Total

n0

011

7851

%0%

0%7.9%

55.7%

36.4%

Selectionofresponse

style

Mn

00

622

75.92

30.11

5%

0%0%

17.1%

62.9%

20.0%

Fn

03

1150

41%

0%2.9%

10.5%

47.6%

39.0%

Total

n0

317

7248

%0%

2.1%

12.1%

51.4%

34.3%

Coheren

ceofve

rbal

and

non-verbal

communication

Mn

01

621

76.71

40.15

2%

0%2.9%

17.1%

60.0%

20.0%

Fn

10

863

32%

1.0%

0%7.7%

60.6%

30.8%

Total

n1

114

8439

%0.7%

0.7%

10.1%

60.4%

28.1%

Qualityofthe

communication

Mn

00

321

110.20

20.90

4%

0%0%

8.6%

60.0%

31.4%

Fn

00

762

36%

0%0%

6.7%

59.0%

34.3%

Total

n0

010

8347

%0%

0%7.1%

59.3%

33.6%

(continued

)


Table

4.8

(continued

)

Interpersonal

communication

Sex

No

Rather

no

Ido

not

know

Rather

yes

Yes

x2df

p

Ability

tolisten

Mn

00

518

123.52

20.31

8%

0%0%

14.3%

51.4%

34.3%

Fn

05

758

35%

0%4.8%

6.7%

55.2%

33.3%

Total

n0

512

7647

%0%

3.6%

8.6%

54.3%

33.6%

n—number

ofresponden

ts;%

—percentageofthegroup;x2—Pe

arson’s

chi-squared

indep

enden

cetest;df—

deg

rees

of

free

dom;p—


SourceElab

orationbased

onownresearch


listen without interrupting and show interest in the conversation. In thecase of coherence of the verbal and non-verbal communication subscale,again more men admit that they cannot determine whether they havethis ability or not. Women, on the other hand, responded that they couldmaintain the consistency of non-verbal communication (gesture, mimi-cry, manner of speaking, etc.) with the spoken content. In the quality ofcommunication subscale, both women and men responded in a similarway. This means that the respondents think that they can adapt argu-ments to the circumstances and the interlocutor’s way of thinking. Theyadmit that they transmit information without distortion, explainingdifficult elements of the content and problems, which is very importantin personal selling. There were more undecided men with respect to theability of listening. The frequency distribution of responses shows thatwomen rank the ability to listen higher than men. This evaluationconcerns the ongoing assessment and checking whether the spokenmessage was understood by asking questions or repetition of the contentusing other words.The leadership competence is understood in this study as

self-confidence and faith in own abilities as well as optimism andresponsibility. Table 4.9 shows the frequency distribution of responseswith respect to this competence.Statistical analysis showed no statistically significant differences

between gender and subscales related to leadership. Analyzing the dis-tribution of responses associated with self-confidence, it turns out thatmen would rather perceive themselves as not having this characteristic orare undecided. This applies not only to self-confidence, but also to thequality of their knowledge and skills. A similar frequency distribution ofresponses was obtained within the optimism and responsibility subscale.It also shows that women strongly believe that their behavior is guided byoptimism. They also take responsibility for decisions they made and theirconsequences and do not avoid difficult situations, trying to solve them.Table 4.10 presents the distribution of answers concerning attitude

towards work. Statistical analysis again showed no statistically significantdifferences between gender and attitude towards work. The attitudetowards work is understood as efficient and timely execution of tasks,demonstrating enthusiasm in daily work as well as paying attention to the


Table

4.9

Freq

uen


thelead

ership


portan

cetest

Lead

ership

Sex

No

Rather

no

Idonot

know

Rather

yes

Yes

x2df

p

Self-confiden

ceM

n0

12

1418

5.77

30.12

3%

0%2.9%

5.7%

40.0%

51.4%

Fn

05

160

39%

0%4.8%

1.0%

57.1%

37.1%

Total

n0

63

7457

%0%

4.3%

2.1%

52.9%

40.7%

Optimism

and

responsibility

Mn

01

314

176.87

30.07

6%

0%2.9%

8.6%

40.0%

48.6%

Fn

00

253

50%

0%0%

1.9%

50.5%

47.6%

Total

n0

15

6767

%0%

0.7%

3.6%

47.9%

47.9%

n—

number

ofresponden


Pearson’s

chi-squared

indep

enden

cetest;df—

deg

rees

of

free

dom;p—


SourceElab

orationbased

onownresearch


Table

4.10

Freq

uen


theattitudetowardswork


portan

cetest

Sex

No

Rather

no

Idonot

know

Rather

yes

Yes

x2df

p

Attitudetowards

work

Mn

00

222

111.44

30.69

7%

0%0%

5.7%

62.9%

31.4%

Fn

03

658

38%

0%2.9%

5.7%

55.2%

36.2%

Total

n0

38

8049

%0%

2.1%

5.7%

57.1%

35.0%

n—

number

ofresponden


Pearson’s

chi-squared

indep

enden

cetest;df—

deg

rees

of

free

dom;p—


SourceElab

orationbased

onownresearch


achievement of goals. As indicated by the frequency distribution ofanswers concerning this competence, men and women respondedsimilarly.

4.4 Discussion of the Results

The analysis of the research results shows that older people agree morewith statements describing competences in the field of interpersonalcommunication, learning and leadership. This means that older sellersadapt their arguments to the circumstances, inform customers withoutdistortion explaining difficult elements and problems more than theyounger ones. In addition, they are open to new knowledge and tasks,carefully analyze the successes and failures treating them as a valuablelesson, and use new problems as an opportunity for development andthey are willing to experiment and take on new tasks. Older sellers aremore self-confident and have faith not only in themselves but also in thequality of their knowledge and skills. Driven by optimism, they takeresponsibility for decisions made and their consequences; they do notavoid difficult situations and try to solve them.The analysis of the average values of competence indicators in the

group of men and women showed that the highest score was attributed tothe competence of learning for both genders and customer orientationamong men. Subsequently, the leadership competence among men andknowledge and experience among women also gained high results as wellas attitude towards work and interpersonal communication. The lowestaverage values were obtained within the coping with stress and motiva-tion competences. In the case of people involved in personal selling, thecompetence of learning is very important, which is why it is positive thatit achieved a high average value. Sellers should therefore be open toconstant learning and to gaining new knowledge and experience.Personal sellers’ success depends on their approach to problems andobstacles. Learning from mistakes and making all possible attempts toovercome the problems is extremely important. Success also depends onpersonal sellers’ openness, inquisitiveness and curiosity to explore theworld, to take up new challenges and tasks and make new contacts with


various customers. Openness to the world and new tasks also meansopenness to the customer, which has to be constantly mastered by per-sonal sellers. The most important competences in personal selling arethose associated with learning, acquiring or improving knowledge as wellas customer-oriented attitude. The success is achieved by openness tomeet the needs and wishes of the customer. As indicated by the surveyresults, respondents are oriented at maintaining proper and friendlycustomer relations. It turned out that men obtained higher results thanwomen. Although all respondents admitted that they recognized cus-tomer needs and knew how to address them, and were able to ask enoughquestions in a certain situation, giving polite and sufficient information,women gained slightly lower values. Moreover, women strongly statedthat they asked adequate questions to understand the problem andlooked for solutions, were curious and wanted to learn, drew conclusionsfrom their own mistakes and learned from them, which means that theywant to make progress. Both men and women are open to newknowledge and tasks, they analyze successes and failures treating them asa valuable lesson, use encountered problems as an opportunity fordevelopment as well as are willing to experiment and take on new tasks.Openness to the acquisition of knowledge during the learning process

and customer orientation is closely associated with knowledge and expe-rience. The study operationalized product knowledge as knowledge aboutthe product’s advantages and the manner of its use. Knowledge of salesmethods was described as knowledge about methods, tools and techniquesneeded to work as a personal seller. Knowledge about cause-and-effectrelationships was described as understanding complex situations andrelationships, perceiving relationships, associating events and data whichremain unconnected on the surface. The knowledge, skills and experiencesubscale was operationalized as knowledge and skills required in the field ofpersonal selling, constant updating of knowledge in the area and profes-sionalism. In the above subscales, respondents received high scores withrespect to the frequency distribution. Women assess their productknowledge and ability to recognize cause-and-effect relationships higherthan men. However, in the case of the attitude towards work competence,women assess themselves lower than men in terms of the efficient andtimely execution of tasks and showing enthusiasm in daily work. They do


not pay too much attention to the achievement of prescribed goals. In thecase of the leadership competence, men claim that they rather do not havethis feature or are uncertain about it, and if it comes to optimism andresponsibility, women perceive themselves as being more optimistic.They also take responsibility for the decisions made and their conse-quences without avoiding difficult situations. Women assessed theirself-confidence and belief in their own abilities as well as the quality oftheir knowledge and skills far more positively than men. A leader is aperson characterized by optimism and belief in his or her own skills andknowledge and who takes responsibility for own actions.The success of the personal seller is also dependent on interpersonal

communication skills. Although the average value is high, women foundtheir skills in clarity and precision of information transmission andcommunication efficiency on a lower level compared to men. Men, onthe other hand, evaluate themselves lower when it comes to payingattention to the impact of communication and adaptation of the rightstyle and terminology to the situation and audience. Moreover, men alsoevaluate themselves lower in the context of listening without interrup-tion, which may indicate a lack of interest in the interlocutor. Men arealso more hesitant in their answers when it comes to consistency ofnon-verbal communication such as gestures or mimicry and manner ofspeaking in verbal communication. Similar indecisiveness was showed bymen answering the question on listening skills, which concerns theassessment and checking whether the communication was understood byasking questions or repetition of the content using different words. Asindicated by the results of the study, men and women rated their qualityof communications in a similar manner. Respondents state that theytransmit information without distortion explaining difficult elements andproblems, which is very important in personal selling.The analysis of the average values shows that respondents generally

have problems with coping with stress. This competence was opera-tionalized as the ability to react in difficult situations and mobilization.Responding to difficult situations means the ability to recognize in timethe rise of emotional tension and taking appropriate steps to reduce it andto react in a controlled manner despite the tension, emotions and timepressure. Mobilization is looking for solutions, even under conditions of


severe emotional agitation and time pressure. Compared with men,women assess their mobilization and reaction in a controlled mannerhigher than men.Another competence which received a low average value wasmotivation.

As previously mentioned, operationalization of this competence concernedthree subscales according to McClelland’s theory: the need for achieve-ment, power and affiliation. Both women and men admitted that the needfor achievement was one of their characteristics. The need for achievementplays a very important role for personal sellers, both for achieving successand the realization of objectives; therefore it is good that the respondents areaware of this. It is, however, different with respect to the need for power,which respondents denied possessing. Building a relationship with thecustomer based on subordination does not serve the long-term cooperationandmutual trust between the customer and the seller. The customer shouldfeel the seller’s interest in his or her needs and wishes, and not imposedcareless superiority and lack of courtesy. The situation was similar in thecase of the need for affiliation, though there were less negative responsesthan with respect to the previous subscale. Personal sellers work individ-ually; it is rarely a matter of teamwork, but working with the customerwhose needs and requirements have to be satisfied.The strategy of personal selling, regardless of the country in which it is

carried out, should consider the target recipient—their likes and dislikes,needs, interests and preferences. Personal selling within the internationalenvironment concerns the area of knowledge and expertise in the fol-lowing segments:

• knowledge of the company which is represented by the personal seller,its basic principles, goals, strategies, position in the market, etc.;

• offered product knowledge (including the properties, methods of use,application as well as the target market);

• knowledge and skills relating to the selling process, persuasion meth-ods, conducting a successful meeting, presentation, sales techniquesand other sales competences;

• learning, openness to knowledge, creativity;• verbal and non-verbal communication skills with a special emphasis

on cultural differences.


Therefore, it can be concluded that the essential factor which plays thegreatest role in the sales process is the human factor. Personal sellingrequires not only specific predispositions, but also special knowledge andcompetences.The personal seller is a key person whom the final sales process

depends on. The personal seller can be an active and creative personexecuting each transaction, or passive, observing the customer’sdecision-making process. This attitude and sensitivity determines howthe company is represented (promotion or reduction of its prestige).These competences are universal and equally important in personalselling regardless of the country in which the process takes place.However, cultural differences and traditions cannot be underestimated.Professionally prepared personal sellers wishing to achieve success inforeign countries should be open to knowledge and the culture in whichthey want to work.

Reference

Bedyńska, S., & Cypryańska, M. (2007). Zaawansowane sposoby tworzeniawskaźników: Zastosowanie analizy czynnikowej oraz analizy rzetelnościpozycji. In S. Bedyńska & A. Brzezicka (Eds.). Statystyczny drogowskaz.Praktyczny poradnik analizy danych w naukach społecznych na przykładach zpsychologii. SPSS. Warsaw: Academica SWPS.


