IN DEGREE PROJECT INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING AND MANAGEMENT,SECOND CYCLE, 30 CREDITS

, STOCKHOLM SWEDEN 2020

Implementing behavior-based salesforce controlA case study at a MedTech company

SEBASTIAN OTTESTAM

MARIA ANDERSSON ALBIN

KTH ROYAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGYSCHOOL OF INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING AND MANAGEMENT

Implementing behavior-based salesforce control: a case study at a MedTech company

by Sebastian Ottestam

Maria Andersson Albin

Master of Science Thesis TRITA-ITM-EX 2020:264 KTH Industrial Engineering and Management

Industrial Management SE-100 44 STOCKHOLM

Implementera beteendebaserad säljstyrning:

en fallstudie hos ett MedTech-företag

av Sebastian Ottestam

Maria Andersson Albin

Examensarbete TRITA-ITM-EX 2020:264 KTH Industriell teknik och management

Industriell ekonomi och organisation SE-100 44 STOCKHOLM

Master of Science Thesis TRITA-ITM-EX 2020:264

Implementing behavior-based salesforce control: a case study at a MedTech company

Sebastian Ottestam

Maria Andersson Albin Approved

2020-06-12 Examiner

Cali Nuur Supervisor

Yury Kucheev Commissioner

N/A Contact person

N/A

Abstract Salesforce control systems have been widely studied with numerous constructs mediating the effects on performance. Behavior-based salesforce control (BBC) has often proved to increase performance and recently the Ability, Motivation, Opportunity (AMO) theory has been proposed to cluster the mediators. However, the extant literature is limited regarding implementation of BBC. The purpose of the thesis is twofold: (1) to explore the challenges that emerge during the implementation process of BBC at the Swedish sales organization of a global MedTech company, and (2) to investigate whether these challenges can be explained by prior research. An embedded case study at a MedTech company is used to explore the challenges that emerge while implementing BBC. Both structured and semi-structured interviews were conducted, where the structured part was an operationalization of the conceptual framework adopted from a previous study of a closely related field. The findings suggest that challenges within Process, Purpose and Communication have emerged in the case study, and that they affect AMO constructs. Further, the juxtaposition of our findings with the conceptual framework used and extant literature within BBC and implementation provides for an adaptation of the conceptual framework. This new framework could be used in future research to extend the research within implementation of BBC and possibly validate our findings in other case studies.

Keywords: Behavior-based salesforce control, AMO theory, implementation, challenges

Examensarbete TRITA-ITM-EX 2020:264

Implementera beteendebaserad säljstyrning: en fallstudie hos ett MedTech-företag

Sebastian Ottestam

Maria Andersson Albin Godkänt

2020-06-12

Examinator

Cali Nuur

Handledare

Yury Kucheev Uppdragsgivare

N/A Kontaktperson

N/A

Sammanfattning Olika metoder för säljstyrning har i bred utsträckning studerats tillsammans med faktorer som påverkar dess effekt på säljarnas prestation. Beteendebaserad säljstyrning (BBC) har ofta visats öka säljarnas prestation, och nyligen har teorin som grundar sig i Förmåga, Motivation och Möjlighet (AMO) föreslagits för att gruppera de påverkande faktorerna. Emellertid är den befintliga litteraturen med fokus på implementationsfasen av BBC begränsad. Syftet med detta examensarbete är tvådelat: (1) att utforska de utmaningar som uppstår vid implementationen av BBC inom den svenska säljorganisationen på ett globalt medicinteknikföretag (MedTech), och (2) att undersöka om utmaningarna kan förklaras med tidigare forskning. Empiriska data från en fallstudie vid ett medicinteknikföretag används för att utforska de utmaningar som uppstår under implementationen av BBC. Datainsamlingen har skett genom både strukturerade och semistrukturerade intervjuer, där resultat från de strukturerade intervjuerna syftade till att undersöka om ett konceptuellt ramverk som presenterats i en tidigare studie inom ett närliggande område kan vara applicerbart i en bredare kontext. De empiriska resultaten från fallstudien visar att utmaningar inom tre teman, Process, Syfte och Kommunikation, uppstod vid implementationen av BBC, samt att de tre temana i sin tur påverkar säljarnas Förmåga, Motivation och Möjlighet (AMO). Baserat på sammansättningen av resultaten från fallstudien och befintlig litteratur inom BBC och implementation föreslås en utvidgning av det konceptuella ramverk som undersökts. Det nya utvidgade ramverket skulle kunna användas i framtida studier för att utöka forskningen inom implementation av BBC, samt möjligen validera resultaten från detta examensarbete genom ytterligare fallstudier.

Nyckelord: Beteendebaserad säljstyrning, AMO teori, implementering, utmaningar

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Contents

LIST OF TABLES ...................................................................................................................... ii LIST OF FIGURES ..................................................................................................................... ii ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS .......................................................................................... iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT .............................................................................................................. iv

1. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................. 1 1.1. BACKGROUND .............................................................................................................. 1 1.2. PROBLEM FORMULATION ............................................................................................. 3 1.3. PURPOSE ...................................................................................................................... 3 1.4. RESEARCH QUESTION ................................................................................................... 4 1.5. SCIENTIFIC CONTRIBUTION .......................................................................................... 4 1.6. DELIMITATIONS ............................................................................................................ 4 1.7. DISPOSITION ................................................................................................................. 5

2. LITERATURE REVIEW ....................................................................... 6 2.1. APPROACHES TO SALES CONTROL SYSTEMS ................................................................. 6 2.2. SALES CONTROL SYSTEMS ............................................................................................ 7 2.3. SALES PERFORMANCE .................................................................................................. 8 2.4. AMO THEORY .............................................................................................................. 9 2.5. CRM IMPLEMENTATION ............................................................................................. 12 2.6. IMPLEMENTATION BEHAVIORS ................................................................................... 13 2.7. IMPLEMENTATION AMO ANTECEDENTS .................................................................... 15

3. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK .......................................................... 18

4. METHOD ............................................................................................. 21 4.1. RESEARCH DESIGN ..................................................................................................... 21 4.2. DATA COLLECTION .................................................................................................... 23 4.3. DATA ANALYSIS ......................................................................................................... 26 4.4. RESEARCH QUALITY .................................................................................................. 27

5. EMPIRICAL FINDINGS ..................................................................... 29 5.1. EMPIRICAL SETTING .................................................................................................. 29 5.2. CHALLENGES .............................................................................................................. 31 5.3. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK MAPPING ........................................................................ 41

6. DISCUSSION ....................................................................................... 47 6.1. OVERVIEW ................................................................................................................. 47 6.2. CHALLENGES .............................................................................................................. 48 6.3. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK MAPPING ....................................................................... 51

7. CONCLUSION ..................................................................................... 56 7.1. SUMMARY ................................................................................................................... 56 7.2. THEORETICAL IMPLICATIONS ..................................................................................... 57 7.3. MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS ...................................................................................... 57

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7.4. FURTHER RESEARCH .................................................................................................. 58

8. REFERENCES ..................................................................................... 59

APPENDIX .................................................................................................. I APPENDIX A: INTERVIEW MANUSCRIPT, FIRST SET OF INTERVIEWS ....................................... I APPENDIX B: INTERVIEW PROTOCOL, FIRST SET OF INTERVIEWS ......................................... III APPENDIX C: STRUCTURED INTERVIEW – GRAPHIC PRESENTATION OF FINDINGS ................. V

List of Tables

Table 1: The disposition of the thesis with a brief description of the chapters’ content. 5 Table 2: Interview schedule during phase 1. .................................................................. 25 Table 3: Interview schedule during phase 2. .................................................................. 25 Table 4: An overview of methodological measures performed with the aim of achieving high quality of research. ................................................................................................ 27 Table 5: Process - Representative quotes and codes. ..................................................... 33 Table 6: Purpose - Representative quotes and codes. .................................................... 38 Table 7: Communication - Representative quotes and codes. ....................................... 40 Table 8: Motivation - Representative quotes. ................................................................ 43 Table 9: Opportunity - Representative quotes. ............................................................. 44 Table 10: Ability - Representative quotes. .................................................................... 45 List of Figures

Figure 1: Framework developed by Benet-Zapf, et al. (2018). ....................................... 11 Figure 2: The framework used by Johnson & Sohi (2017). ............................................ 18 Figure 3: Schematic overview of the iterative research process. .................................... 21 Figure 4: Schematic timeline of the implementation process. ........................................ 31 Figure 5: Thematic Map – Challenges. .......................................................................... 31 Figure 6: Emerged framework of empirical findings. ..................................................... 48 Figure 7: Display of connections between findings and conceptual framework. ............. 53 Figure 8: Display of connections between CRM theory and the conceptualized model. 55 Figure 9: Graphical display of how the conceptual model of how this thesis relates to the framework presented by Benet-Zapf et al. (2018). ......................................................... 57 Figure 10: Suggestion of how the framework presented by Johnson & Sohi (2017) could be extended in future research. ...................................................................................... 58

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Acronyms and Abbreviations

Acronym Definition OBC Outcome-based Salesforce Control BBC Behavior-based Salesforce Control MedTech Medical Technology AMO Ability – Motivation – Opportunity MOA Motivation – Opportunity - Ability HRM Human Resources Management B2B Business-to-Business B2C Business-to-Consumer B2G Business-to-Government OEM Original Equipment Manufacturer EMEA Europe, Middle East and Africa CRM Customer Relationship Management

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Acknowledgement

This section is dedicated to thank everyone who has helped us in any way to conduct this thesis. Whether it has been general support, discussions regarding the purpose or method, taking time to be interviewed, proofreading or just cheering us on, it has been greatly appreciated. Firstly, we would like to thank the case company and especially our supervisor, but also everyone else who has been interviewed. We would also like to express our sincere gratitude to our supervisor at KTH, Ph.D. Yury Kucheev for all the support and discussion. Last, but not least, we would like to thank our friends and families for the support during not only this master thesis, but during the entire degree program in industrial engineering and management.

