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“Sorry about my manager”: Mitigating customer-facing adverse manager behaviors

  • Original Empirical Research
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Abstract

Managers often accompany salespeople to customer meetings, and their presence can be invaluable to the interaction. However, at times, managers may act in ways that are harmful rather than helpful. Scant scholarly attention has been allocated to understanding the dark side of managerial involvement. When negative manager behaviors manifest in customer-facing situations, salespeople must understand and mitigate these occurrences to prevent deleterious outcomes. This study conducts a qualitative inquiry of professional salespeople and organizational buyers to uncover the ways customer-facing adverse manager behaviors (CFAMBs) occur and affect sales calls. Specifically, manifestations of manager arrogance, apathy, and awkwardness can negatively affect customer outcomes. In addition, factors affecting the severity of CFAMBs’ impact include timing in the sales cycle, customer status, and pre-, in-, and post-call mitigation strategies. Collectively, the findings advance role theory and theory germane to the salesperson–sales manager interface and provide practical guidance for dealing with CFAMBs.

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Notes

  1. Web Appendix A provides survey details.

  2. Comparative appraisals were obtained in follow-up interviews with respondents.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Eric Anicich, Ricardo Boeing, Pete Burney, Shannon Cummins, Kalpesh Desai, Scott Friend, Avinash Malshe, Mark Parry, Pamela Perrewé, Timothy Reilly, and Larry Wigger for the help and expert insights they generously provided for the manuscript. I would also like to thank the Henry W. Bloch School of Management for their research and interview transcription support.

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    Jeff S. Johnson

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Johnson, J.S. “Sorry about my manager”: Mitigating customer-facing adverse manager behaviors. J. of the Acad. Mark. Sci. (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-023-00974-y

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