5The Role of Agent’s Characteristics

and Competences in PersonalSelling in Higher EducationSector—Research Remarks

5.1 Methodology of the Research

As presented in the previous chapters, there is quite a lot of theoreticalknowledge on competences of personal sellers as well as on the process itself.Chapter 4 provided empirical evidence for identification of the influence ofthe sellers’ competences on their effectiveness based on the self-assessment ofthe respondents. This chapter will be a kind of verification of whether sellers’self-assessment is compatible with customers’ perception and expectations.Thus, now the needs, expectations and perception of the customers as to thepersonal sellers’ performance and competences are the subject of the study.The research, based on a survey method, was conducted in 2013 and 2014in chosen universities in Warsaw. The respondents were foreign under-graduate and graduate students studying in Poland in the English (most ofthem) or Polish language.The research was conducted in order to solve a problem related to the

personal selling process in the field of higher education, namely to whatextent cultural, gender or age differences influence the perception andevaluation of a personal seller’s performance (an agent or university


107

representative in this case). The main aim of the research was to find outwhat kind of differences there are between European and Asianrespondents (also with further intra-group divisions with respect to sexand age) in the perception of certain competences (presented in Chap. 3)of a personal seller (an agent or university representative). In order toobtain this goal, a few research questions were posed:

• Which group of competences is perceived as most and least important(with respect to the region of origin, gender and age)?

• What are the inter- and intra-group most important differences?• What kind of differences are there in evaluation of the personal seller’s

(an agent or university representative) actual performance?• To what extent do potential students appreciate personal contact with

an agent or university representative?• What is the actual role of a personal seller in the process of choosing a

university?• How important is the first impression made by the personal seller?

In order to reach the goal of the research and answer the abovequestions, some initial hypotheses were formulated to be verified withthe analysis of the research results:

• Taking into consideration quite significant cultural differences withrespect to the models of behavior, the region of origin should play akey role in determining the significance of particular competences ofpersonal sellers.

• European respondents are expected to pay more attention to thecontent of the offer and Asian respondents to the way it is delivered, toagents’ behavior, manners and appearance.

• As there is more conservative and patriarchal education in Asia andwomen still do not play equal roles in business to men, there shouldbe more differences between genders in the group of respondents fromAsia than from Europe.

• Given the fact that there are no significant differences in age (allrespondents are relatively young and their age hardly ever exceeds 25),there are no particular expectations with reference to substantial dis-similarities with respect to age groups.


The survey was conducted by the means of a questionnaire which wasdivided into four parts. The first one was devoted to general questionsabout the respondents’ opinions on the role of a personal seller (agent oruniversity representative) in the decision-making process related thechoice of a university and the importance of the personal seller’s firstimpression. The second part concerned the evaluation of the importanceof certain competences in the personal seller’s activity (divided into twoparts: appearance and behavior as well as skills and competences). Thenext part was an assessment of a personal seller’s actual performance andthe concluding one refers to personal data (country of origin, sex andage). Personal details constituted independent variables, while groups ofcompetences were dependent variables subjected to scales (five-pointscale rating from “very high” through “high”, “average” and “low” to“very low” assessment possibilities).In order to analyze the obtained results and verify the hypotheses, we

used a number of specialized statistical tests, taking at 0.05 as thethreshold value. The following tests were applied:

• Cronbach’s alpha—to estimate reliability of the test and its scales;• Pearson’s chi-squared test for independence—to check for depen-

dencies between variables;• Student’s t-test—to determine if two sets of data are significantly

different from each other (normal distribution);• Mann–Whitney U test—a non-parametric test to determine if two

sets of data are significantly different from each other (normal distri-bution not required, used when there are significantly uneven valuesbetween populations).

5.2 Description of the Focus Group

The research was conducted among 167 students, but 17 students fromAfrica (Nigeria, Zambia andGhana) had to be rejected from the analysis, asthey constituted too small a group compared to the other ones. Therespondents were 150 students (89 women and 61 men) from five

5 The Role of Agent’s Characteristics and Competences … 109

universities inWarsaw which provide studies in English for foreigners. Thestudents originated from Asia (56 persons including 26 respondents fromCentral Asia: Tajikistan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Azerbaijanand 30 from South Asia: Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan) andEastern Europe (94 people from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus). Mostrespondents were aged between 18 and 21 (72%) and 27% constituted agroup above 21 years old; one respondent did not reveal his agegroup. Thus, the focus group wasmainly represented by young people whohave just graduated from secondary school.Most of themwere recruited byan agent or university representative, while only some of them wererecruited directly and contacted the university’s representative afterarriving in Warsaw.

5.3 Analysis and Results

The first part of the research was devoted to the evaluation of the agent’sor university representative’s work. The principal components analysiswas applied to the questions about the importance of certain elements ofan agent’s activities and their evaluation. The research tool (question-naire) was subjected to the Cronbach’s alpha estimate in order to checkfor its reliability. Figure 5.1 presents a scree plot for the elements of anagent’s activities and its shape suggests a univariate solution. The isolateddimension explained 27.29% of the variance. The reliability of themeasurement of the resulting overall score concerning the elementsrelated to the agent’s activities calculated using the Cronbach’s alpha testwas high (0.91) which means excellent consistency.Figure 5.2 illustrates a scree plot resulting from the analysis of the

answers related to the evaluation of an agent’s activities. Its shape againsuggests a univariate solution. The isolated dimension explained 43.29%of the variance. The Cronbach’s alpha reliability test score was high(0.88) indicating very good consistency.The main part of the research was devoted to finding differences

between the perception of the agent—his or her features of character,skills, competences, behavior and appearance with respect to age, sex andregion of origin. Thus, the rest of this section will be divided into three


Component Number

Eig

enva

lue

10

8

6

4

2

0

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

Fig. 5.1 Scree plot for the elements of an agent’s activities. Source Elaborationbased on own research

Component Number

Eig

enva

lue

6

5

4

3

2

1

0

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Fig. 5.2 Scree plot for evaluation of an agent’s activities. Source Elaborationbased on own research


sub-sections: comparison of the results with respect to the respondentsfrom Europe and Asia, and dependencies within the group of Europeanrespondents and Asian respondents.

5.3.1 Comparison of Asia and Europe Results

The first part of this sub-section will be devoted to the analysis of thedifferences in perception between European and Asian respondents. It isassumed that, according to certain main features of particular cultures,Asian respondents will generally pay more attention than Europeans toagents’ competences, as they tend to be very pro-partner and poly-chromic, which means they would pay more attention to the person—hisor her skills and behavior as well as the first impression. They would alsoconsider the overall appearance and cleanliness (as part of an appropriatedress code) as a way to show respect, thus it should be rated higher thanby the Europeans. Asian cultures (especially from South Asia) also seemto be more ceremonial and hierarchical, thus business protocol will bemore significant to them. Being more restrained than the Europeans,Asian respondents are expected to pay more attention to proper gesturesand voice timbre. Respondents from Central Asia would pay even moreattention to communication and the ability to build relations, as they areused to the values of interpersonal relations (especially within the family).In order to analyze the important elements of an agent’s activity withinthe group of respondents from Asia and Europe as well as to make thecomparisons, an in-depth statistical analysis was applied. The differenceswere analyzed using a non-parametric Mann–Whitney U test. Theoverall score, calculated as an average of the results for each specific scale,was analyzed using a student’s t-test for independent samples in order tomark statistically significant differences. Table 5.1 presents the averageresults for the importance of certain elements of an agent’s activityamong the Asian and European respondents. Europeans, being moder-ately pro-partner, are more concrete and are more interested in thecontent of the offer than in the way it is delivered.As a result of an in-depth statistical analysis, there were observed

statistically significant differences between the groups (Asia and Europe)


Table 5.1 Average results for the importance of certain elements of an agent’sactivity among the Asian and European respondents with statistical significancetest

Importance of certainelements of an agent’sactivity

Group Z/t p

Europe(n = 94)

Asia(n = 56)

M SD M SDOverall appearance 3.68 0.78 4.25 0.70 −4.17*** 0.000Cleanliness 4.04 0.70 4.60 0.63 −4.78*** 0.000Fashionable clothes 3.02 0.70 3.24 0.61 −1.95 0.051Mimicry 3.71 0.88 3.71 0.72 −0.34 0.731Gestures 3.62 0.88 4.02 0.77 −2.53* 0.011Voice 3.61 1.04 4.20 0.76 −3.38** 0.001Behavior—manners 4.34 0.74 4.69 0.60 −3.24** 0.001Behavior—way of talking 4.37 0.75 4.73 0.59 −3.39** 0.001Behavior—way ofanswering the questions

4.55 0.62 4.70 0.50 −1.39 0.165

Behavior—attitude tocustomers

4.73 0.53 4.62 0.62 −1.09 0.277

Optimism 4.05 0.70 4.27 0.62 −1.91 0.056Open-mindedness 4.29 0.73 4.43 0.68 −1.20 0.231Reliability 3.82 0.81 4.53 0.66 −5.17*** 0.000Self-confidence 3.99 0.81 4.38 0.68 −2.98** 0.003Cooperativeness 3.86 0.86 4.54 0.61 −4.73*** 0.000Ability to buildrelationships

4.17 0.72 4.43 0.68 −2.22* 0.026

Possessing initiative 3.92 0.78 3.94 0.74 −0.36 0.722Ability to inspire 3.68 0.83 4.29 0.73 −4.31*** 0.000Engagement 3.86 0.71 3.78 0.88 −0.47 0.641Communicativeness 4.29 0.77 4.55 0.57 −1.99* 0.047Verbal communication 3.95 0.87 4.43 0.53 −3.33** 0.001Non-verbalcommunication

3.76 0.86 3.79 0.96 −0.28 0.778

Ability to influence 3.65 0.75 4.05 0.76 −3.17** 0.002Ability to convince 3.68 0.81 4.19 0.68 −3.76*** 0.000Leadership 3.66 0.82 4.45 0.72 −5.36*** 0.000Proactiveness 3.89 0.84 4.60 0.69 −5.07*** 0.000Quality of presenting theoffer

4.36 0.69 4.46 0.69 −1.04 0.298

Knowledge about theoffer

4.50 0.67 4.65 0.55 −1.36 0.173

Responsiveness 3.92 0.81 4.52 0.60 −4.40*** 0.000

(continued)


in terms of the results on the scales of overall appearance, cleanliness,gestures, voice, manners, way of talking, reliability, self-confidence,cooperativeness, ability to build relationships and inspire, communica-tion skills, verbal communication, ability to make influence, persuasionskills, leadership, proactiveness, responsiveness, flexibility as well as theoverall score of all types of characteristics. The results indicate that theaverage (Fig. 5.3) values of all these results were higher in the group ofrespondents from Asia.The results indicate that respondents from Asia rate higher some of the

important elements influencing an agent’s activity. With respect to ap-pearance: the overall appearance and cleanliness; with respect to behavior:gestures, voice, manners, way of talking; and with respect to personality:reliability, self-confidence, cooperativeness, ability to build relationshipsand inspire, communicativeness, verbal communication, influence andpersuasion skills, leadership, proactiveness, responsiveness and flexibility.Moreover, the overall result of an agent’s characteristics importanceevaluation was higher among the respondents from Asia than amongthose from Europe. For both groups, however, most important featureswere: the way of answering the questions, knowledge about the offer andability to answer all questions with the overall attitude to customer beingthe winner among the Europeans, which should not be surprising. Theresults also imply that all respondents, regardless of the region, perceiveso-called soft competences as being less important than knowledge, hardskills or offer-related abilities which were pointed out as most important



Group Z/t p

Europe(n = 94)

Asia(n = 56)

M SD M SDAbility to answer allquestions

4.57 0.66 4.75 0.55 −1.89 0.058

Flexibility 4.12 0.78 4.46 0.61 −2.60** 0.009Overall score 3.99 0.38 4.33 0.29 −6.22*** 0.000

M—average; SD—standard deviation; Z/t—test’s statistics; p—bilateral statisticalsignificance; *—p < 0.05; ** —p < 0.01; ***—p < 0.001Source Elaboration based on own research


by everybody. However, Asian respondents also paid much attentionto cleanliness, manners and way of talking as well as proactiveness.This means that respondents from Asia are more vulnerable tobehavior-related elements than their European counterparts, which wasexpected due to the cultural model they belong to. The only surprisingdifference is how proactiveness is perceived by Asian respondents. Beingmore restrained than Europeans, they were not expected to evaluateproactiveness that high. The only explanation here is that proactiveness isrelated to entrepreneurship which is perceived as a virtue.Moreover, the research results included the analysis of an agent’s actual

behavior and activity evaluation among European and Asian respon-dents and their comparison. The differences were examined with theMann–Whitney U test and the overall score, calculated as an average of the