Sebastian Ottestam & Maria Andersson Albin Stockholm, June 2020

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1. Introduction In this chapter, we present a brief background to salesforce control, why it is important and some key findings in the research area. We also present the problems identified from which we deduce the purpose and the research question. This is followed by a discussion of the scientific contribution of the thesis, its delimitations and the disposition of the thesis.

1.1. Background

Throughout the history of mankind, sales has been an important aspect of people’s life. Since the introduction of trading and especially different kinds of currency, the ability to trade or sell goods has been important to survive. Industrialization and globalization have led to specialization and being able to sell has been crucial for companies to compete in the market. Sales is and always has been the primary source of capital into companies. With the growing competition in most markets in the 21st century, all market-oriented companies are dominated by two major objectives: increasing productivity and increasing customer orientation (Homburg, et al., 2012). While efforts made to increase productivity are likely to be found in internal production, operations and administration, which have in many cases undergone a systematic approach to streamline processes, it is rare to see a systematic approach to sales management to increase productivity. Dannenberg & Zupancic (2009) argue that the strategic significance of sales should be increased. The drivers for the increase are; sales is an expensive resource, it has the greatest performance improvement potential and it creates real competitive advantage. In many firms the salesforce represents the largest part of their marketing budget and is therefore important for top level sales executives (Cravens, et al., 1993). In order to meet the company’s objective regarding sales performance, a salesforce control system is needed. The purpose is to enhance the performance of the salesforce in order to meet its targets. The salesforce control system is viewed as the process of monitoring, directing, evaluating, and rewarding the company’s salespeople (Anderson & Oliver, 1987). The literature within the field of sales management has defined two salesforce control systems; outcome-based salesforce control (OBC) and behavior-based salesforce control (BBC) (Anderson & Oliver, 1987). These control systems conceptualize two very different philosophies (Cravens, et al., 1993). In an OBC system, objective outcomes are measured and monitoring and managerial direction is limited, in a BBC system on the

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other hand, the evaluation is more subjective and complex and there is a higher level of monitoring and managerial direction (Krafft, 1999; Anderson & Oliver, 1987). A systematic literature review by Benet-Zapf, et al. (2018) found some general agreements on scholars regarding the control systems’ impact on the sales performance. These findings include that OBC may be more effective in the short term but may cause a loss of customer orientation and satisfaction, mentioned above as one of two major objectives by Homburg, et al. (2012). BBC, on the other hand, aligns the salesperson with the long-term interests of the company (Benet-Zapf, et al., 2018). In the research area of salesforce control, several correlations have been found between BBC and positive effects on outcome performance and customer satisfaction effectiveness. Krafft (1999) states that it ”reports strong evidence for a salesforce control system framework similar to that proposed by Anderson & Oliver (1987)” (Krafft, 1999, p. 132). Cravens et al. (2004) suggest that a high-control combination, both high control of formal and informal control variables, of a sales organization results in better performance and satisfaction as well as lower burnout and role stress. Grant & Cravens (1996) also show correlations between behavior-based management processes and outcome performance. To further understand the relations between the different salesforce control systems and the resulting performances, and demystifying the ”black box” of how the control system impacts the performance, the ability, motivation and opportunity (AMO) framework has been proposed by Benet-Zapf, et al. (2018) as a way of clustering the mediators previously studied. In short, in the AMO framework, ability refers to the necessary knowledge, skills and aptitude individuals possess to perform the job, motivation refers to individuals having the perception of adequate interest and incentives, and opportunity refers to that the individual’s work structure and its environment is providing the necessary support and avenues for expression (Boxall & Purcell, 2011). The AMO framework has been accepted to a high degree for explaining the linkage between human resources management (HRM) and performance since its emergence in 2000 (Marin-Garcia & Tomas, 2016). It has been used to explain to what extent different HRM practices can affect performance by considering ability, motivation and opportunity (Benet-Zapf, et al., 2018). In the field of strategy implementation within sales management, Johnson & Sohi (2017) used the motivation, opportunity and ability (MOA) theory to investigate factors impacting the implementation of strategies associated with introducing new products and services by the salesperson. Looking from the perspective of strategy implementation and using the mediators they found both positive and negative moderation among the MOA variables affecting the implementation behavior (Johnson & Sohi, 2017). Their

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proposed framework also included drivers that predict the MOAs, many of which interrelations where found to have significant impact (Johnson & Sohi, 2017). To conclude, BBC has been shown in many cases to positively impact sales performance (Piercy, et al., 2004; Fatima, 2017; Grant & Cravens, 1996; Baldauf & Cravens, 1999). Furthermore, the AMO framework has been accepted in large within HRM (Marin-Garcia & Tomas, 2016). Next, AMO has been proposed as a mediating variable between sales control and performance by Benet-Zapf, et al. (2018). Moreover, the connection between MOA and strategy implementation within sales management has been studied by Johnson & Sohi (2017). Hence, the theories of AMO/MOA and BBC will be the foundation of the thesis.

1.2. Problem formulation

While many of the findings within BBC are positive, the mediators affecting the result are not investigated consequently (Benet-Zapf, et al., 2018). Many case studies have been conducted, separately exploring different aspects of BBC using different mediators, but have never been investigated jointly (e.g., ; Babakus, et al., 1996; Baldauf & Cravens, 1999; Baldauf, et al., 2001; Baldauf, et al., 2002; Challagalla & Shervani, 1996; Cravens, et al., 1993; Cravens, et al., 2004; Grant & Cravens, 1996; Grant & Cravens, 1999). Another problem is that research within implementation of BBC is limited, this leaves a gap in the research field. The extant literature lacks a systematic discussion of challenges that emerge when companies try to change towards BBC. By analyzing the mediators between BBC and sales performance according to the AMO framework coupled with the antecedents to implementation MOAs in Johnson & Sohi’s (2017) framework we aim to explore the challenges that may emerge when implementing BBC. By using the Johnson & Sohi (2017) framework we aim to draw parallels to the underlying reasons of these challenges. By performing a case study at a company currently implementing BBC we aim to explore to what extent the framework can explain the challenges the sales organization face. The findings of this study contribute to the research field by addressing the gap regarding how to implement BBC in order to provide some implications for practice and future research.

1.3. Purpose

The purpose of the thesis is twofold: (1) to explore the challenges that emerge during the implementation process of BBC at the Swedish sales organization of a global MedTech company, and (2) to investigate whether these challenges can be explained by prior research.

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1.4. Research question

In order to fulfill the purpose of the thesis we aim to address the following research question:

What are the reasons for the emerged challenges when implementing behavior-based salesforce control in the Swedish sales organization of a MedTech company?

1.5. Scientific contribution

By exploring the challenges that emerge when implementing BBC from the perspective of both sales management and strategy implementation, the attempt has been made to contribute with insights regarding the implementation phase. Support for these challenges in both literature and the case study could imply that future research in this area is important to build on the paradigm. Further, the findings can provide support for implications regarding how to face these challenges.

1.6. Delimitations

The thesis is primarily focusing on the individual and organizational level of Blomkvist and Hallin’s (2014) system perspective. Where relevant, we will include perspectives from the industrial and functional level, however, the main perspective is the one of the management and salespeople since sales control systems is a managerial tool (Anderson & Oliver, 1987). The thesis is delimited to a case study within the Swedish organization of the case company. This limits the scope of the case study but serves as a relevant case of this industry due to the complex customer structure with both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-government (B2G) sales. The B2G sales are facilitated by long-term framework agreements through a tendering procedure. The case study is also delimited timewise, the BBC implementation has a longer duration than the thesis allows, why the whole implementation cannot be studied.

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1.7. Disposition

Chapter Chapter Description 1. Introduction Includes background, problem formulation,

purpose, research question, scientific contribution & delimitations.

2. Literature Review Explores the research previously conducted within salesforce control, AMO and strategy implementation.

3. Conceptual Framework Describes the conceptual framework used for mapping and understanding the empirical data.

4. Method Includes the research design and data collection for the gathering of empirical data, data analysis and research quality.