2.0 2.7 3.4 4.1 4.8 5.5

The overall appearance

Cleanlines

Gestures

Voice

Manners

Way of talking

Reliability

Self-confidence

Cooperativeness

Ability of building relationships

Ability to inspire

Communicativeness

Komunikacja werbalna

Ability to influence

Ability to convince

Leadership

Pro-activeness

Responsiveness

Flexibility

Overall score

Europe Asia

Fig. 5.3 Average results for the importance of certain elements of an agent’sactivity among the Asian and European respondents—statistically significantdifferences. Source Elaboration based on own research


results for each specific scale, was analyzed using a student’s t-test forindependent samples in order to mark statistically significant differences(Table 5.2).Statistically significant inter-group (Europe and Asia) differences were

noted in relation to the evaluation of: asking detailed questions tounderstand customer’s needs, friendly manner of approach, listening tothe customer without interrupting and showing interest in conversation,keeping the consistency of non-verbal communication with the verbalcontent as well as with respect to the overall evaluation score. Averageresults for the above-mentioned elements’ evaluation were higher amongAsian respondents than European ones and they were all rated “good” orhigher. The results indicate that respondents from Asia rated their agentshigher with respect to the above-mentioned factors. The relation betweenthe agent and Asian respondents seems friendly, the agent was listeningwithout interrupting, and showing interest in the conversation and askedadditional questions to better understand the needs of the customers.Asian respondents also indicated internal consistency of the agent’scommunication (verbal and non-verbal elements). Moreover, the overallscore of the agent’s actual behavior and activities’ evaluation was higheramong Asian than European respondents, who rated as “good” only thepossessed knowledge about the offer and proper orientation in the edu-cational area. The conclusion is that Asian agents are better prepared, asthey know the market, being a part of it (they come from the indigenousmarket). In Europe, since the recruitment takes place in neighboringcountries, university representatives (Poles, in this case) are taking theplace of agents. They may be less prepared to meet the particular needs oftheir customers, but they know the educational offer better.Table 5.3 shows the frequency distribution of opinions on the role of

the agent or university representative in choosing the universityaccording to Asian and European respondents.Based on Pearson’s chi-squared test of independence (x2), there was

noted a statistically significant difference between Asian and Europeanrespondents: x2(5) = 21.01; p < 0.01. Among the respondents from Asiathere were more people who decided to choose a particular universityafter talking to the agent or university representative, but on the otherhand, more Asian respondents also indicated that there were more


Table 5.2 Average results for evaluation of an agent’s behavior and activityamong European and Asian respondents with statistical significance test

Agent’s behavior andactivity evaluation

Group Z/t p

Europe(n = 94)

Asia(n = 56)

M SD M SDPossessed hugeknowledge about theoffer and was welloriented in theeducational area

4.10 0.74 3.89 1.11 −0.71 0.475

Used different persuasiontechniques to convinceme

3.28 1.06 3.55 1.06 −1.47 0.141

Asked detailed questionsto understand my needs

3.50 1.18 3.96 1.06 −2.37* 0.018

Wanted to meet andsatisfy my needs

3.61 1.04 3.86 1.10 −1.54 0.122

Informed me kindly,clearly and fully

3.98 0.77 3.93 1.22 −0.61 0.543

Demonstrated confidencein his or her ownpossibilities and showedup this faith

3.57 0.99 3.89 0.88 −1.70 0.089

Was contacting me in afriendly manner

3.51 1.13 4.30 0.76 −4.30*** 0.000

Took into considerationthe potential influenceof what I was saying

3.60 1.01 3.89 1.00 −1.89 0.058

Listened to me withoutinterrupting and showedinterest in theconversation

3.72 0.99 4.07 1.02 −2.33* 0.020

Checked if what I wassaying was understoodcorrectly

3.73 1.06 3.88 1.34 −1.51 0.132

Provided informationwithout distortionexplaining difficultcontent of the offer

3.76 0.90 3.70 1.22 −0.21 0.831

Kept the consistency ofthe non-verbalcommunication

3.61 1.06 4.16 0.93 −3.19*** 0.001

(continued)


important things in choosing the university than talking to the universityrepresentative or agent. Among European respondents, there were morepeople who would not choose the university without talking to theuniversity representative or agent, but also more Europeans claimed thattalking to the agent or university representative was not important. Itmeans that generally Asian and European respondents share a similarview that it is good to talk to someone who should know the universityand could advise, but they believe that this is not always (or it is notnecessarily) the most important factor, although it was still perceived asone of the crucial ones. That should not be surprising: people alwayswant to talk to someone who knows about a place which is unknown tous, so that we can ask detailed questions, hear some advice etc.Table 5.4 presents the frequency distribution of opinions on factors

influencing Asian and European respondents’ decisions about choosingthe university. With reference to the chi-squared test, no statisticallysignificant dependency between the opinions on factors and Asian orEuropean respondents was noted: x2(2) = 3.14; p > 0.05. For allrespondents, the possibility of talking to a person who knows the uni-versity was more important than the way the offer was presentedregardless of the respondents’ region of origin. This result should not besurprising, given the previous analysis of opinions on the role of theagent. It also implies that the respondents are self- and goal-aware cus-tomers who are more interested in gaining answers to their concrete


Agent’s behavior andactivity evaluation

Group Z/t p

Europe(n = 94)

Asia(n = 56)

M SD M SD(gestures, mimicry,manner of speaking,tone) with the verbalcontent

Overall score 3.67 0.64 3.92 0.72 −2.25* 0.026

M—average; SD—standard deviation; Z/t—test’s statistics; p—bilateral statisticalsignificance; *—p < 0.05; ***—p < 0.001Source Elaboration based on own research


questions rather than in a “nice package”. This is an important clue forpersonal sellers—they have to pay more attention to being well prepared,knowing the offer and anticipating probable questions to be able toanswer them reliably.Table 5.5 illustrates the opinions of Asian and European respondents

with respect to the importance of the first impression made by the agentor representative of the university. The chi-squared test showed thatthere are statistically important dependencies between the type of

Table 5.3 Frequency distribution—opinions of Asian and European respondentson the role of the agent or university representative in choosing the university

Opinions Europe Asia

n % n %It is important to talk to the university representative oragent before deciding about studying there

23 25.0 13 23.2

The university offer is best presented by the universityrepresentative or agent

14 15.2 8 14.3

I decided to choose the university after talking to theuniversity representative or agent

9 9.8 14 25.0

I would not choose the university without talking to theuniversity representative or agent

14 15.2 2 3.6

It is not important to talk to the university representativeor agent before choosing the university

14 15.2 0 0

There are more important things in choosing theuniversity than talking to the university representativeor agent

18 19.6 19 33.9

n—number of respondents; %—group percentageSource Elaboration based on own research

Table 5.4 Frequency distribution—opinions on factors influencing Asian andEuropean respondents’ decisions about choosing the university

Factors influencing the choice of a university Europe Asia

n % n %Possibility of contact with the recruiting person 35 38.5 17 30.4Possibility of talking to an agent who knows the university 29 31.9 26 46.4The way the agent or representative of the universitypresented the offer

27 29.7 13 23.2



opinion on the importance of the first impression and respondents’region of origin: x2(5) = 10.35, p < 0.05. Generally, respondents fromAsia perceived the first impression as much more important thanrespondents from Europe. This is not surprising since Asians are morepro-partner and ceremonial, thus they perceive the first impression ascrucial for establishing further relationship. European respondents weremore likely to state that the first impression is important, but not crucial.

5.3.2 Dependencies Within the EuropeanRespondents Group

This sub-section will be devoted to the search for intra-group depen-dencies between opinions of the European respondents and their sex orage. The aim is to discover if there are any differences in perceptionbetween men and women as well as younger and older customers, asthere is an assumption that there are, especially with respect to sex. It isgenerally expected that women would pay more attention to manners,gestures and nice behavior than men and that younger people would paymore attention to physical appearance and behavior than to the offeritself, knowledge or proper preparation to answering all questions as wellas communication skills which would be valued higher by olderrespondents. The research was expected to verify these hypotheses.Table 5.6 illustrates the average results for the evaluation of importance

of an agent’s activities depending on the sex of the European respondents.

Table 5.5 Frequency distribution—opinions of Asian and European respondentswith respect to the importance of the first impression

Importance of the first impression Europe Asia

n % n %Crucial to the decision about studying at the particularuniversity

4 4.3 9 16.1

Very important 26 28.0 22 39.3Important, but not crucial 45 48.4 17 30.4Not very important 12 12.9 6 10.7Not important 6 6.5 2 3.6



The differences were analyzed with the usage of a non-parametricMann–Whitney U test, while the overall score was analyzed with theapplication of a student’s t-test for independent samples for revealingstatistically significant differences.Statistically significant intra-group differences with respect to sex were

noted regarding such factors as: gestures, manners, attitude to customer,engagement, influence skills, responsiveness as well as the overall score(Fig. 5.4).The results allow drawing the conclusion that the hypothesis about the

differences in women’s and men’s approach can be verified positively.Women are more vulnerable than men to the agent’s gestures andmanners, but also to engagement, influential skills, responsiveness andattitude to the customer. The overall score is also higher with respect towomen, which is not surprising. Women tend to pay more attention tobehavior and soft competences than men, who are more practical.Nevertheless, for both sexes still the most important factors related to “thecontent” not “the package”, namely: ability to answer the questions andthe way it was done, attitude to the customer as well as knowledge aboutthe offer. Moreover, there were no significant differences in evaluatingthe agent’s actual behavior and activity by men and women (Table 5.7).All proceedings were rated “quite good” and “good” with persuasiontechniques rated just above the satisfactory level. It means that either thesetechniques were not used or were not used properly, or even that the agentdid not want to use them. Another possibility is that respondents were noteducated enough in this area to notice that element. This element could beresearched further, as persuasion techniques are crucial in the personalselling process.Table 5.8 illustrates the frequency distribution of opinions on the role

of the agent or university representative in choosing the universityaccording to European respondents with respect to their sex. TheChi-squared test revealed a statistically significant dependency betweensex of the respondents and their opinions on the role of the agent in theuniversity choosing process: x2(5) = 12.57; p < 0.05. Women tend tovalue higher than men the importance of talking to an agent beforedeciding about the university and claim to have made this decision aftersuch a meeting. More men on the other hand think that it is not


Table 5.6 Average results for the importance of certain elements of an agent’sactivity with respect to sex among the European respondents with statisticalsignificance test


Sex Z/t p

Women(n = 68)

Men(n = 26)

M SD M SDOverall appearance 3.72 0.77 3.60 0.82 −0.63 0.530Cleanliness 4.05 0.72 4.04 0.68 −0.18 0.855Fashionable clothes 3.00 0.72 3.08 0.64 −0.57 0.571Mimicry 3.81 0.82 3.43 0.99 −1.82 0.069Gestures 3.84 0.80 3.08 0.84 −3.74*** 0.000Voice 3.67 1.02 3.44 1.08 −0.87 0.384Behavior—manners 4.45 0.69 4.08 0.81 −2.14* 0.033Behavior—way of talking 4.42 0.78 4.23 0.65 −1.61 0.108Behavior—way ofanswering the questions

4.56 0.63 4.54 0.58 −0.32 0.752

Behavior—attitude tocustomers

4.79 0.51 4.58 0.58 −2.08* 0.037

Optimism 4.10 0.68 3.92 0.74 −1.19 0.235Open-mindedness 4.31 0.72 4.23 0.76 −0.45 0.654Reliability 3.84 0.77 3.76 0.93 −0.37 0.713Self-confidence 3.99 0.82 4.00 0.82 −0.02 0.981Cooperativeness 3.86 0.89 3.85 0.78 −0.23 0.821Ability to buildrelationships

4.25 0.70 3.96 0.73 −1.87 0.061

Possessing initiative 3.97 0.81 3.81 0.69 −1.02 0.306Ability to inspire 3.71 0.86 3.62 0.75 −0.42 0.672Engagement 4.00 0.66 3.50 0.71 −3.15** 0.002Communicativeness 4.34 0.80 4.16 0.69 −1.45 0.148Verbal communication 4.01 0.80 3.77 1.03 −1.02 0.310Non-verbalcommunication

3.84 0.85 3.56 0.87 −1.39 0.163

Ability to influence 3.75 0.77 3.40 0.65 −2.03* 0.042Ability to convince 3.73 0.83 3.56 0.77 −0.98 0.328Leadership 3.75 0.80 3.44 0.87 −1.53 0.126Proactiveness 3.88 0.81 3.92 0.93 −0.34 0.732Quality of presenting theoffer

4.42 0.65 4.20 0.76 −1.28 0.201

Knowledge about theoffer

4.57 0.63 4.31 0.74 −1.73 0.084

Responsiveness 4.03 0.82 3.65 0.75 −1.99* 0.047

(continued)