5. Empirical Findings Includes the empirical setting and presents the empirical findings of the case company.

6. Discussion Compares and discusses the empirical findings with prior research to answer the research question.

7. Conclusion Concludes the thesis with a summary, theoretical and managerial implications, and suggestions for further research.

Table 1: The disposition of the thesis with a brief description of the chapters’ content.

Chapter summary

In this chapter, we presented an introduction to the thesis with some background to the research area, giving a brief summary on why this topic is interesting. The main arguments are that sales is very important for companies, that salesforce control is an interesting area in general and behavior-based salesforce control in particular, since multiple findings suggest positive impact on outcome, and that the exact reasons why has not been consequently studied. The AMO framework, however, could be used to describe the mediators between salesforce control and the outcomes. The framework by Johnson & Sohi (2017) uses similar descriptions of the factors contributing to behavior, which makes an interesting connection to the AMO framework. From this background, the problem formulation was derived and is presented. We suggest using the framework of Johnson & Sohi (2017) in order to explore the implementation of BBC and the challenges that could emerge during the implementation. The purpose is then presented with the foundation in the problem formulation and background, which is to explore the challenges that emerge when implementing BBC.

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2. Literature Review In this chapter, we present the previous research relevant and necessary to understand the paradigm of sales control systems as well as AMO theory, along with implementation theory. Firstly, we present the different approaches to sales control systems for some background to the research field. Secondly, we cover the prevalent sales control systems to show differences and similarities. Thirdly, we show the sales performance definitions and measurements. Fourthly, we discuss AMO theory and its origin, which is central to this thesis. Lastly, we present CRM implementation, implementation behaviors and implementation AMO antecedents, with important insights within implementation.

2.1. Approaches to sales control systems

As identified by Anderson & Oliver (1987), several major theoretical approaches are relevant to salesforce control. The three that will be presented are organizational theory, agency theory and transaction cost theory, to provide a foundation to the discussion of sales control systems including different assumptions and sets of variables. From these paradigms the prevalent sales control systems have emerged. Within these sales control systems, ideas from all three approaches can be found (Benet-Zapf, et al., 2018). Organizational theory (Ouchi, 1979) states that conflicts in goals can be overcome by socialization (Krafft, 1999). It also states that behavior, outcome or both can be impossible to measure (Eisenhardt, 1985). It acknowledges that BBC becomes more appropriate when the measurement of outcome is costly or inaccurate. Further, the recommendation is to use BBC only if the process of transformation from salespeople’s input to the outcome is known (Krafft, 1999). Nevertheless, a firm may have perfect information without knowing how to transform it into an adequate action strategy, meaning the manager may not know what behavior contributes to achieving the desired result (Anderson & Oliver, 1987). Agency theory is described by Eisenhardt (1985) as an analytical, normative microeconomics/accounting approach of how to control the agents’ activities, of whom they have authority over. Central is the premise that principles and agents have divergent goals (Anderson & Oliver, 1987). Hence, its focus is on aligning the incentives and outcome aim of both parties (Krafft, 1999). Agency theory addresses the allocation of risk between the company and the agent, in this context salesperson. In a BBC, the company assumes the risk since the salesperson is rewarded for behavior instead of outcome. In an OBC, on the other hand, the agent assumes the risk since the salesperson is held accountable for the outcome (Anderson & Oliver, 1987). In agency theory, the choice between OBC and BBC depends on; “(1) the relative costs of measuring behavior

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versus outcomes and (2) the various forms of uncertainty that create risk in the sales environment” (Anderson & Oliver, 1987, p. 79). Transaction cost theory aims at identifying organizational solutions that are cost-efficient and focuses on “whether transactions should be carried out within a company or through market contracting outside the boundaries of a firm” (Krafft, 1999, p. 122). It represents the position that the competitive forces of the market determine survival and will reward desired behavior (Anderson & Oliver, 1987). It questions the firm’s ability to, by controlling behavior instead of outcome, improve market outcomes (Anderson & Oliver, 1987). Thus, it is prone to suggest that companies should apply OBC if accurate measures of outcome are readily available (Krafft, 1999).

2.2. Sales control systems

In this section, we will present the prevalent sales control systems stemming from the paradigms presented in the previous section, based on the ideas of Anderson & Oliver (1987) in which BBC and OBC were introduced. Then, hybrid systems comprising the use of elements of both types, developed by Oliver & Anderson (1995) is presented. Furthermore, the typology suggested by Jaworski, et al. (1993) consisting of four control systems is presented. Subsequently, the activity and capability control notion, stemming from the division of BBC into two distinct types by Challagalla & Shervani (1996) is presented. BBC and OBC are considered to be the two extremes of a continuum with numerous hybrid levels in between. OBC aims to control the salespeople using a few outcome-based targets that are straightforward to measure. The compensation is usually in proportion to the measurable result with a lower salary component. The supervisors’ focus is on the end result which is usually a short-term target. Consequently, the long-term goals of the company and the customer orientation is at risk of harm. Since the personal supervision and coaching is limited, costs associated with this are low. On the other hand, BBC emphasizes monitoring, coaching, evaluating and rewarding behaviors of salespeople. The evaluation is more subjective and complex since the managers need to decide which inputs generate the required outputs. BBC requires attention devoted to training on behavior areas, both for salespeople and sales managers, such as selling skills, sales planning, sales support and product knowledge. The high level of control, coaching and surveillance implies increased costs. The firms assume the risk in order to gain control. Then again, there is a possibility for companies to position themselves along the continuum and select element of both systems to use, i.e., to implement hybrid control systems (Oliver & Anderson, 1995). It is described as an intermediating system comprising of both element types (Oliver & Anderson, 1995). A control system with a

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combination of elements from both BBC and OBC is shown in studies to be the most common type (Oliver & Anderson, 1995; Jaworski, 1988; Ouchi & Maguire, 1975). The typology of bureaucratic, clan and high-/low control contains four control combinations based on the extent of reliance on formal and informal controls (Jaworski, et al., 1993). Formal control includes written controls initiated by management while informal control depicts professional and cultural control. The combination of low formal and informal control is called a low control system. Similarly, the combination of high formal and informal control is called a high control system. High formal control and low informal control is called a bureaucratic system while low formal control combined with high informal control is called a clan system. As identified by Challagalla & Shervani (1996), OBC has been shown to increase end-performance (Jaworski, et al., 1993), but also to decrease the relative end-performance (Oliver & Anderson, 1994), and in the study by Lusch & Jaworski (1991), to have no direct effect on end-performance. Similarly, Challagalla & Shervani (1996) identified that BBC has been shown, by Oliver & Anderson (1994), to improve satisfaction, whereas Jaworski, et al. (1993) found no direct link between BBC and satisfaction. These inconsistent findings were the foundation for the call for a finer-grained conceptualization of BBC into two dimensions, namely activity control and capability control, where activity control refers to the specification, monitoring and reward of activities a person is expected to perform (Challagalla & Shervani, 1996). In comparison, capability control attempts to influence performance by ensuring the necessary set of skills and abilities are developed to enable good performance (Challagalla & Shervani, 1996). The authors argue that the effects on performance and satisfaction are likely to be different due to the different nature of the controls and that the split of BBC into activity and capability control will enable a better understanding of the influence (Challagalla & Shervani, 1996).

2.3. Sales performance

Needless to say, increasing sales performance is the main goal of the sales control systems. Measuring the sales performance is therefore important to achieve this goal. In order to increase sales performance, it must be clearly defined so that it can be measured and compared to prior results. As presented in the section above, there are different approaches to sales control systems and many different sales control systems, consisting of behavior components or outcome components or a mix of both. Sales control literature use these components to describe sales performance as well. Salesperson performance is separated from sales organization performance and comprises both behavioral and outcome performances whereas sales organization performance includes outcomes (Benet-Zapf, et al., 2018).

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Salesperson performance is usually categorized into behavioral performance and outcome performance (Jaworski & Kohli, 1991). In the same way as BBC is a way to control behavior such as activities and capabilities, behavioral performance is the category in which such behaviors are measured. Similarly, OBC is a way to control outcome and outcome performance is the category in which outcome is measured. Consequently, behavioral performance considers factors important to fulfil the sales job, such as various skills and activities. On the other hand, outcome performance includes the outcomes that are attributable to the salesperson, which can be complicated to assess (Grant & Cravens, 1996). Zallocco et al. (2009) proposed a matrix of performance measures consisting of internally/externally oriented measures and effectiveness/efficiency. Internally oriented measurements include competencies and selling skills such as presentation skills and sales volume, and externally oriented measurements include marketplace metrics, such as customer satisfaction, competitive understanding and level of interaction with customers. The distinction lies in the way they are majorly impacted, where internally oriented can be impacted intra-organizationally and externally oriented are more market-based, in order to separate attributable metrics. Effectiveness measurements refer to measurable selling outcomes and efficiency comprises ratios, with emphasis on selling activities. The measurements often used by practitioners include both performance measures, while those typically used by researchers often seem to rely more on effectiveness measures. This is possibly due to the difficulty in measuring efficiency measures in practice (Zallocco, et al., 2009). Sales organization effectiveness is a measure of the sum of overall organizational results generated by a sales organization to which each salesperson is partially contributing (Baldauf & Cravens, 1999). Sales organization effectiveness is impacted by salespeople performance (Cravens, et al., 1993), but not limited to factors under the general control of salespeople, and is often measured by total sales volume, market share, profitability, and customer satisfaction (Babakus, et al., 1996; Grant & Cravens, 1999; Baldauf, et al., 2001).

2.4. AMO theory

The AMO and MOA theories are two very closely related theories stemming from different research areas but both acronyms have in some cases been used by the same scholars. MacInnis & Jaworski (1989) presented AMO in their work towards an integrative framework for information processing from advertisements, however, when presenting the framework they used the acronym MOA (MacInnis, et al., 1991).

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In this section we will present some of the literature using the respective acronyms, their origins, findings and similarities. To avoid confusion regarding the different acronyms, we will refer to this only as AMO theory hereafter. Within the research area of HRM, the AMO framework has been largely accepted and used to explain how HRM impacts performance, since its emergence in 2000 (Marin-Garcia & Tomas, 2016). According to Marin-Garcia & Tomas (2016), the AMO framework was initially proposed by Bailey (1993), and later developed by Appelbaum et al. (2000), consisting of the individual’s ability, motivation and opportunity to participate. The model suggests that people perform well when possessing the capabilities, the adequate motivation, and the work environment gives opportunity to participate (Marin-Garcia & Tomas, 2016). As mentioned above, AMO was actually coined by MacInnis & Jaworski (1989) in their research within marketing but was changed to MOA in their following work (MacInnis, et al., 1991). Vroom (1964) took the common belief, at that time, among social psychologists that motivational aspects have an impact on performance and combined it with ability to explain performance as a function of both ability and motivation (Blumberg & Pringle, 1982). Blumberg & Pringle (1982) acknowledged opportunity as the missing link in this function and proposed a new function consisting of capacity to perform (ability), willingness to perform (motivation) and opportunity to perform (opportunity). In sales management, the AMO framework has been proposed by Benet-Zapf, et al. (2018) as a way to cluster the mediators previously used within studies regarding salesforce control systems. The findings from their systematic literature review suggest that all three groups from the AMO model evidence positive impacts on sales performance when BBC is in use (Benet-Zapf, et al., 2018). To understand the foundation of AMO theory we will explore the theoretical origin of the elements, which according to Kroon, et al. (2013) are firmly grounded in industrial/organizational psychology, work psychology and human capital theory. The framework developed by Benet-Zapf, et al. (2018), in which the AMO constructs are the mediators between sales control systems and performances, is presented below in Figure 1.

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Figure 1: Framework developed by Benet-Zapf, et al. (2018).

Ability is rooted in the psychology and the human capital literature and refers to the individual’s ability to perform (Kroon, et al., 2013). It was explained by Boxall & Purcell (2011) as the necessary knowledge, skills and aptitudes possessed by the individual to do the job. Challagalla & Shervani (1996) made a distinction between activity control and capability control within BBC. The capability control part of BBC, which emphasizes the development of individual skills and abilities, has been shown to influence ability constructs such as problem solving (Benet-Zapf, et al., 2018). Other ability constructs, such as learning and performance orientation and sales manager control competencies, have also been shown to be positively affected by BBC and in turn positively affecting salespeople’s performance (Benet-Zapf, et al., 2018). Motivation’s theoretical foundation is grounded in social exchange theory and refers to an employee’s desire to perform. Within HRM, providing high pay, career opportunities and sharing of information on the company’s goals and results are seen as practices to ensure high performance (Kroon, et al., 2013). Within sales management research, many motivational constructs have been explored, both the positive expressions such as intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, organizational commitment and job satisfaction, as well as negatively affecting factors including role conflict, role ambiguity and emotional exhaustion (Benet-Zapf, et al., 2018). Many studies show a positive effect on motivational constructs from BBC and positive effects on performance from these motivational constructs, such as Baldauf, et al. (2002), Grant & Cravens (1999) and Piercy, et al. (2006). The common pattern of the results from previous studies shows motivational factors have a mediating role between the control systems and performance (Benet-Zapf, et al., 2018). Opportunity is the factor that accounts for the work environment in which the individuals use their abilities and motivation (Kroon, et al., 2013). It was added to the

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prior common theory in which the performance was explained only by the function of motivation and ability (Blumberg & Pringle, 1982). They realized the shortcoming of the model and concluded that “in sum, not only is the ability x motivation model unable to account for environmental variables not under the control of the individual, but there also seems to be no direct way to fit known correlates of performance such as leadership, attitudes and satisfaction into it” (Blumberg & Pringle, 1982, p. 563). In a salesforce environment, the constructs in the opportunity dimension consider for example tools, leadership behavior, procedures and working conditions and have been included by either matching this definition or by conceptually staying away from the ability and motivation categories (Benet-Zapf, et al., 2018). Goal setting is one of these opportunity constructs that has been shown to mediate between the sales control systems and performance (Fang, et al., 2005). As identified by Benet-Zapf, et al. (2018), the highest levels of a numerous of opportunity constructs occur under BBC: organizational customer orientation, satisfaction with territory design, transformational leadership and supervisee trust. The use of motivation, opportunity and ability (MOA) theory as mediators was first introduced by MacInnis et al. (1991) within marketing research. The purpose in the original proposition was to investigate the mediating role of MOA in the context of brand information processing, but has since been used in other contexts to explain the behavior of individuals (Johnson & Sohi, 2017). Other contexts include product launch (Wu, et al., 2004), adoption of innovations (Sääksjärvi & Samiee, 2011), cross-selling (Schmitz, 2013) and knowledge sharing (Siemsen, et al., 2008). MOA theory was used in the study by Inyang & Jaramillo (2019) where the impact of implementation of sales strategy, and its impact on sales performance was studied. Support was found for many of the hypotheses tested, including the impact on sales performance from BBC via salesperson implementation of sales strategy (Inyang & Jaramillo, 2019).

2.5. CRM implementation

Customer relationship management (CRM) is defined as ”an on-going process that involves the development and leveraging of market intelligence for the purpose of building and maintaining a profit-maximizing portfolio of customer relationships” (Zablah, et al., 2004, p. 480). CRM tools are designed to support sales, marketing and service as well as, for example, provide insight regarding organizational and individual performance. “Firms operating in today’s competitive environment have started to view CRM as a strategic tool that can be leveraged to satisfy and retain customers, rather than as a mere information technology investment” (Ahearne, et al., 2012, p. 127).

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Ryals & Payne (2001) identified six major barriers to CRM implementation in their study within the financial services sector: lack of skills, inadequate investment, poor data quality and quantity, failure to understand the benefits, functional boundaries and inadequate measurement systems. Lack of skills related to both lack of skills in the implementation but also in operating the system and analyzing the output. Inadequate investment was a recurring issue among the studied companies, some overcoming this issue by achieving “quick wins” to gain momentum and extend the implementation incrementally. Poor data quality and quantity is self-explanatory, it proved to be an issue since the extent of earlier data quality problems was surprising. Failure to understand the benefits was seen as a barrier since there were struggles in persuading people of the benefits to the organization. Functional boundaries related to unwillingness to cooperate over business unit boundaries. Inadequate measurement systems related to both inadequate assessments of performance and goal clarity or communication regarding goals. Ahearne, et al. (2012) divide CRM strategy implementation into two opposites; top-down CRM implementation and bottom-up CRM implementation. In a top-down CRM implementation, decisions regarding strategy and implementation are made by executive- or manager-level employees. In contrast to this, bottom-up CRM implementation adopts grassroot-mentality, decisions are made in group and these subsystems are integrated by top management into the final overall strategy (Ahearne, et al., 2012). The authors suggest a contingency approach to CRM implementation strategy, while arguing that the top-down approach may work well for simple selling environments and that the bottom-up approach is more suitable in complex selling environments.

2.6. Implementation behaviors

The achieved success of an implementation is linked to the implementation behaviors of the affected actors (Cravens, 1998). The performed implementation behaviors fluctuate depending on the role of the employee within the organization, as well as on the characteristics of the implementation activity (Weitz, et al., 1986). Salespeople are the linkage between the selling company and its customers, playing an important role not only in direct sales but also in marketing, understanding the customers’ needs as well as managing and strengthening the customer relationships (Cross, et al., 2001; Best, 2013). Based on sales management and organizational implementation literature, Johnson & Sohi (2017) have identified three main factors for a successful and efficient implementation: speed, energy and interaction. The authors merged these main factors into salespeople’s implementation behaviors, examining how the salespeople’s individual responsiveness, effort and coordination impact the implementation success of new strategies in the context of implementing new products and services (Johnson & Sohi, 2017).