Sex Z/t p

Women(n = 68)

Men(n = 26)

M SD M SDAbility to answer allquestions

4.56 0.70 4.62 0.57 −0.13 0.896

Flexibility 4.12 0.77 4.12 0.82 −0.02 0.982Overall score 4.04 0.37 3.86 0.36 2.19* 0.033

M—average; SD—standard deviation; Z/t—test’s statistics; p—bilateral statisticalsignificance; *—p < 0.05; **—p < 0.01; ***—p < 0.001Source Elaboration based on own research

2.0 2.7 3.4 4.1 4.8 5.5

Gestures

Manners

Attitude to customers

Engagement

Ability to influence

Responisiveness

Overall score

Women Men

Fig. 5.4 Average results for the importance of certain elements of an agent’sactivity with respect to sex among the European respondents—statisticallysignificant differences. Source Elaboration based on own research


Table 5.7 Average results for evaluation of an agent’s behavior and activityamong European respondents with respect to sex with statistical significance test

Agent’s behavior and activityevaluation

Sex Z/t p

women(n = 68)

men(n = 26)

M SD M SDPossessed huge knowledgeabout the offer and was welloriented in the educationalarea

4.09 0.70 4.13 0.85 −0.54 0.586

Used different persuasiontechniques to convince me

3.30 1.08 3.21 1.02 −0.47 0.640

Asked detailed questions tounderstand my needs

3.41 1.23 3.75 1.03 −1.11 0.266

Wanted to meet and satisfymy needs

3.61 1.05 3.63 1.01 −0.17 0.867

Informed me kindly, clearlyand fully

4.05 0.74 3.78 0.85 −1.55 0.121

Demonstrated confidence inhis or her own possibilitiesand showed up this faith

3.48 0.95 3.83 1.07 −1.54 0.123

Was contacting me in afriendly manner

3.54 1.12 3.42 1.18 −0.47 0.635

Took into consideration thepotential influence of what Iwas saying

3.66 1.00 3.42 1.02 −1.06 0.287

Listened to me withoutinterrupting and showedinterest in the conversation

3.70 1.01 3.79 0.98 −0.34 0.735

Checked if what I was sayingwas understood correctly

3.70 1.08 3.83 1.01 −0.57 0.572

Provided information withoutdistortion explainingdifficult content of the offer

3.78 0.87 3.71 1.00 −0.33 0.743

Kept the consistency of thenon-verbal communication(gestures, mimicry, mannerof speaking, tone) with theverbal content

3.70 1.02 3.38 1.13 −1.30 0.194

Overall score 3.67 0.60 3.66 0.74 0.08 0.933

M—average; SD—standard deviation; Z/t—test’s statistics; p—bilateral statisticalsignificanceSource Elaboration based on own research


important to talk to an agent before choosing the university. Theseresults confirm the previous assumption that women are more sensitiveto interpersonal contacts than men and need them more. Men wouldrather rely on their own judgment, but still they appreciate the possibilityof talking to someone who can answer specific questions they mighthave, and they think it is the agent or university representative who canpresent the educational offer best. Women pay more attention to thequality of the contact with an agent while men rather focus on thecontent of the conversation. Surprisingly, there are almost no differencesbetween women and men with respect to the importance of the firstimpression—half of both male and female respondents claim that it isimportant, but not crucial, while it could be expected that women (beingnaturally more emotional) would pay more attention to that factor(Table 5.9).As regards age, statistically important dependencies occurred only with

respect to the opinions on the importance of certain elements of anagent’s activity. Table 5.10 presents average results for the importance ofcertain elements of an agent’s activity among the European respondents

Table 5.8 Frequency distribution of opinions on the role of the agent or universityrepresentative in choosing the university with respect to sex of the Europeanrespondents

Opinions Women Men

n % n %It is important to talk to the university representative oragent before deciding about studying there

20 29.9 3 12.0

The university offer is best presented by the universityrepresentative or agent

9 13.4 5 20.0


9 13.4 0 0

I would not choose the university without talking to theuniversity representative or agent

10 14.9 4 16.0

It is not important to talk to the university representativeor agent before choosing the university

6 9.0 8 32.0

There are more important things in choosing the universitythan talking to the university representative or agent

13 19.4 5 20.0



with respect to their age. The differences were analyzed by anon-parametric Mann–Whitney U test, while the overall score wassubjected to a student’s t-test for independent samples.Statistically significant differences concerned fashionable clothes, way

of talking and influential skills and were rated as more important byyounger respondents than by the older ones. Again, this result is notsurprising, as young people pay more attention to external and appear-ance factors than older ones (due to the need to follow fashion andfocusing more on external factors to suit the environment and be a partof the group, which is important for teenagers and young adults). Moreimportance paid to persuasion techniques by younger people may be alsoa result of the common belief that success in personal selling depends onusing the persuasion method or lack of proper knowledge in the field.Older respondents either have broader knowledge in that matter or donot perceive persuasion as that important in the specific area of personalselling in the higher education sector.

5.3.3 Dependencies Within AsianRespondents Group

This sub-section is devoted to the research focusing on intra-group dif-ferences among Asian respondents with respect to their sex and age. Inthis case, most expected differences are those related to gender. Asianwomen are brought up in a patriarchal environment, in a more male

Table 5.9 Frequency distribution—opinions of European respondents on theimportance of the first impression depending on sex

Importance of the first impression Women Men

n % n %Crucial to the decision about studying at the particularuniversity

4 5.9 0 .0

Very important 20 29.4 6 24.0Important, but not crucial 33 48.5 12 48.0Not very important 7 10.3 5 20.0Not important 4 5.9 2 8.0



Table 5.10 Average results for the importance of certain elements of an agent’sactivity among the European respondents with respect to age with statisticalsignificance test

Importance of certain elementsof an agent’s activity

Age Z/t p

18–21(n = 78)

22+(n = 15)

M SD M SDOverall appearance 3.67 0.81 3.80 0.68 −0.61 0.541Cleanliness 4.09 0.69 3.80 0.77 −1.61 0.108Fashionable clothes 3.11 0.68 2.64 0.63 −2.30* 0.021Mimicry 3.76 0.82 3.53 1.13 −0.83 0.405Gestures 3.69 0.84 3.21 1.05 −1.81 0.071Voice 3.68 1.02 3.13 0.99 −1.86 0.063Behavior—manners 4.41 0.66 3.93 1.00 −1.81 0.071Behavior—way of talking 4.44 0.68 3.93 0.96 −2.10* 0.036Behavior—way of answering thequestions

4.55 0.62 4.60 0.63 −0.37 0.714

Behavior—attitude to customers 4.75 0.46 4.60 0.83 −0.38 0.705Optimism 4.06 0.66 4.00 0.93 −0.04 0.972Open-mindedness 4.31 0.69 4.13 0.92 −0.54 0.592Reliability 3.82 0.78 3.80 1.01 −0.14 0.890Self-confidence 4.05 0.79 3.67 0.90 −1.55 0.122Cooperativeness 3.85 0.77 4.00 1.13 −0.87 0.387Ability to build relationships 4.17 0.66 4.33 0.82 −1.19 0.233Possessing initiative 3.92 0.78 4.00 0.76 −0.55 0.584Ability to inspire 3.64 0.80 3.93 0.96 −1.22 0.223Engagement 3.82 0.67 4.07 0.92 −1.41 0.158Communicativeness 4.36 0.69 4.07 0.96 −1.05 0.295Verbal communication 3.97 0.87 3.73 0.88 −1.02 0.309Non-verbal communication 3.80 0.85 3.60 0.91 −0.90 0.368Ability to influence 3.72 0.70 3.27 0.88 −2.02* 0.044Ability to convince 3.68 0.80 3.69 0.95 −0.04 0.971Leadership 3.69 0.81 3.57 0.94 −0.32 0.752Proactiveness 3.87 0.81 4.00 1.07 −0.83 0.409Quality of presenting the offer 4.35 0.70 4.43 0.65 −0.31 0.754Knowledge about the offer 4.51 0.68 4.40 0.63 −0.84 0.399Responsiveness 3.95 0.81 3.80 0.86 −0.53 0.598Ability to answer all questions 4.56 0.69 4.60 0.51 −0.21 0.837Flexibility 4.18 0.74 3.80 0.94 −1.50 0.134Overall score 4.02 0.32 3.88 0.60 0.85 0.408

M—average; SD—standard deviation; Z/t—test’s statistics; p—bilateral statisticalsignificance; *—p < 0.05Source Elaboration based on own research


world—i.e. a world in which most of the important positions are held bymen, and women are not very often present in business. Societies arequite hierarchical with respect to social status, gender and age.Consequently, men are expected to pay more attention to the compe-tences which are related to business etiquette, while women respondrather to soft competences, to which they are most accustomed to in thetraditional women’s position within their cultures.Table 5.11 presents the average results for the evaluation of impor-

tance of an agent’s activities depending on sex among the Asianrespondents. The differences were analyzed with the usage of anon-parametric Mann–Whitney U test, while the overall score wasanalyzed with the application of a student’s t-test for independentsamples for marking statistically significant differences.Surprisingly, there were not many differences between men and

women. Based on the quite significant distinctions in the traditional rolesof men and women in the analyzed countries, more dissimilarities wereexpected. Men paid most attention to the way of talking and cleanliness,and women to the ability of answering the questions and the way theseanswers were delivered (thus, quite the opposite in relation to theirEuropean counterparts). This is only partly surprising, and partly it alsoconfirms the stated hypotheses from the beginning of this sub-section.Other important features for both men and women were manners,attitude towards customers and knowledge about the offer. Leastimportant were fashionable clothes and voice timbre. Such results implythat generally Asian respondents are more influenced by the content ofthe offer and the quality of the agent’s answers as well as skills rather thanappearance and personality. An interesting result, however, is that menperceived cleanliness as being far more important for them than forwomen. This is difficult to explain, but perhaps the reason is that theseare men who take most of the highest official and business positions, thusthey pay more attention to proper look and behavior (etiquette andprotocol). Nevertheless, there are huge discrepancies between men’s andwomen’s perception of an agent’s actual behavior and activity. Womenrated highest the level of their needs satisfaction, friendly manner ofcontact and listening without interruption and it was evaluated as “morethan good”. Men on the other hand perceived the level of friendliness


Table 5.11 Average results for the importance of certain elements of an agent’sactivity with respect to sex among the Asian respondents with statisticalsignificance test

Importance of certain elements of anagent’s activity

Sex Z/t p

Women(n = 21)

Men(n = 35)

M SD M SDOverall appearance 4.10 0.70 4.35 0.69 −1.36 0.173Cleanliness 4.43 0.60 4.71 0.63 −2.11* 0.035Fashionable clothes 3.20 0.70 3.26 0.57 −0.25 0.799Mimicry 3.85 0.75 3.63 0.71 −0.98 0.325Gestures 4.20 0.62 3.91 0.84 −1.25 0.213Voice 4.20 0.95 4.21 0.64 −0.40 0.690Behavior—manners 4.76 0.44 4.65 0.69 −0.33 0.741Behavior—way of talking 4.71 0.78 4.74 0.45 −0.83 0.406Behavior—way of answering thequestions

4.81 0.40 4.63 0.55 −1.25 0.211

Behavior—attitude to customers 4.71 0.56 4.56 0.66 −0.91 0.364Optimism 4.33 0.73 4.23 0.55 −1.01 0.315Open-mindedness 4.33 0.91 4.49 0.51 −0.09 0.932Reliability 4.52 0.60 4.53 0.71 −0.30 0.762Self-confidence 4.52 0.51 4.29 0.76 −0.96 0.338Cooperativeness 4.62 0.59 4.48 0.62 −0.85 0.395Ability to build relationships 4.33 0.66 4.49 0.70 −1.00 0.316Possessing initiative 3.90 0.79 3.97 0.72 −0.11 0.909Ability to inspire 4.24 0.70 4.31 0.76 −0.54 0.590Engagement 3.85 0.81 3.74 0.93 −0.45 0.650Communicativeness 4.57 0.51 4.54 0.61 −0.03 0.977Verbal communication 4.48 0.51 4.40 0.55 −0.45 0.655Non-verbal communication 3.84 0.96 3.76 0.97 −0.36 0.721Ability to influence 4.05 0.74 4.06 0.78 −0.04 0.969Ability to convince 4.10 0.62 4.25 0.72 −1.04 0.300Leadership 4.57 0.60 4.38 0.79 −0.79 0.428Proactiveness 4.75 0.55 4.50 0.76 −1.31 0.189Quality of presenting the offer 4.43 0.60 4.49 0.74 −0.67 0.502Knowledge about the offer 4.71 0.56 4.62 0.55 −0.81 0.420Responsiveness 4.71 0.46 4.40 0.65 −1.80 0.071Ability to answer all questions 4.90 0.30 4.66 0.64 −1.53 0.126Flexibility 4.48 0.68 4.45 0.56 −0.35 0.726Overall score 4.37 0.24 4.31 0.31 0.72 0.472



and coherence of communication the highest, but still it was only on a“good” level. The greatest differences in women’s and men’s perceptionof an agent’s behavior concerned the needs’ satisfaction, listening withoutinterruptions, checking for understanding as well as the overall score(Table 5.12). All these elements were rated much higher by women thanby men. Other elements such as kind and full information, potentialinfluence of the speaker and non-disrupted information delivery werealso evaluated higher by women. The reason for this may be different:either men and women contacted different agents who behaved in adissimilar way or the perception of men and women concerning the samebehavior was different.Male respondents from Asia rather tend to think that there are other

more important elements in choosing the university than talking to anagent while women would rather choose to talk to an agent beforemaking this decision. Nevertheless, both groups seem to appreciate thisopportunity as there were no respondents claiming that conversationwith an agent is unimportant (Table 5.13). Men would rather focus onthe possibility to talk to an agent who really knows the university (thus,content of the conversation is most important) while women concentrateon the very conversation itself (the way of conducting the conversationseems more important).The first impression is generally important for Asian respondents, as

was mentioned before, and there is almost no difference in perceptionbetween men and women (Table 5.14) with predictably slightly greaterenthusiasm for first impression among women.Regarding the differences between the respondents from Asia with

respect to age, there were just a few. Table 5.15 presents average resultsfor the importance of certain elements of an agent’s activity among theAsian respondents with respect to their age. The differences were ana-lyzed by a non-parametric Mann–Whitney U test, while the overallscore was subjected to a student’s t-test for independent samples.Cooperativeness and surprisingly the overall appearance were evaluated asbeing more important by the older group of respondents while it wasexpected to be the other way around, as generally younger people tend tobe more vulnerable to the elements of appearance than older ones. Onthe other hand, if agents looked unprofessional—wore inappropriate


Table 5.12 Average results for evaluation of an agent’s behavior and activityamong Asian respondents with respect to sex with statistical significance test

Agent’s behavior and activityevaluation

Sex Z/t p

Women(n = 21)

Men(n = 35)

M SD M SDPossessed huge knowledge aboutthe offer and was well oriented inthe educational area

4.14 1.24 3.74 1.01 −1.77 0.076

Used different persuasiontechniques to convince me

3.62 1.12 3.51 1.04 −0.53 0.597

Asked detailed questions tounderstand my needs

4.19 1.08 3.83 1.04 −1.53 0.125

Wanted to meet and satisfy myneeds

4.48 0.60 3.49 1.17 −3.25** 0.001

Informed me kindly, clearly and fully 4.38 1.07 3.66 1.24 −2.35* 0.019Demonstrated confidence in his orher own possibilities and showedup this faith

4.14 0.91 3.74 0.83 −1.77 0.076

Was contacting me in a friendlymanner

4.52 0.68 4.17 0.79 −1.74 0.082

Took into consideration thepotential influence of what I wassaying

4.33 0.58 3.63 1.11 −2.47* 0.013

Listened to me without interruptingand showed interest in theconversation

4.52 0.75 3.80 1.08 −2.62** 0.009

Checked if what I was saying wasunderstood correctly

4.43 1.12 3.54 1.36 −2.87** 0.004

Provided information withoutdistortion explaining difficultcontent of the offer

4.19 1.08 3.40 1.22 −2.53* 0.011

Kept the consistency of thenon-verbal communication(gestures, mimicry, manner ofspeaking, tone) with the verbalcontent

4.24 1.04 4.11 0.87 −0.83 0.409

Overall score 4.27 0.45 3.72 0.77 3.36** 0.001

M—average; SD—standard deviation; Z/t—test’s statistics; p—bilateral statisticalsignificance; *—p < 0.05; **—p < 0.01Source Elaboration based on own research


clothes etc.—it did not bother younger respondents, but mattered to theolder ones who perceive overall appearance as an integral and indis-pensable element of the personal seller’s job.For younger Asian respondents, conversation with the agent seems

generally more important than to the older ones, who think that otherthings are probably more important, but still they do not underestimate

Table 5.13 Frequency distribution of opinions on the role of the agent oruniversity representative in choosing the university with respect to sex of the Asianrespondents

Opinions Women Men

n % n %It is important to talk to the university representativeor agent before deciding about studying there

9 42.9 4 11.4

The university offer is best presented by theuniversity representative or agent

3 14.3 5 14.3


5 23.8 9 25.7

I would not choose the university without talking tothe university representative or agent

0 0 2 5.7

It is not important to talk to the universityrepresentative or agent before choosing theuniversity

0 0 0 0

There are more important things in choosing theuniversity than talking to the universityrepresentative or agent

4 19.0 15 42.9


Table 5.14 Frequency distribution—opinions of Asian respondents on the impor-tance of the first impression depending on sex

Importance of the first impression Women Men

n % n %Crucial to the decision about studying at theparticular university

3 14.3 6 17.1

Very important 9 42.9 13 37.1Important, but not crucial 9 42.9 8 22.9Not very important 0 0 6 17.1Not important 0 0 2 5.7



Table 5.15 Average results for the importance of certain elements of an agent’sactivity among the Asian respondents with respect to age with statisticalsignificance test

Importance of certain elements of anagent’s activity

Age Z/t p

18–21(n = 30)

22+(n = 26)

M SD M SDOverall appearance 4.03 0.67 4.52 0.65 −2.67* 0.008Cleanliness 4.55 0.63 4.65 0.63 −0.77 0.443Fashionable clothes 3.23 0.68 3.25 0.53 −0.05 0.961Mimicry 3.79 0.77 3.61 0.66 −1.00 0.316Gestures 4.03 0.63 4.00 0.93 −0.03 0.977Voice 4.31 0.71 4.08 0.81 −1.03 0.305Behavior—manners 4.62 0.68 4.77 0.51 −0.96 0.339Behavior—way of talking 4.67 0.71 4.80 0.41 −0.41 0.681Behavior—way of answering thequestions

4.67 0.48 4.73 0.53 −0.73 0.464

Behavior—attitude to customers 4.60 0.56 4.64 0.70 −0.71 0.478Optimism 4.27 0.52 4.27 0.72 −0.37 0.709Open-mindedness 4.60 0.50 4.23 0.82 −1.72 0.086Reliability 4.45 0.69 4.62 0.64 −1.02 0.308Self-confidence 4.28 0.75 4.50 0.58 −1.07 0.283Cooperativeness 4.32 0.67 4.77 0.43 −2.66* 0.008Ability to build relationships 4.37 0.76 4.50 0.58 −0.46 0.646Possessing initiative 3.87 0.68 4.04 0.81 −0.94 0.347Ability to inspire 4.20 0.81 4.38 0.64 −0.76 0.449Engagement 3.69 1.04 3.88 0.67 −0.64 0.521Communicativeness 4.63 0.56 4.46 0.58 −1.21 0.226Verbal communication 4.53 0.57 4.31 0.47 −1.74 0.082Non-verbal communication 4.00 0.94 3.54 0.93 −1.77 0.077Ability to influence 4.00 0.76 4.12 0.77 −0.64 0.525Ability to convince 4.15 0.66 4.23 0.71 −0.44 0.659Leadership 4.46 0.79 4.44 0.65 −0.45 0.650Proactiveness 4.55 0.78 4.65 0.57 −0.19 0.847Quality of presenting the offer 4.53 0.68 4.38 0.70 −0.91 0.362Knowledge about the offer 4.66 0.55 4.65 0.56 −0.01 0.992Responsiveness 4.50 0.68 4.54 0.51 −0.11 0.910Ability to answer all questions 4.70 0.60 4.81 0.49 −0.75 0.454Flexibility 4.52 0.63 4.40 0.58 −0.88 0.378Overall score 4.31 0.31 4.35 0.26 −0.54 0.593



the possibility to talk to an agent before deciding about the university(Table 5.16).The research also looked at the differences in perception between the

respondents from Central and South Asia. Table 5.17 presents averageresults for the importance of certain elements of an agent’s activityamong the respondents from Central and South Asia. The differenceswere analyzed by a non-parametric Mann–Whitney U test, while theoverall score was subjected to a student’s t-test for independent samples.There were certain statistically important differences in the evaluation ofthe importance of fashionable clothes, which was rated higher bySouthern Asian respondents. This is not surprising, as people from thesecountries pay a lot of attention to proper and pleasant clothing and areeager to appreciate it. Clothes are also a way to show respect and there isquite a strict etiquette concerning appropriate clothing for particularoccasions. Such features of character and skills as open-mindedness,communicativeness and non-verbal communication were perceived as

Table 5.16 Frequency distribution of opinions on the role of the agent oruniversity representative in choosing the university with respect to age of theAsian respondents

Opinions 18–21years

22 yearsand more

n % n %It is important to talk to the university representativeor agent before deciding about studying there

9 30.0 4 15.4


5 16.7 3 11.5


8 26.7 6 23.1


1 3.3 1 3.8


0 0 0 0


7 23.3 12 46.2



Table 5.17 Average results for the importance of certain elements of an agent’sactivity among the respondents from Central and South Asia with statisticalsignificance test

Importance of certain elements ofan agent’s activity

Asia Z/t p

Central(n = 26)

South(n = 30)

M SD M SDOverall appearance 4.08 0.69 4.41 0.68 −1.84 0.066Cleanliness 4.58 0.64 4.62 0.62 −0.28 0.782Fashionable clothes 3.04 0.66 3.43 0.50 −2.20* 0.027Mimicry 3.84 0.85 3.59 0.57 −1.19 0.235Gestures 4.12 0.67 3.93 0.86 −0.79 0.431Voice 4.32 0.75 4.10 0.77 −1.05 0.292Behavior—manners 4.62 0.70 4.76 0.51 −0.83 0.405Behavior—way of talking 4.58 0.76 4.86 0.35 −1.60 0.111Behavior—way of answering thequestions

4.69 0.55 4.70 0.47 −0.16 0.875

Behavior—attitude to customers 4.69 0.55 4.55 0.69 −0.71 0.479Optimism 4.31 0.55 4.23 0.68 −0.24 0.811Open-mindedness 4.69 0.47 4.20 0.76 −2.64** 0.008Reliability 4.42 0.64 4.62 0.68 −1.43 0.152Self-confidence 4.24 0.78 4.50 0.57 −1.21 0.227Cooperativeness 4.40 0.71 4.66 0.48 −1.28 0.199Ability of building relationships 4.38 0.70 4.47 0.68 −0.48 0.633Possessing initiative 3.96 0.66 3.93 0.81 −0.02 0.984Ability to inspire 4.23 0.71 4.33 0.76 −0.68 0.494Engagement 3.92 0.95 3.66 0.81 −1.17 0.241Communicativeness 4.73 0.45 4.40 0.62 −2.10* 0.036Verbal communication 4.58 0.50 4.30 0.53 −1.90 0.058Non-verbal communication 4.24 0.88 3.37 0.84 −3.34** 0.001Ability to influence 4.00 0.82 4.10 0.71 −0.45 0.653Ability to convince 4.04 0.77 4.30 0.60 −1.18 0.236Leadership 4.54 0.78 4.38 0.68 −1.20 0.228Proactiveness 4.56 0.82 4.63 0.56 −0.17 0.865Quality of presenting the offer 4.65 0.56 4.30 0.75 −1.86 0.063Knowledge about the offer 4.76 0.52 4.57 0.57 −1.50 0.134Responsiveness 4.62 0.64 4.43 0.57 −1.43 0.152Ability to answer all questions 4.69 0.62 4.80 0.48 −0.64 0.521Flexibility 4.52 0.59 4.41 0.63 −0.62 0.537Overall score 4.36 0.24 4.31 0.32 0.61 0.547

M—average; SD—standard deviation; Z/t—test’s statistics; p—bilateral statisticalsignificance; *— p < 0.05; **— p < 0.01Source Elaboration based on own research


more important in the agent’s day-to-day activity by the respondentsfrom Central Asia (Fig. 5.5). This is also not unexpected, since peoplefrom Central Asia are less restrained and only moderately pro-partner,which is why they would pay more attention to the manner of com-munication and appreciate more direct conversation as well as itsnon-verbal parts than their South Asian counterparts.Table 5.18 presents frequency distribution of opinions on the role of

the agent or university representative in choosing the university amongthe respondents from Central and South Asia. Based on Pearson’schi-squared test of independence, statistically significant differencesbetween Asian and European respondents: x2(4) = 9.80; p < 0.05 werenoted. More respondents from Central Asia think that conversation with

2.0 2.7 3.4 4.1 4.8 5.5

Fashionable clothes

Open-mindedness

Communicativeness

Non-verbal communication

Central Asia South Asia

Fig. 5.5 Average results for the importance of certain elements of an agent’sactivity among the respondents from Central and South Asia—statisticallysignificant differences. Source Elaboration based on own research


an agent is important in the process of choosing the university whilerespondents from South Asia value less such a possibility and ratherrespond that there are more important things than that.Application of the chi-squared test allowed us to distinguish certain

statistically important differences between these groups with respect tothe importance of the first impression made by an agent: x2(4) = 9.73;p < 0.05, which seems to be rated higher among the respondents fromSouth Asia (Table 5.19). Central Asian respondents tend to be moremoderate in their opinions claiming that it is important, but not crucial.