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The salesforce is the company’s face towards its customers; hence, its salespeople’s implementation behavior impacts the customers’ perception of the company as a whole. Quick responsiveness to new strategies is found to have positive impact on both customer relations and organizational outcomes (Chonko & Jones, 2005; Homburg, et al., 2007). Contrarily, when the salespeople are hesitant to act according to new strategies and initiatives, the organizational outcomes might be negatively impacted (Speier & Venkatesh, 2002; Atuahene-Gima, 1997). Breu et. al. (2002) claim that the salesforce ability to be flexible and rapidly adopt new strategies and ways of working is crucial for the company to stand the competition in the fast moving and ever-changing business environment of the modern society. Schaffner & Thomson (1992) highlight the importance of taking urgent actions when performance improvements are identified in order to achieve some measurable short time progress that could guide which adjustments of the implementation strategy are necessary to succeed in the long-term. In contrast, Best (2013) could not find any significant support for neither a rapid nor a gradual implementation leading to higher performance when initiating a major reorganization at a corporate or business level. Salesforce adoption of new products and strategies is based on two compounds, commitment and effort (Atuahene-Gima, 1997). Commitment is an attitude and reflects to what extent the salesperson acknowledges and incorporates the new goals in his or her daily work, whereas effort is defined as to what degree the salesperson devotes energy, persistence and proficiency into his or her work to achieve the new goals (Atuahene-Gima, 1997). Hultink & Atuahene-Gima (2000) studied the effect salesforce adoption of new products and strategies had on the sales performance, and found that a high degree of salesforce adoption is positively related to the sales performance of the new product. However, the findings also revealed that high effort in combination with low commitment towards the new goals had no positive effect on the sales performance (Hultink & Atuahene-Gima, 2000). The findings are supported by Grant & Cravens (1996) who reached similar conclusions in their research as their findings showed a strong linkage between the salesperson’s organizational commitment and both behavioral- and outcome based performances. Fu et al. (2010) studied how the salespersons level of effort change over time depending on if the performed effort is a result of internalized process or a consequence of external compliance. The authors concluded that if salespeople find the new task to be rewarding at a personal level, they are more prone to put high effort and creativity into it long-term, whereas salespeople effort emerged from compliance will only be sustained as long as the management explicitly monitors and evaluates the salesperson’s behavior (Fu, et al., 2010). The third implementation behavior, coordination, has its roots in system theory and is an important perspective especially for organizations operating within a business-to-

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business context according to Johnson & Sohi (2017). The most basic definition of a system is that it must consist of three components: elements, interconnections and a purpose or function (Meadows & Wright, 2009). According to Meadows & Wright (2009) individuals within an organization are unable to accomplish their individual goals or objectives independently, rather is the individual performance interconnected and dependent on the behavior of other members and groups within the organization. Crittenden & Crittenden (2008) argues that a successful implementation of new strategies requires involvement and collaboration of the entire workforce of the company, regardless of the magnitude of the strategy, i.e. if the strategy is implemented at a corporate, business or functional level. In complex sales, the salespeople’s ability to take on the role as an internal conductor and communicator is crucial, coordinating the organization’s collective efforts to best understand and serve the customer’s present as well as future needs (Möller & Parvinen, 2015). Steward et al. (2010) studied how the performance of salespeople differ depending on their ability to identify and coordinate key resources within the organization and found a positive correlation between coordination of resources and salesperson performance. The authors concluded that higher-performing salespeople tend to evaluate both technical and relational skills when recruiting teams, attract desired experts to the team, incorporate a project manager on the team or take on the role him-/herself as well as define the most suitable timing for deployment of team members to a higher and more precise extent in comparison to their peers (Steward, et al., 2010).

2.7. Implementation AMO antecedents

In the extant literature, AMO theory is commonly used to predict and explain an outcome or behavior, while few studies have focused on what factors could predict the AMOs (Johnson & Sohi, 2017). One exception is the framework proposed by Gruen et al. (2005) where AMO antecedents are identified in the context of marketing, namely personal relevance, goals and needs, perceived risk, past experience, subjective knowledge and situational impediments. In a similar way, Anderson & Huang (2006) studied empowerment of salespeople during CRM implementation and found four critical perceptions to directly impact the salesperson’s perceived task or role within the organization; meaningfulness, impact, choice and competence. Both studies are supported by the findings of Ryan & Deci (2000), who suggest that three psychological needs will lead to increased self-motivation when satisfied, namely competence, autonomy and relatedness. Willingness to change is according to Colletti & Chonko (1997) related to the salesperson’s involvement in planning, developing, evaluating and implementing the new strategies. In their study, several managers stated that they would involve more people from various levels of the organization earlier in the process if they could redo their latest

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change program (Colletti & Chonko, 1997). On the other hand, Wooldridge & Floyd (1990) argue that the involvement of middle management and non-managers in the strategy process should only serve the purpose of increasing the quality of decisions, rather than facilitating the strategy implementation. The authors suggest top management to define the strategic context and to give clear directions for the implementation, whereas individuals from lower levels of the organization are expected to critically examine the strategic decisions and suggest adjustments first at later stages of the process (Wooldridge & Floyd, 1990). In a more recent study, Anderson & Huang (2006) found that the sense of personal relevance of strategies is related to the salesperson’s ability to influence decisions during the strategy development phase. Moreover, the authors found salespeople to perform better and have higher levels of job satisfaction if they were involved in both goal setting and decision making that directly affected their work (Anderson & Huang, 2006). Similarly, Malshe & Sohi (2009) suggest that the salespeople’s opportunity to participate in strategy development and the ability to shape the general strategy of the organization to better fit their personal purposes increase the willingness to adopt the new strategies. The authors highlight that the main objective for salespeople is to reach their sales target, hence in order to be successfully adopted, new sales strategies have to add more value to the salesforce’s daily activities than it costs in terms of time and focus (Malshe & Sohi, 2009). Accordingly, the quantitative study performed by Johnson & Sohi (2017) found involvement in strategy development to increase both the salesperson’s motivation, opportunity and ability to implement the new strategies. The advanced communication technology of today makes salespeople more independent of their supervisors, and, as a result, Anderson & Huang (2006) suggest that the salespeople should be encouraged to take on larger responsibilities as they found salespeople to be more motivated if they were trusted to make autonomous decisions based on increased access to organizational performance data. Accordingly, the authors suggest that the salesforce training should be focused on increasing the understanding of how to use such data, but also highlight the importance of periodically updating the knowledge of previously trained salespeople as continuous training was found to be related to long-term organizational engagement (Anderson & Huang, 2006). Additionally, Ahearne et al. (2010) found that the salesperson’s experience was directly related to the sales performance, and suggest that managers should carefully ensure that salespeople are well informed and trained about the entire product range and feel confident to make independent decisions within their product field. Weitz et al. (1986) propose training programs held by experts within the company will more effectively provide the salesforce with appropriate operational knowledge than training programs of a more general nature lead by external experts. Wang & Netemyer (2002) found two factors to be critical for the performance of salespeople: the perception of competence or self-efficacy, as well as the effort put into continuously learning about not only markets and customers but also

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the technology and tools used within the company. As the study demonstrated a positive correlation between perceived job autonomy and learning effort, the authors suggest managers to focus on developing the salespeople’s sales capabilities in addition to evaluating the end results (Wang & Netemyer, 2002). Chapter summary In this chapter, we presented prior research important to provide an understanding of salesforce control systems, AMO theory and implementation. The theoretical origins and important findings were presented. The various prevalent salesforce control systems stem from three theoretical approaches, namely organizational theory, agency theory and transaction cost theory. Though several salesforce control systems have been studied, the focus in this thesis is BBC. Many important findings suggest BBC leads to sales performance, although it should be noted most salesforce control systems used in practice are hybrid systems. Scholars have studied many different mediators between salesforce control systems and sales performance. AMO, with its history of being used to explain the mediating roles between HRM practices and performance includes construct used in several studies within salesforce control systems. Recently, an attempt has been made to cluster these mediators into the AMO framework to better understand the linkages between sales control systems and sales performance by the patterns in these groups. Strategy implementation within CRM has been divided into two major strategies, top-down and bottom-up, and some barriers to implementation have been described. Implementation behaviors, namely responsiveness, effort and coordination, found crucial for implementation success have been presented with the origins and findings. The antecedents to implementation AMOs have been presented with the previous findings determining their importance.

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3. Conceptual Framework In this chapter, the conceptual framework is presented that will be used as a reference and base for our thesis. The background of the framework, how it has been adopted to this study and its components are presented together with the rationale of using it in this thesis. The conceptual framework used in this thesis is adopted from the article by Johnson & Sohi (2017). Their study focused on describing the relationships between implementation AMOs, implementation behaviors and implementation success with three AMO antecedents in the context of getting business-to-business salespeople to implement strategies associated with introducing new products and services. The hypotheses of the study by Johnson & Sohi (2017) were tested quantitatively and resulted in support for most of them. Using this conceptual model as the base for our conceptual framework, it has been redefined to suit our purpose by changing the focus from looking at implementing strategies associated with introducing new products and services to the implementation of BBC. This provides a systematic way to operationalize the concept of BBC implementation in a way previously tested in another context, and could also verify the conceptual model further. This could provide useful insights as of whether this framework could be generalizable for other purposes than what was tested in the original study. Our framework is hence based on salespeople’s implementation behaviors, the AMO theory and its implementation antecedents which will be presented in the following sections. The original framework is shown below in Figure 2.

Figure 2: The framework used by Johnson & Sohi (2017).

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In the context of our case study, we studied the implementation behaviors performed by the salespeople during the implementation of strategies linked to BBC. Based on the diversified role of the salespeople, this study includes perspectives from organizational implementation-, sales management- as well as marketing strategy literature to identify the implementation behaviors (e.g.; Best, 2013; Steward, et al., 2010; Speier & Venkatesh, 2002; Cravens, 1998; Colletti & Chonko, 1997; Viswanathan & Olson, 1992). In accordance with the findings presented by Johnson & Sohi (2017), three factors frequently appear as the most necessary for an efficient implementation; speed (e.g.; Chonko & Jones, 2005; Lamont, et al., 1994), energy (e.g.; Colletti & Chonko, 1997; Wooldridge & Floyd, 1990) and interaction (e.g.; Crittenden & Crittenden, 2008; Steward, et al., 2010). These three factors are in the context of our case examined as implementation behaviors associated with implementation of behavior-based control and particularly the implementation process of a new sales plan. Similar to Johnson & Sohi (2017), the implementation behavior constructs have been defined as the salespeople’s individual responsiveness, effort and coordination when implementing new strategies. According to the Cambridge Dictionary (2020), responsiveness is “used for talking about how quickly and well a person or organization reacts to something”. In the context of our case, we defined responsiveness as to what degree the salesperson responds quickly when asked to implement a new sales plan. The Cambridge Dictionary (2020) defines effort as a “physical or mental activity needed to achieve something, or energy used to do something”. In the context of our thesis, we defined implementation effort as to what degree the salesperson devotes his or her energy to implement a new sales plan. As commitment has an impact on both effort and performance behavior in general (Hultink & Atuahene-Gima, 2000; Cravens, 1998), we have chosen to separate the two compounds of salesforce adoption, reviewing them in different steps of our model. Benet-Zepf, et al. (2018) clustered organizational commitment to the construct of motivation in the AMO-model. Accordingly, we have included salesforce commitment in the Implementation Motivation component of our framework. Similarly, salesforce effort was explored as the Implementation Effort component within the cluster of Implementation Behaviors. According to the Cambridge Dictionary (2020), coordination is “the process of organizing the different activities or people involved in something so that they work together effectively”. In the context of our study, similarly to Johnson & Sohi (2017), we defined implementation coordination as to what degree the salesperson organizes the efforts of other members of the organization to efficiently implement a new sales plan. AMO theory, as presented in the literature review, lies in the heart of the conceptual framework. In the framework by Johnson & Sohi (2017), interrelations between the AMO

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constructs have been proposed as interactive effects of implementation AMO on implementation behaviors. Implementation opportunity is proposed to positively moderate the effect implementation motivation has on the respective implementation behaviors. Similarly, implementation opportunity is proposed to negatively moderate the effect implementation ability has of the respective implementation behaviors (Johnson & Sohi, 2017). The arguments used are that motivation and ability are internal elements while opportunity consists of external elements. The authors argue that highly motivated salespeople that are enabled and facilitated by the organization are prone to deliver superior results. They also argue that the higher ability a salesperson has, the higher is the sense of security, and the security provided by the opportunity construct will be redundant (Johnson & Sohi, 2017). Based on sales literature, Johnson & Sohi (2017) clustered the AMO antecedents presented by Gruen et. al. (2005) into three constructs to better fit the context of salespeople’s implementation behaviors associated with the introduction of new products and services, defined as Involvement in Strategy Development, Role Autonomy and New Product Training. To fit the context of this thesis, we have chosen to broaden the definition of the last construct to Training, to include a wider perspective on salesforce training. Chapter summary This chapter presented the adopted framework that is used to operationalize the concept of BBC implementation. The framework consists of implementation behaviors, AMO theory and implementation AMO antecedents, all of which are previously presented in the literature review chapter. The main adaptation of the original framework is the change of focus from implementation of new products to implementation of BBC. In the method chapter, we will describe how the questions used to provide support for the original framework in the original study have been adopted to fit this study. The framework is used to understand whether these AMO antecedents can be used to describe the challenges emerged in the case study.

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4. Method This chapter describes the methods applied for conducting the thesis, between January 17th and May 22nd 2020. The fields of implementation processes in general as well as the impact BBC, in comparison to OBC, has on sales performance are well documented in prior literature. However, little focus has been directed to the actual implementation process of BBC, making it a suitable gap to perform an exploratory case study on. Furthermore, the case study was conducted at a MedTech company operating on a tender-driven market with a complex customer structure, where the authors acted as insiders. Figure 3 outlines the research process of this thesis, showing how the literature review was accompanied by two phases of data collection. Each phase of data collection was followed by a phase of data analysis.

Figure 3: Schematic overview of the iterative research process.

4.1. Research Design

The introduction section of this thesis described its aim of exploring and analyzing the challenges that arise during the implementation of BBC at a MedTech company operating at the Swedish market. The limited amount of previous research on the implementation phase of BBC in the context of sales organizations made it a suitable topic for qualitative research through an exploratory perspective (Blomkvist & Hallin, 2014; Creswell & Poth, 2018; Yin, 2018). According to Eisenhardt (1989) and Eisenhardt & Graebner (2007) observations are an important first step of theory building, thus case studies are valuable when exploring a specific phenomenon under unusual circumstances or in a prior uninvestigated context as it enables in-depth analysis of the phenomenon based on its empirical data. However, the authors raise concerns regarding the risk of low external validity and generalized applicability of findings if the case study is focused on explaining extremities and abnormal behaviors (Eisenhardt & Graebner, 2007). Blomkvist & Hallin (2014) also raise concerns regarding the limited generalized applicability of results derived from a case study, especially within social science, as the method could never fully explain the underlying reasons for the outcomes of the studied phenomenon. Yin (2018), on the other hand, suggest that case studies could contribute to theory at a level of analytical

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generalizability rather than statistical generalizability, and together with the context of the case study setting could have a generalized applicability in its field. Lee (1989) argues that the strength of a case study is the high level of internal validity when appropriate procedures regarding its design and implementation are followed, and equally to Yin (2018), that the aim of case studies is to generalize to theories rather than populations. In addition, Flyvbjerg (2006) suggest that an appropriate case study in a relevant context could contribute to the accumulated knowledge within its field of research. In conclusion, it is expected that findings from this thesis will contribute to broaden the theory of BBC implementation with findings from a specific case study, rather than to test the theory. Further, research could either be characterized by an inductive, deductive or abductive research approach (Suddaby, 2006; Blomkvist & Hallin, 2014). Briefly, with an inductive research approach, theory is based on patterns found through observations, whereas deductive research is initiated by hypotheses based on existing theories, which are then either confirmed or disproved through observations (Blomkvist & Hallin, 2014). Abductive research, on the other hand, is described as analytic induction and refers to the process of the researcher moving back and forth between an inductive and deductive approach (Suddaby, 2006). Exploratory case studies are often characterized by an inductive approach (Denscombe, 2017), however this thesis aims to apply an abductive approach as the literature will be revisited after each phase of data collection in order to ensure that the research question could be answered by the empirical findings. Blomkvist & Hallin (2014) highlight the benefits of applying an abductive approach as the data collection could be initiated in parallel with the literature review, and iteratively during each phase of data collection refine its measures in order to better understand and analyze its empirical findings. Eisenhardt (1989) goes even further and argues that the ability to make adjustments along the research process is crucial if the aim is to build theory based on the findings, as the adjustments potentially could increase the validity of the results from a case study. The research question has been derived through a gap-filling approach based on the preliminary findings in the initial literature review of the field. It is concluded that it would be a suitable gap to fill with findings from a practical case study exploring what challenges could arise during the implementation process of BBC according to existing literature as well as the underlying reasons for the specific emerged challenges in the case of the MedTech company. The gap-filling approach, as Sandberg & Alvesson (2011) argues, can lead to a shortage of interesting and influential studies within management science. However, this thesis will study the gap further by combining conclusions from prior research in related fields with a specific case study, aiming to contribute to the accumulated knowledge in the field with its results.