Table 5.18 Frequency distribution of opinions on the role of the agent oruniversity representative in choosing the university among the respondents fromCentral and South Asia

Opinions CentralAsia

SouthAsia

n % n %It is important to talk to the universityrepresentative or agent before deciding aboutstudying there

10 38.5 3 10.0


4 15.4 4 13.3

I decided to choose the university after talking tothe university representative or agent

7 26.9 7 23.3


0 0 2 6.7


0 0 0 0


5 19.2 14 46.7



5.4 Conclusions

With respect to the groups of competences distinguished in the previouschapter, it can be noted that for both groups—Asian and Europeanrespondents—knowledge and customer orientation related competencesare most important (Table 5.1 and Fig. 5.3). However, there are alsocertain differences. For Asian respondents, appearance and behavior arealso important while for Europeans, they are among the least significantfactors. The same is true for some of the leadership components. For therespondents from Asia coaching-associated competences are least impor-tant. The overall significance score is also much higher in the case of Asianrespondents, which indicates that an agent’s (personal seller) competencesare generally more important to them than to the Europeans, who pay lessattention to them. Not surprisingly, entrepreneurship competences werefar more important to Asian respondents that to their European coun-terparts. Young people in Asian countries value these skills highly as froma very young age they are encouraged to undertake business activities. Asfar as the evaluation of an agent’s actual performance is concerned,European respondents rated knowledge about the educational offer thehighest, while Asians’ evaluation was one of the lowest. On the otherhand, Asian respondents rated communication skills as being the best.There results should not be surprising. The reality of the market speci-ficity requires having domestic native agents in Asia and university

Table 5.19 Frequency distribution—opinions of Central and Southern Asianrespondents on the importance of the first impression

Importance of the first impression CentralAsia

SouthAsia

n % n %Crucial to the decision about studying at theparticular university

2 7.7 7 23.3

Very important 8 30.8 14 46.7Important, but not crucial 12 46.2 5 16.7Not very important 4 15.4 2 6.7Not important 0 0 2 6.7



representatives in European countries, which easily explains whyEuropeans evaluate knowledge higher (a university representative willalways have better knowledge than an agent) while for Asians, commu-nication in own language within own culture will always be better per-ceived than in a foreign language even with slight cultural differences.Thus, the recommendation here is that, since knowledge was perceived byboth groups as being very important, agents should improve in thisrespect in order to better meet the needs of their customers, or universitiesshould invest more, so that an agent is always accompanied by a universityrepresentative in order to present the offer and answer specific questionsmore fully.Among the European respondents, the same groups of competences

were pointed out to be most important regardless of the sex or age.Nevertheless, women and younger respondents were generally morevulnerable to all the competences than men, especially with respect tobehavior (particularly manners and gestures) and communication skills.Asian respondents did not differ much in their perception as far as sex isconcerned. With respect to age, appearance and customer orientationrelated competences were more important for older respondents, whichmay also be a valuable clue for agents. Differences between Central andSouth Asia concerned mainly the attitude towards the importance ofappearance and behavior with special attention given to the manner andability to answer questions (rated higher by respondents from South Asia)and communication skills (evaluated as being more significant byrespondents from Central Asia). Respondents from South Asia, beingmore ceremonial and restrained, are expected to pay more attention tohow they are approached (proper manner, and indirect communicationnot to hurt anyone) while for less restrained respondents from CentralAsia, the very process of direct communication and proper skills in thisrespect seem to be more important.Asians would also prefer to make the first contact by an intermediary

rather than directly, which is one feature of pro-partner cultures(Gesteland 2012). In most of the analyzed Asian countries first contactsare made at fairs or through business references, which is also why it isbetter for universities to use an agent rather than recruit directly.


Europeans tend to prefer a more direct contact, which is also the reasonfor not employing agents.

Reference

Gesteland, R. (2012). Cross-cultural business behavior. Copenhagen: CopenhagenBusiness School Press.


6Conclusions

With respect to a competitive market and future challenges, competenceshave become critical to the success of organizations. Companies areincreasingly aware of the need to know the factors affecting their efficientfunctioning. Questions about competences trouble numerous subject-matter experts around the world and knowledge about the mechanismsregarding in particular their impact on the results achieved is of greatimportance for practitioners. In the literature on the subject, someauthors use competences interchangeably with qualifications, consideringthese concepts equivalent. Initially, competences were understood as thelegal capacity to carry out the tasks, while qualifications referred to theability to undertake effective and efficient action; that is why peopletalked about high skills and low skills. Competences were recognized asthe scope of duties, rights and responsibilities. Later, however, an attemptwas made to distinguish clearly between competences and qualifications.Competences were understood to be superior to qualifications. It wasconsidered that qualifications are more specific and closely oriented intime, like individual properties, conducive to the efficiency of action,while competences concern generalized property units which help inimplementing tasks in terms of content. Researchers represent different


141

approaches in their deliberations concerning the distinction betweencompetences and qualifications. In the classical approach, qualificationsare perceived in terms of education or experience, knowledge, workexperience, i.e. those elements which can be measured and verified inpractice. Qualifications are regarded as a static concept. Competences, onthe other hand, are recognized as the skills and the expertise in usingthose skills, i.e. a causative element. A causative element means readinessfor action in different conditions and the ability to adapt to changingconditions. Some authors mention knowledge, skills, values, attitudesand motives as components of competences. Knowledge and skills can beshaped through various methods of training, while values, attitudes andmotives are much harder to change.The above-discussed diversity of definitions may stem from the

method of competence analysis. For some authors, the components ofcompetences are important, while for others more general issues grow inimportance. Almost all the authors are linked by a connecting factor, i.e.the skillful use by an employee of their competences. This includes themanner of using all the characteristics that the employee has, in order tocarry out the tasks for the occupied position in the most effective way.The fact that competences may constitute the employee’s dispositions tobehave in a certain way which is in line with the company’s expectationsis yet another important aspect. The employee has the desirable com-petences, but when he or she behaves below the expectations, it can beassumed that they do not have the required competences to perform theappropriate organizational role. This approach refers to performing workin a certain way and to the behavior underlying any competent action.We can talk then about competences within the behavioral contextwhich describe the behaviors underlying the competent actions. Thus,competences constitute a broader concept than qualifications since theyassume the practical context of their use. Competences, therefore, havetheir source in human behavior, by affecting people’s actions. Theirrelationship with key aspects of human behavior can be distinguished byeffective and less effective actions. Soft and behavioral skills matter here.The combination of these two aspects of the concept of competencesleads us to believe that, from a practical standpoint, it is the mostappropriate manner of understanding and expressing them: on the one


hand, as observable abilities and aptitudes helpful in the execution oftasks, and on the other as behavioral dimensions affecting the level oftheir performance.The diversity of definitions of competences is therefore related to how

the concept of competence is broadly understood. In defining compe-tences authors often identify the formal factors (knowledge, experience,abilities and aptitudes) that are required in order to efficiently carry outactivities, fulfill organizational roles and cooperate in achieving thecompany’s objectives, carrying out professional activities or even pro-moting ethical cultural values. When analyzing the definitions of com-petences, we can observe a widespread consensus among the authors thatthere is a link between competences and achieving specific results by agiven organization. It goes without saying that when it comes to thematter of recognizing competences, what matters is the practical aspect ofaction. Linking competence to action is recognized in slightly broaderdefinitions of competences. Subject-matter experts distinguish betweenindividual and organizational competences. In both theory and practice,it is recommended to combine individual competences with organiza-tional ones. In practice, the specific competences for one organizationmay constitute a set of competences for further component disaggrega-tion for another organization, in such a way that for instance the abilityto work in a team can be perceived as focusing on achieving goalstogether with the simultaneous cooperation and the ability to work withothers. This could mean that there is no general definition of a givencompetence (description) for all companies or positions.The description of competences should detail the nature of the work

within the organization for which it has been drawn up. The descriptionof the same competence will differ, depending on the organization:whether a trading company or public administration institution forinstance. For example, the “communicative” competence can be definedas “the ability to exchange information and knowledge with otherseffectively”, or as “the ability to establish and maintain appropriaterelationships with the customer”. In a case of turbulent change in thecompany’s environment, there is growing recognition among manage-ment of the importance of increased investment in the competencesrequired for the organization’s and employees’ actions to be effective.

6 Conclusions 143

This investment should be linked to long-term effects, since they alloweach organization to achieve their desired goals (survival and develop-ment). It is also worth noting that the above-mentioned process con-stitutes a long-term development since its implementation in practicetakes a lot of time. Numerous subject-matter experts and practitionersare tormented by the eternal question concerning how individual com-petences can affect the achievement of success in the present and thefuture, by both employees and managers, and consequently by the entireorganization. The causative element of competence constitutes a veryimportant aspect in a practical sense. Therefore, the following thesisseems justified: the definitions of competences should include a causativeelement and be formulated in a broader manner, taking into accountknowledge, skills, personal characteristics, motives, attitudes, abilities,aptitudes and readiness for action, as their use leads to the achievement ofabove-average performance.How is this related to personal sellers? Before answering this question,

there is a need to look at one marketing strategy—promotion—whichhelps to build marketing communication and establishing better cus-tomer relationships. Each promotion tool has its own aims and functionsand is designed to achieve certain goals which would lead to achievingsynergy in the overall process related to promotion-mix. Specificity of theproduct (goods or services) as well as the phase in the product life cycleand target audience define the intensity and the role of each promotiontool and its importance. Personal selling, as one such promotion tool, isespecially desired to play an important role in the communication-mix,when the product requires or the customer desires direct contact(demonstration of the product and personal interaction). Personal selling,apart from direct presentation and explanation of the offered product,provides a possibility to establish a longer-term relationship based onbetter mutual recognition and knowledge, creating a friendly atmo-sphere, using appropriate arguments to convince the customer, answeringquestions, using persuasive methods, etc. Personal selling gives alsoflexibility and the possibility of personalization of the communicationand even of the offer itself, which cannot be achieved by using other toolslike adverting, sales promotion, public relations or even direct marketing.It is also the only promotion tool which provides the company extensive


feedback on customer behavior, preferences, desires and choices as well asopinions on the product itself and the very process of marketingcommunication.Services, due to their specificity (intangibility, heterogeneity, per-

ishability, inseparability and temporary ownership), especially thoseaddressed to demanding customers or requiring a lot of explanations,often require the usage of personal selling as a key promotion tool. Insuch cases, personal contact, and ability to answer questions or dispeldoubts is crucial. This allows a stronger relationship built on trust andprofessionalism to be established (a lot depends on the agent/personalseller’s skills and competences). Establishing such relations and the abilityto use specific (particular) skills and competences (which may be differentin each phase) are important at every stage of the personal selling process,namely: attracting buyers, conducting a meeting (conversation), pre-sentation of the product, convincing about the reasons to purchase, thetransaction itself and maintaining the contact after the sale. If conductedin a proper way, these actions should lead to building or enhancingcustomer loyalty.The education sector is a specific service area where personal contact

between the service provider’s representative and the customer is crucial.Education is a lifetime investment, which is why people choose carefully.From the promotional activities point of view, the greatest challenge isthe proper presentation of the future outcome and benefits, as educationis the most intangible service of all. Additional difficulties relate to cul-tural differences if the educational product is designed to be soldcross-culturally, as it is not only about providing an appropriate productpresentation strategy, methods and tools, and “culturally personalized”communication schema, but also adaptation or at least flexibility of theservice offered.International marketing has to deal with certain challenges resulting

from the specificity of global markets. They bring about additionaluncontrollables and uncertainties related to political forces, economicclimate, competition, legal restraints, government controls, weather,indecisive consumers, etc. Promotion on international markets mayencounter many obstacles like language barriers, cultural restraints,technology and infrastructure clashes, significant differences in business

6 Conclusions 145

practices and legal issues. Personal selling, as a tool of promotion and amethod of selling, is crucial for companies directly involved in theinternational market, especially those involved in the service sector. Thisin turn generates a lot of challenges for personal sellers if they want to besuccessful on global markets. Interaction between the agent and thecustomer is easier when the cultural distance is smaller. Awareness ofculturally based dissimilarities (beliefs, values, norms, moral standards,but also approach to time, scheduling tasks, distance, individualism,masculinity/femininity, context, attitude to change, etc.) is crucial inestablishing effective communication and standardization is not the rightpath to follow in cross-cultural personal selling. The above-mentionedelements have a significant impact on establishing interpersonal relations.Thus, customers from different cultural zones will require diversifiedattitudes and personal sellers will need to adapt their strategies, methodsand tools accordingly. Such an approach entails possession of extensiveknowledge and professionalism in the field of many competences andskills on the personal seller’s side.Achieving better results in a changing market means to be able to

stand out from competitors in a durable manner. In order to be suc-cessful on the market, one has to be able to acquire potential customers.Thus, a competitive game to win a customer takes place in which somewin, others lose, but not everyone can gain a permanent competitiveadvantage. This advantage is linked not only to the “best idea”, but alsoto a competent seller who has the “best idea” and who can develop arelationship with a customer and maintain it in the long run. The abilityto sell products in conditions of market competition is one of the keysuccess factors in business. Enterprises are looking for the sales methodswhich stand out from the competition. One of the sales techniques,so popular today, is personal selling which is based on establishing arelationships and interaction with a customer accompanied by all theelements typical of direct contact like verbal and non-verbal communi-cation, argumentation and presentation, etc.Questions about the competences of sellers trouble numerous

subject-matter experts around the world and knowledge about themechanisms involved in their impact on the results achieved is of greatimportance for sales practitioners. Results in personal sales are dependent


on the competence that a given seller has. It is the salesperson who is indirect contact with the customer and the success of the transaction isdependent on their competences. The final result of the transactiondepends on the skills of the salesperson. The salesperson can play anactive role, be creative, and carry out each transaction; or the opposite, bepassive and observe the customer’s decision-making process within thesales process. A lot depends on the salesperson’s attitude and sensitivity.So, regardless of the market (local or international) on which the personalselling process takes place, salespersons should have multiple sales com-petences. These include: knowledge and in-depth understanding of theproduct, the ability to influence others, an orientation towards success,initiative, understanding of others, customer focus, self-confidence, theability to build customer relationships, analytical thinking, conceptualthinking, the ability to search for information, customer awareness, andthe ability to establish and maintain contacts.In the world literature on the topic, we can find various characteristics

of successful salespersons. The competences which are listed therein areimportant from the point of view of international sales. Subject-matterexperts mention here: focus on work/action/result, the ability to influ-ence others, a strong need for achievement, planning and organizingskills, the ability to take a balanced approach to risk, a strong need fornew experiences and personal development, interpersonal sensitivity andempathy, resistance to stress, data analysis and synthesis, and the abilityto set high performance and work standards. The competences inpersonal selling are differentiated according to various behavioral andpsychological criteria. Behavioral criteria include caring about goalachievement, the ability to rectify and to learn from one’s own mistakes,developing a sales strategy, and presentation skills. On the other hand,psychological criteria of sales activities include: goal-setting motivation(assessment of one’s potential and abilities, self-confidence, even in dif-ficult situations, high aspiration level), intellectual skills (effectiveness ofthinking, ability to make decisions, creativity, communication skills),emotional features (reactivity, ability to work under pressure, indepen-dence and emotional stability), and interpersonal relations (understand-ing of people’s behaviors, high level of accuracy in the assessment andevaluation of skills). In addition, salespersons, whether they operate on

6 Conclusions 147

the international or local market, are expected to be emotionally stable,i.e. to remain calm even under stress, to retain control in crisis situations,to remain optimistic and to move past failure. The customer orientationmeans that the salesperson puts the customer first and wants theirsatisfaction, responding to the customer’s requirements and needs,strengthening the relationship with the customer and building a positivecustomer relationship in the first place. The world literature on the topicdevotes a lot of time to the issue of successful competences within thepersonal selling process. But we cannot forget the cultural aspects, i.e. thetraditions and sales rules applicable in a given country.Cultural differences determine the approach to customers, and the

manner of establishing customer relationships or adopting certainbehaviors in the sales process. Even if the cultural differences are con-spicuous, the use of methods and techniques that have worked success-fully in a given country should never be abandoned. Therefore, it can beworthwhile to adapt some good solutions from one culture to another.This phenomenon is called hybridization. Hybridization refers to thesituation in which the selected characteristics and management methodstested in one country are transferred to the systems in another country.Thanks to the hybridization of some theories or operating schemes, someeffective forms of individual management areas can be adapted to theculture of another country (including the sales process), taking intoaccount the cultural context. The use of such operating schemes like salestechniques may help in understanding the international business situa-tion. The use of these schemes may be one of the most importantfeatures for achieving efficiency when acting at the interface of differentcultures. The use of schemes in the sales process in an interculturalenvironment can lead to success, according to the hybridization theory.The sales techniques which proved successful in one cultural environ-ment may be used in another culture, taking into account the differences.Thus, we make different decisions, e.g. whether to use a rational pre-sentation style, devoid of emotions, or to add some humor and emotionsto it. Should we talk about critical issues and problems or pass over themin silence and focus only on the positive things? Should we act formallyor informally in the relationship with the customer? The answers to thesequestions can be found in the traditions of different cultures, and the


sales method and the required competences in personal selling willremain unchanged in many cultures. We can also conclude that in theinternational arena, taking into account the personal characteristics of anindividual, certain universal human features are important as far aspersonal selling is concerned. They include: patience (i.e. showingunderstanding and tolerance towards people and events); empathy (i.e.showing genuine concern for people, ability to listen and to adapt to theinterlocutor’s style); loyalty and trust (i.e. inspiring confidence and loy-alty in others); self-control (i.e. remaining calm in difficult emotionalsituations); openness (to other people and their needs); self-confidence(belief in one’s own strength, ability and personal effectiveness); intel-lectual potential (broad interests and a desire to take action to have awider range of skills); ability to cope with ambiguity and stress;self-reliance (i.e. carrying out individual tasks and taking responsibilityfor them); commitment (i.e. fulfilling duties with commitment and tothe best of one’s skills, knowledge and energy, simultaneously motivatingothers); self-motivation (the ability to motivate oneself under conditionsof adversity); and personal ethics (expressed through a hierarchy of val-ues). With awareness of intercultural differences, using the phenomenonof hybridization, and acknowledging the importance of the salesperson’scompetences, the personal selling process may lead to success in theinternational arena.The aim of the first part of the empirical research was to identify the

key competences that are necessary for direct sales in particular in relationto the intercultural environment. The study presented the followinghypotheses: high sales are conditioned upon a specific set of compe-tences; there is a correlation between a set of skills and the salesperson’sgender and age; and there is a set of competences specific to the sales-person’s gender and age. The study tried to give answers to the followingquestions: What individual competences play an important role in directsales? Is there a correlation between the salesperson’s gender and age andthe individual competences? What set of competences plays the mostimportant role in achieving high performance in sales depending on ageand gender? The study was conducted with the use of a specially preparedquestionnaire consisting of two parts. The first part included questionsdescribing specific competences: customer orientation; interpersonal

6 Conclusions 149

communication skills; leadership abilities; self-motivation; attitudetowards work; ability to cope with stress; knowledge and experience;learning to learn skills. The second part concerned questions related tothe characteristics of the respondents.The study involved 141 people—35 men and 106 women aged

20 to 68. The respondents were older persons (average age was 43). As aresult of the competence selection process, two subscales of leadershipwere selected for the study: self-confidence (i.e. faith in oneself, in thequality of one’s knowledge and skills) and optimism (i.e. “no moaning”attitude, taking responsibility for one’s decisions and their consequences,non-avoidance of difficult situations and trying to solve them). As far asthe interpersonal communication competences are concerned, five sub-scales have been identified: transmission of information, selection of anappropriate style of response, consistency of verbal and non-verbalcommunication, the quality of communication and listening skills. As faras the customer orientation is concerned, three subscales have beenidentified: focus on meeting the customer’s needs, identification of thecustomer’s needs and positive relationship with the customer. Customerorientation is the process of focusing all activities aimed at meeting thecustomer’s needs and wishes, strengthening relationship with the cus-tomer, proper mutual communication and building long-term relation-ships. As far as self-motivation is concerned, three subscales have beenidentified: a need for achievement, a need for power, and a need foraffiliation. The attitude towards work has been defined as: openness tonew solutions, consistent implementation of the tasks, diligence and carefor the accurate, efficient and timely execution of tasks with a fullcommitment. As far as the ability to cope with stress is concerned, twosubscales have been identified: responding in difficult situations andself-mobilization. As far as knowledge and experience are concerned, foursubscales have been identified: product knowledge, sales methods,cause-and-effect linkages, as well as skills and experience. As far as thelearning to learn skills are concerned, two subscales have been identified:inquisitiveness and curiosity, and openness to learning. The results of thestudy indicate that older persons increasingly agree with the statementsdescribing competences: interpersonal communication, learning to learnskills and leadership abilities. That means that older persons—to a larger


extent than young people—tend to adapt arguments to the circum-stances and to the interlocutor’s way of thinking, transmit informationwithout distortion, explain difficult contents and problems, and are opento new knowledge and tasks aimed at acquiring new knowledge; theyanalyze carefully successes and failures, treating them as a valuable lesson,and they use new problems as an opportunity for self-development andare willing to experiment and take on new tasks. Older persons—to alarger extent than young people—have self-confidence and faith inthemselves, are driven by optimism, take responsibility for their decisionsand their consequences, do not avoid difficult situations and try to solveproblems when they appear. All the respondents, both men and women,indicated that in the process of personal selling learning to learn skills andcustomer orientation are important. Women pointed to the fact thatcustomer orientation is the most important competence, while menconsidered leadership, knowledge and experience as of primary impor-tance. For both genders, the attitude towards work and interpersonalcommunication are quite important. When it comes to the attitudetowards work, women rate themselves lower in terms of the efficient andtimely execution of tasks, but believe they demonstrate more zeal andenthusiasm in their daily work. Such competences as the ability to copewith stress and self-motivation obtained the lowest average values.Generally, respondents admitted that they cope badly with stress. Whencompared to men, women definitely rate higher their abilities forself-mobilization and ability to keep their reactions and emotions undercontrol, even in situations of intense emotions and under time pressure.In addition, as the results of the study demonstrate, both men andwomen admitted their need for achievement which plays a very impor-tant role among salespersons in achieving success and accomplishing theobjectives. It is therefore good that the respondents are aware of this. Asfar as leadership skills are concerned, men, when assessing themselves,claim not to have this feature or are not able to determine if they have itor not; when it comes to optimism and the sense of responsibility,women more strongly believe that they are guided by optimism andadopt a “no moaning” attitude. They also take responsibility for decisionsand their consequences, not avoiding difficult situations and trying tosolve them. Women, when compared to men, were far more positive

6 Conclusions 151

about their self-confidence and faith in their own strengths and thequality of their knowledge and skills. As the results of the study indi-cated, the respondents are very focused on maintaining proper relations,working to maintain friendly relations with their customers. In thisregard, however, men scored higher than women.Even though all the respondents admitted to be able to recognize

customers’ needs and maintain customer relationship, to ask the rightnumber of questions in a given situation, giving sufficient amount ofinformation in a polite and clear manner, women rated themselvesslightly lower in this respect than men. In addition, women stronglybelieve that they ask more probing and insightful questions in order tounderstand the problem and look for solutions; they are curious andwant to learn, drawing conclusions from their own mistakes and learningfrom them for the future. Both men and women are open to newknowledge and tasks giving them the possibility to acquire that knowl-edge; they analyze successes and failures, treating them as a valuablelesson; they use problems as an opportunity for self-development, and arewilling to experiment and take on new tasks. Even though the averagevalue of interpersonal communication competence has been rated highoverall, women when compared to men rated their skills lower when itcomes to the clarity and precision of the transmitted information andeffective communication with others. Men, on the other hand, ratethemselves lower when it comes to paying attention to the impact of theinformation on the interlocutor, as well as when it comes to the selectionof style and terminology appropriate to the situation and audience. Inaddition, men when compared to women rate themselves lower when itcomes to listening to their interlocutor without interruption, which mayindicate a lack of interest in the interlocutor’s opinion. Men are alsomore hesitant in their answers when it comes to the consistency of theirnon-verbal behaviors, such as: gestures, facial expressions, manner ofspeaking, and tone of verbal communication. Men proved to be equallyindecisive when answering the question regarding their listening skills,which concerns the assessment of whether the transmitted message hasbeen understood correctly, by asking questions or repeating the contentin other ways. The results of this study confirm the thesis posed at thebeginning of the research process. The respondents, when assessing their


own competences, acknowledged their importance in the personal sellingprocess, in which a personal and direct contact with the customer isestablished; and the success of the sales depends precisely on the sales-person’s skills and competences.The second part of the empirical research, based on the survey

method, aimed to answer the following question: To what extent docultural, gender or age differences influence the perception and evalua-tion of a personal seller’s performance? The main aim of the research wasto discover what kind of differences there are between European andAsian respondents (also with further intra-group divisions with respect tosex and age) in the perception of certain competences of a personal seller.The first stage was devoted to the evaluation of the agent’s profession-alism as well as being aimed at finding differences between the perceptionof the agent—features of character, skills, competences, behavior andappearance—with respect to the age, sex and region of origin of therespondents. The research results indicate that Asians tend to pay gen-erally more attention to agents’ competences than their Europeancounterparts and to pay more attention to physical appearance. Softcompetences seem to be more important to Asian respondents, whileEuropeans appreciate knowledge and understanding of the presentedoffer (ability to answer questions and advise).The second aim of the research was to find out if there are any

differences in perception between men and women as well as betweenyounger and older customers. It was generally expected that womenwould pay more attention to manners, gestures and nice behavior thanmen and that younger people would pay more attention to physicalappearance and behavior than to the offer itself, knowledge or properpreparation to answering all questions as well as communication skillswhich would be valued higher by older respondents. Surprisingly, takinginto consideration paternalistic cultural patterns in Asian countries, dif-ferences in attitudes with respect to gender with the group of Asianrespondents were not significant. Surprisingly, older respondents as wellas the ones from South Asia seemed to pay more attention to appearancethan other groups of respondents. South Asians valued higher compe-tences related to behavior (indirect communication), while respondentsfrom Central Asia appreciate direct communication skills. Thus clearly