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4.2. Data Collection

One of the benefits of an exploratory case study according to Flyvbjerg (2006) is the ability to directly test different views as well as the possibility to slightly adjust the research process when exploring how a phenomenon of a real-life nature unfolds. This thesis aims to collect data during two separate phases, enabling an iterative process where the second collection could be adjusted based on findings from the first data collection as well as on insights from the parallel literature review. The first set of interviews were held between March 2nd and March 17th. The second set between March 30th and April 2nd. Each phase of data collection was then followed by a phase of data analysis, between March 18th and March 29th, as well as April 3rd and May 15th. In addition to the formal data collection in phase one and two, the authors of this thesis acted as insiders at the MedTech company and have conducted several informal observations and unstructured interviews with members of the management team to better understand the general context of the implementation at the specific company. The interviews in both phases were conducted individually with several employees at different levels within the sales organization. The choice of interviewing employees at different levels was made in order to reduce the risk of biased answers due to few sources, similar perspectives or both, as suggested by Yin (2018). During the first phase, all interviews were both structured and semi-structured, including a set of predefined questions based on the questions Johnson & Sohi (2017) applied in their framework, as well as open-end questions where the respondent got the opportunity to lead the conversation and were emphasized to speak freely. The structured interview questions were asked in a similar way to all respondents in order to ensure that the answers were not influenced by the interviewers. The semi-structured questions on the other hand were based on broader themes and asked differently depending on the flow of the conversation, varying from interview to interview. According to Saunders et. al. (2016), semi-structured interviews are suitable in the early stages of an explorative study, creating a better understanding for the general context of the case. However, the authors suggest that a combination of structured and semi-structured interviews could be beneficial by covering aspects from related literature through predefined questions that the respondents otherwise might not reflect upon if only open-end questions are used (Saunders, et al., 2016). In accordance with Yin (2018) and Vetenskapsrådet (2017), all interviews commenced with a scripted introduction where the purpose of the study relevant theoretical concepts were presented in a uniform way to all respondents. The scripted introduction is presented in Appendix A: Interview Manuscript, first set of interviews. As suggested by Yin (2018) the interview protocol is presented in Appendix B: Interview Protocol, first set of interviews with the aim of increasing the reliability of the study through transparency.

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During the second phase, the interviews were semi-structured and had more of a follow-up nature. The questions were focusing on the information the respondent had given to the open-end question during the first phase of interviews, aiming to get a deeper understanding of the empirical setting and to further explore certain themes. The follow-up questions were also based on additional findings from the parallel literature review as well as on perspectives presented by other respondents during the first phase. In both phases, all interviews were held either face-to-face or through video calls with a shared screen, and all respondents gave their permission to record the interviews. The audio recording was not only advantageous during the interview as it made the conversation more fluent when less notes were taken, but was also a useful tool afterwards, giving the authors the possibility to carefully re-listen to specific parts in order to diminish any misunderstandings that potentially occurred during the interview. Notes were always taken in conjunction with the recordings, since it can highlight key information stated in the interview as well as non-verbal expressions (Blomkvist & Hallin, 2014). A smartphone with a recorder application was used to record the interviews, and the audio files were saved until the thesis was published in case they needed to be revisited, after the publication all files will be erased. The raw material from the interviews were not shared with anyone but the authors, in accordance with the agreement between the authors and the respondents as stated before the interviews were conducted and recorded. The anonymity of the answers in this report was of highest priority, however we chose to inform the respondents that full anonymity within the company would not be possible due to the relatively small sample size and the intimacy within the sales organization where most employees and managers easily could have figured who the answers belonged to. The supervisor at the company for this thesis was the country manager which could have implied a risk of conflict of interests, but the authors and the supervisor agreed not to share any additional detailed or informal information from the interviews, other than the final report. All of the procedures described above were based on ethical considerations and followed the guidelines of good research practice as presented by Vetenskapsrådet (2017). The interview schedules for the conducted interviews during the first and second phases are presented below in Table 2 and Table 3 respectively. We have conducted 18 interviews with a total of eight salespeople and two managers. All salespeople have been interviewed in both phases, whereas each manager has been interviewed once, either at the end of the first or the second phase.

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Interviewee Date Duration Format Position Salesperson A 2020-03-02 90 minutes Live Field Sales Representative

Salesperson B 2020-03-03 60 minutes Teams Field Sales Representative

Salesperson C 2020-03-03 80 minutes Teams Field Sales Representative

Salesperson D 2020-03-05 80 minutes Teams Field Sales Representative

Salesperson E 2020-03-05 60 minutes Teams Field Sales Representative

Salesperson F 2020-03-09 70 minutes Teams Field Sales Representative

Salesperson G 2020-03-09 40 minutes Teams Field Sales Representative

Salesperson H 2020-03-16 90 minutes Teams Field Sales Representative

Manager A 2020-03-17 90 minutes Teams Country Manager/ Acting Sales Manager

Table 2: Interview schedule during phase 1.

Interviewee Date Duration Format Position Salesperson A 2020-03-31 40 minutes Teams Field Sales Representative

Salesperson B 2020-03-31 40 minutes Teams Field Sales Representative

Salesperson C 2020-03-31 40 minutes Teams Field Sales Representative

Salesperson D 2020-03-31 30 minutes Teams Field Sales Representative

Salesperson E 2020-03-30 25 minutes Teams Field Sales Representative

Salesperson F 2020-04-01 25 minutes Teams Field Sales Representative

Salesperson G 2020-03-31 40 minutes Teams Field Sales Representative

Salesperson H 2020-03-31 40 minutes Teams Field Sales Representative

Manager B 2020-04-02 70 minutes Teams Sales Manager

Table 3: Interview schedule during phase 2.

The thesis was conducted at a MedTech company located in Stockholm, where the authors acted as insiders (Louis & Bartunek, 1992), working closely to the Swedish management team. The initial intention of the authors was to be situated at the case company’s office during the entire period, from January to May, to be able to participate in formal and informal meetings and discussions in a natural way. However, this thesis was conducted during a global pandemic when the office closed down and everyone was asked to work from home instead. Hence, from mid-March until this thesis was due, both authors were working separately and communicating with each other and with the case company through digital platforms. In addition to conversations directly related to this particular case study, both authors were invited to participate in the weekly online meetings with the management team. No notes were taken but occasional observations that seemed to be important to the case study were discussed and reflected upon among the authors.

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4.3. Data Analysis

The data collected from interviews and observations were being compared to findings from the literature and analyzed in parallel to each phase of data collection. The abductive approach, as suggested by Blomkvist & Hallin (2014), allowed us to iteratively revisit the literature review and to adjust the interview questions for the second phase of data collection based on unforeseen findings during the first set of interviews. The collected data was analyzed by a thematic analysis, which is a suitable method being commonly used for studies of qualitative nature within the field of social science (Blomkvist & Hallin, 2014) and psychology (Braun & Clarke, 2006). The procedure of pattern matching based on findings from the empirical data is suggested by Eisenhardt & Graebner (2007) to increase the construct validity of the thesis. The 18 separate interviews resulted in a total of 17 hours of recorded interview material, and in addition to the recordings, notes were always taken in conjunction. The notes from the interviews were analyzed immediately after each interview was conducted, with the aim of identifying key findings while impressions and details from the interview were still fresh in mind. During the second phase of data collection, findings from the first set of interviews were presented to the respondents and they had the opportunity to add further information, explain misunderstandings or adjust certain statements. The procedure of letting the respondent review the empirical findings serves the purpose of reducing the risk of drawing conclusions based on falsified information and improving the validity of the thesis (Yin, 2018). The data analysis was initiated by basic indexing and categorization of the notes taken during the interviews, aiming to identify some initial patterns of common or potential conflicting statements. Central commonalities and contradictions identified during the first phase of data collection were followed up on during the second phase of interviews in order to better understand their importance and interrelations. At the end of the second phase of data collection, the interviews were being transcribed and all notes revisited. At this point, the initial indexing and categorization was re-evaluated and redefined into new codes and themes following the six steps of a thematic analysis as suggested by Braun & Clarke (2006). All interviews were conducted in Swedish, hence all quotes presented in this thesis have been translated into English by the authors. The thematic analysis resulted in three themes, namely Process, Purpose and Communication, which were then visually displayed in a figure together with their corresponding codes. The aim of the figure is to demonstrate how the identified themes are interrelated to the AMO constructs, hence facilitating understanding of the studied phenomena.

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4.4. Research Quality

Throughout the chapter we have presented and motivated the choice of methods and measures that have been applied in this thesis with the aim of achieving research of high quality. According to Yin (2018), the quality of the research design can be judged by the measures taken to achieve construct validity, internal validity, external validity and reliability. To facilitate the evaluation of the quality of the research design as well as the quality of the findings from this thesis, an overview of the methodological measures performed throughout the research process are presented below in Table 4. Qualitative Measure Methodological Measure Construct Validity “Identifying correct operational measures for the studied concepts” (Yin, 2018)

Multiple sources and different perspectives were included in the data collection (Yin, 2018) Respondents got the opportunity to review a draft of the findings from the interviews (Yin, 2018) Combining structured and semi-structured interviews (Saunders, et al., 2016)

Internal Validity “Seeking to establish a causal relationship” (Yin, 2018)

Systematically analyzing the data by thematic analysis (Blomkvist & Hallin, 2014; Braun & Clarke, 2006) Utilizing codes for pattern matching (Eisenhardt & Graebner, 2007; Yin, 2018) Rival explanations have been addressed (Yin, 2018; Flyvbjerg, 2006)

External Validity “Showing whether and how the findings from a case study can be generalized” (Yin, 2018)

Selection of a relevant case (Flyvbjerg, 2006; Blomkvist & Hallin, 2014) Empirical evidence obtained from the case study (Eisenhardt & Graebner, 2007) Findings from single-case study have been compared to relevant theory (Yin, 2018)

Reliability “Demonstrating that the operations of the study can be repeated to achieve the same results” (Yin, 2018)

Interview schedule presented for transparency (Yin, 2018) Interview protocol included as appendix for replicability (Yin, 2018) The purpose of the study and relevant theoretical concepts were explained to the respondents at the beginning of the interview (Vetenskapsrådet, 2017; Yin, 2018) The context of the case study is described in empirical setting (Blomkvist & Hallin, 2014) A case study database was developed (Yin, 2018)

Table 4: An overview of methodological measures performed with the aim of achieving high quality of research.