6 Conclusions 153

shows that cultural “types” (the attitude towards social status, hierarchy,respect) play an important role in the perception of personal sellers’competences and skills and their evaluation.Summing up, globalization has brought a lot of new possibilities, but

also challenges to business. It requires invention of new or adaptation ofold methods, techniques and tools. The same is true for marketing and itsstrategies. Personal selling is experiencing a specific renaissance withrespect to selling specific, culturally sensitive services, which call for a lotof interaction with the customer. This in turn requires agents to possessspecific competences in order to be able to satisfy customers’ needs andsuccessfully sell the product. In the particular field of cross-cultural per-sonal selling of services, agents have to acquire a lot of skills and charac-teristics that help them to do their job efficiently on the one hand, andmeet customers’ expectations in this field on the other. The theory wouldsuggest, taking into consideration basic features of services (heterogeneity,intangibility, inseparability, perishability and non-ownership) as well asthe very structure of this product (especially at the third level of aug-mented product—see Fig. 2.4) that the most significant and desiredcompetences would be within the area of customer orientation, com-munication and adaptation abilities. With respect to customer orienta-tion, this specific area of cross-cultural personal selling in the service sectoris no different than in any other field. It is more about the agent’s specificknowledge in the field of cultural differences and expectations of cus-tomers coming from various cultural backgrounds, thus having diverseneeds or habits and requiring a dissimilar approach than European cus-tomers (Western culture). Appropriate skills in verbal and non-verbalcommunication are extremely important. Proper choice of words, atti-tudes, gestures and mimicry may affect customers in a significant way.The ability of adaptation is a key competence for agents working withcustomers from culturally distant regions. They are simply forced toapproach the client in a flexible manner.Empirical research has proved that native agents cope with soft

competences better than others, which is not surprising, as they workwithin their natural cultural environment, thus, there is no need for anyadaptation. On the other hand, they do not know the offer and theproduct itself as thoroughly as representatives of a given company.


Consequently, the best solution would be that local agents work closelywith company representatives and meet with customers together todemonstrate the offer. The company representative would be a sub-stantial help while presenting the offer and answering specific questions.This approach, however, is relatively expensive, and it may not becost-effective.The research results analysis allowed us to verify the truth of our initial

main working hypotheses. Customer orientation accompanied by astrong learning attitude helped personal sellers to fulfill clients’ expec-tations and needs. Customers proved to be highly attuned to the productknowledge demonstrated which should constitute an important clue forpersonal sellers. Most significant seems to be the recognition of lessobvious cultural varieties and different expectations resulting from habits,behavior patterns, gender and age, but also following newest trends andfashions, which is very important when dealing with young people. Themost important factor for non-native agents is to get to know theirpotential customers’ cultural vulnerabilities and expectations in order toadapt their behavior and manner of communication accordingly. Fornative agents on the other hand, it is crucial to have appropriate andbroad product knowledge (not only about the core product, but alsoabout the actual and augmented product), as in the services sector(especially in the educational area) it is of the greatest importance.Although a fascinating research subject, cross-cultural personal selling

in the services sector seems to be the least explored area of promotionwithin international marketing. Therefore, this monograph, which isbased mainly on empirical research, constitutes an important contribu-tion to further studies in the field of the competences necessary ininternational personal selling.

6 Conclusions 155

Index

AAgent, 51, 52, 54, 57, 59, 60, 66,

107–122, 124, 125, 127–139,141, 145, 146, 153–155

Appearance, 35, 47, 52, 107–110,112–114, 120, 122,126–130, 132, 133, 135,138, 139, 153

Asia, 107, 108, 110, 112–120, 126,128–139, 153

BBehavior, 3, 4, 8, 9, 11–14, 18–23,

25–29, 38, 58, 63, 66, 68, 70,72, 75–77, 79, 80, 91, 98,107–110, 113–117, 120–122,124, 127, 128, 131, 133, 138,139, 145, 153, 155

CClient, 15, 23, 24, 28, 38, 40, 41,

43, 44, 49, 50, 54, 61, 66–68,70–72, 77–80, 87, 154, 155

Communication, 15, 23, 35–38, 40,41, 43–45, 49–51, 58–61, 66,67, 70, 74, 75, 80, 83–87, 94,96, 101, 103, 104, 112–114,116, 117, 120, 122, 124, 127,129–131, 133–135, 138, 139,141, 144–147, 150–155

Communicativeness, 79, 113, 114,122, 127, 129, 133–135, 136

Competences, 1–16, 18–29, 44, 50,52, 53, 55, 57, 63, 65, 67–69,75–78, 80, 83, 84, 86, 88, 101,102, 104, 105, 107–110, 114,121, 128, 138, 139, 141–145,147, 149–151, 153–155

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017A. Antczak and B.A. Sypniewska, Cross-Cultural Personal Selling,DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-55577-5

157

Cooperativeness, 113, 114, 122, 127,129, 130, 133, 135

Culture, 14, 15, 19, 57–61, 63–65,71–75, 77, 105, 112, 128, 139,148, 154

Cultural differences, 57, 60–63, 72,74, 80, 104, 105, 107, 108,139, 141, 145, 148, 149, 154

Customer, 11, 15, 35–37, 39–47,49–53, 58–61, 63, 65–71, 77,83, 84, 86–88, 90, 101, 102,104, 105, 107, 113, 114, 116,118, 120–122, 127–129, 133,135, 138, 139, 141, 143–145,147–155

Customer needs, 43, 49, 50, 67, 86,88, 90, 91, 102, 116, 150, 152

Customer orientation, 46, 49, 77, 79,83, 84, 86–88, 90, 101, 102,116, 138, 139, 148–151, 154,155

EEducational product, 53, 54, 145Educational services, 52, 53, 55Effectiveness, 1, 3, 6, 7, 15–21, 23,

43, 71, 72, 75, 78, 85, 107,147, 149

Engagement, 42, 67, 69, 78, 113,121, 122, 127, 129, 133, 135

Europe, 107, 108, 110, 112–122,124–128, 138–140, 153, 154

FFlexibility, 9, 15, 43, 69, 113, 114,

123, 127, 129, 133, 135, 144,145

GGestures, 103, 112–114, 117,

120–122, 124, 127, 129, 131,133, 135, 139, 152–154

HHigher education, 35, 52, 53, 107,

126

IInitiative, 9, 40, 67, 75, 77, 113,

122, 127, 129, 133, 135, 147Interpersonal communication, 45,

67, 83, 84, 86, 87, 94, 96, 101,103, 150–152

KKnowledge, 2–15, 19–23, 25, 29, 35,

43, 47, 49, 51, 52, 55, 59, 60,68, 69, 76–78, 80, 83, 84, 86,87, 91, 94, 95, 98, 101–105,107, 113, 114, 116, 117, 120,121, 124, 126–129, 131, 138,139, 141, 143, 144, 146, 147,149–153, 155

Kotler, Philip, 36, 40, 42–46, 53

LLeadership, 9, 18, 75, 83–87, 98, 99,

101, 103, 113, 114, 122, 127,129, 133, 135, 138, 150, 151

Learning, 5, 21, 41, 67, 76, 83–87,91, 93, 101, 102, 104, 150,152, 155

158 Index

MMarketing, 35–37, 40, 41, 43, 44,

46–51, 53, 57–59, 76, 141,144, 145, 155

Mimics, 98, 103, 113, 117, 122,124, 127, 129, 131, 133, 135,154

Motivation, 8, 14, 21, 22, 38, 44, 60,67, 69, 78, 79, 83, 84, 86–89,101, 104, 147, 149–151

NNon-verbal communication, 61, 74,

86, 96, 98, 103, 104, 113, 116,117, 122, 124, 127, 129, 131,133–135, 136, 146, 150, 154

OOptimism, 69, 70, 79, 85, 86, 98,

99, 101, 103, 113, 122, 127,129, 133, 135, 150, 151

Organization, 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9–22, 24,25, 27, 29, 37, 41, 48, 60, 61,67, 72, 73, 75, 79, 80, 88,142–144

PPersonal selling, 35–38, 40–46,

48–52, 54, 57, 59–61, 65, 66,71, 76, 77, 78, 80, 83–85, 88,98, 101, 102, 104, 105, 107,121, 126, 141, 144–149,153–155

Planning, 28, 37, 42, 44, 66, 67, 77,79, 147

Product, 11, 14–16, 35–44, 46–50,52–54, 58–60, 66, 69, 70,77–79, 86, 87, 94, 95, 102,104, 144–146, 150, 154, 155

Promotion, 18, 27, 35–43, 47, 48, 52,58, 59, 105, 141, 144, 145, 155

Promotion tools, 35, 38–40, 43, 144

QQualifications, 1–6, 9, 44, 80, 141,

142

RRelationship, 8, 13, 16, 35, 40, 42,

44–46, 48, 49, 51, 52, 59–61,63, 64, 67, 68, 70, 71, 73, 86,88, 91, 94, 95, 102, 104, 113,114, 120, 122, 127, 129, 133,135, 142–148, 150, 152

Reliability, 50, 53, 69, 70, 84, 109,110, 113, 114, 122, 127, 129,133, 135

Responsiveness, 113, 114, 121, 122,127, 129, 133, 135

SSalesperson, 35, 42, 44, 45, 49, 50,

60, 63, 65, 83, 84, 147–149,151, 153

Sales process, 46, 57, 60, 66, 67, 71,76–80, 83, 105, 147, 148

Self-confidence, 69, 70, 73, 77, 78,85, 86, 98, 99, 103, 113, 114,122, 127, 129, 133, 135, 147,149–152

Index 159

Seller, 12, 41–43, 49, 51, 57, 59–61,63, 66–68, 70–72, 76–80, 85,87, 88, 94, 101–105, 107–109,119, 132, 138, 141, 144–146,153–155

Selling, 35, 36, 38, 40–46, 48–52,55, 57, 59–61, 63, 65, 66, 68,71, 76–80, 83–85, 98,101–105, 107, 121, 126, 141,144–149, 151, 153–155

Services, 11, 14, 35, 41, 44, 47, 48,50–52, 60, 141, 144, 145, 154,155

Skills, 2–6, 8–10, 12–15, 18, 19, 21,22, 24, 29, 44, 45, 47, 49, 51,53, 55, 65–70, 77–80, 86, 88,94, 95, 98, 101–104, 110, 112,114, 120, 121, 126, 134, 138,139, 141, 142, 144, 145, 147,149–154

Success, 7, 20, 24, 25, 35, 37, 44,58–61, 65, 67–71, 73, 77–80,

88, 91, 101–105, 126, 141,144, 146–149, 151, 153, 154

TTime, 3, 7, 16, 19–21, 24, 26, 37,

39, 46–50, 52, 53, 57, 60–63,65–67, 72, 73, 77–80, 85, 87,91, 94, 103, 141, 144–146,148, 151

Training, 4, 17, 18, 20, 23, 29, 43,44, 52, 60, 67, 69, 142

VVendor, 41, 44, 66, 68, 70, 71Verbal communication, 86, 96, 98,

103, 104, 113, 114, 122, 127,129, 133, 135, 150, 152, 154

Voice, 36, 61, 72, 112–114, 122,127–129, 133, 135

160 Index

Documents

Cross-Cultural Personal Selling: Agentsâ€™ competences in international personal selling of services