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Chapter summary In this chapter, we have discussed and motivated the methodology applied during the research process of this thesis. We have argued that the limited amount of previous research addressing the purpose of this thesis made it suitable for an abductive exploratory case study. Furthermore, the chapter outlines the process of data collection. The main sources of data were structured and semi-structured interviews during two separate phases with members from different levels of the organization. In addition, the authors acted as insiders at the case company and were able to make informal observations. The data was analyzed by a thematic analysis, resulting in three interrelated themes. Throughout the chapter we have presented and motivated the choice of methods and measures that have been applied in this thesis with the aim of achieving research of high quality. In order to facilitate an overview, have the undertaken actions been listed together with their contribution to increase the construct validity, internal validity, external validity and reliability.

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5. Empirical Findings This chapter begins with an outline of the background to, and drivers of, the implementation of BBC in the case company. Next, a description of the overall purpose and strategy of the implementation is presented together with the current situation and important contextual information regarding the Swedish sales organization. The second part presents the challenges found in the implementation of BBC in the case company. Lastly, in the third part, the mapping of the findings in regards of the conceptual framework is presented.

5.1. Empirical Setting

The case company has been successful in developing and producing premium products in their product segments for decades. It has been product-centric in many ways, historically focusing little on sales operations. Similarly to what Homburg et al. (2012) has observed and stressed, efficiency improvements and systematic approaches to streamline processes have been done in production to achieve increased productivity. In line with Homburg et al. (2012), the case company has now presented a new strategy involving increased customer orientation to a higher extent. This strategy has been developed recently by the relatively newly appointed senior management. With the new strategy and its stronger focus on customer orientation, the direction is towards a more professional and united salesforce globally. This aligns with both Homburg et al. (2012), stating that the two major objectives for all market-oriented companies are: increasing productivity and increasing customer orientation, and with Dannenberg & Zupancic (2009), arguing that the strategic significance of sales should be increased due to for example its performance improvement potential. One of the initiatives launched within this area of the strategy is the Sales Excellence initiative. Within this initiative, the decision has been made to hammer out a unified, structured way of working with sales in the EMEA region (Europe, Middle East & Africa). One of the underlying drivers is that the competition is becoming more professional, another is the unknown potential that can be unlocked if the salespeople are working in a more efficient way and measured against the same performance indicators. The Sales Excellence initiative also includes the new individual sales plan for all sales reps. The sales plan includes BBC and more specifically activity control (Challagalla & Shervani, 1996) as opposed to previous control system being strict OBC. It also included introducing a new sales process to unify the way salespeople work as well as establish the terminology used. This new sales plan provides a framework for the salespeople to present their plan for their manager, including both outcome and activity goals. “Focus more on input - but with output as a receipt” – Manager A.

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The implementation strategy was to implement the Sales Excellence initiative rapidly in order to start measuring quickly and to provide support, training and improving tools along the way. “Don’t let great get in the way of better” – Manager A. Considering the trade-off between speed and quality, speed was clearly prioritized. The implementation included a sales process, a simple CRM-tool and templates for the individual sales plan and the monthly follow-up. Since the implementation is taking place in all markets of the EMEA region at once, several of the tools and templates are developed regionally. Some tools and features can be developed locally and specifically for one market, which makes it easier to adapt to local needs and develop quicker. In the start of the implementation of the Sales Excellence initiative, the Swedish sales organization was short of the sales manager, the country manager was also acting sales manager during this phase. This, in combination with the rapid pace of the implementation, is an important contextual fact. In the Swedish sales organization, the salespeople have previously worked under OBC, measuring more or less only the end results. The control has been limited to monthly reviews to follow up on results for the previous month. The salesforce has high experience from both working in sales and from working in the case company. With a mean value of 10 years and a median value of 9 years of experience in sales as well as a mean value of 9 years and a median value of 3 years of experience in the case company, this is clear. The group is however quite diverse with some salespeople with long experience in sales in the case company, some with long experience in sales but short experience of the case company as well as one with long experience in the case company but short experience in sales. The Swedish market is rather complex within these product segments. It includes both B2B, B2C and mostly B2G sales. There are many stakeholders in a B2G sales landscape, the user or patient, relatives and caregivers, the prescriber, the owner and procurer of the product with politically controlled budget, and the manufacturer. B2G sales are the most common in Sweden and are regulated and facilitated by long-term framework agreements through a tendering procedure announced by the regions. This means that the user or patient in one region can only be prescribed a product within the assortment of the framework agreement for that product segment unless the need demands something outside of the assortment. This somewhat compromises the ability of the Swedish sales organization to increase sales without the starting point being a beneficial framework agreement in the regions. Given this context, including different experience from working with sales and working in the case company and varying customer structures, behavior and framework agreements, the qualitative analysis of the empirical data can be viewed from their

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respective individual view as well as the collective view of the organization. An overview of the timeline of the implementation is presented below in Figure 4.

Figure 4: Schematic timeline of the implementation process.

5.2. Challenges

The challenges identified in the empirical data follow three themes: Communication, Purpose, and Process. These three themes have been derived from the empirical codes identified from the interviews. In this section these themes and their constituting codes are presented and explained. The process is visualized in Figure 5 as a thematic map of the challenges that has emerged during the implementation process of BBC at the case company studied in the thesis.

Figure 5: Thematic Map – Challenges.

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5.2.1. Process

Process is about the processes and tools implemented to be able to measure activities as well as the support and follow up on these. In order to measure how the sales process is used and how the activities performed measure up against the sales plan some simple tools have been developed in the absence of a complete CRM program. With different experience of measuring activities and working with a sales process within the team prior to this, different challenges have been identified. The codes identified in this theme include tools, goal setting, support, test/pilot, lack of time/stress and timing. Representative quotes and codes related to Process are presented below in Table 5. Process Interviewee Representative quote Code Salesperson A I miss a CRM system. So I can follow up my clients, what

activities I have performed etc. I can do that this way as well, but not as detailed. It is not optimal, but it is what we have.

Tools

Salesperson E I want to make good use of it for myself, to see the big picture of my work in some way but it is not possible yet. I still need to go back to my own tools for this. I would have hoped this could give me that but unfortunately not.

Salesperson C If you had a system with some automation where you filled in at some place maybe it was automatically filled in other places as well, in the tools.

Manager B This is not the end game, only a step on the way. We want a CRM system that is as automated as possible to minimize administrative time. There are more efficient ways to do it, but this was the fastest to implement, to purchase a CRM system to rebuild to fit would be very expensive and would have needed a whole lot more training.

Salesperson D It is hard to know how many leads are needed, it takes trial and error in the beginning to see what it generates.

Goal setting

Salesperson G It is just make up stuff, sure it is possible to set goals and so on, but it is what you want. But it is statistics, it can easily be manipulated so that it looks good on paper.

Salesperson B I also think that it was difficult to set goals for number of activities. But it is a part of the work in progress, and it is logical that it is hard, it will be hard and we will have to reassess it a few times.

Salesperson H I wanted more presence from the manager to get started with the sales plan and discussions regarding initiatives.

Support

Salesperson A There has been a lot of focus on the values filled in against the plan, and less focus on why it looks that way. Because in some

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periods you might reach these targets in the plan but not the budget, which can depend on many different things.

Salesperson B There was always support stand by to help us. But maybe it was too painful to call and ask if you don’t understand, since many of those here have worked as salespeople for a long time.

Salesperson F In hindsight, you think why didn’t they do a small pilot project with someone in every country to test how it works in reality. Because that is the flaw, it does not work in our reality.

Test/pilot

Salesperson E But if you want to test something, maybe test on a few salespeople first before you test it on everyone.

Salesperson G That it takes up so much time. That’s it, it takes a lot of my working time to do it. That’s the problem.

Lack of time/stress

Salesperson F So it has only been a stressor, I have only done it because the manager has told me to. It has not been of any help to me at all.

Manager B It would have been hard and time consuming with a perfect CRM system as well.

Salesperson E Maybe you don’t need to occupy the whole sales force in the high season period when you try to bring in as much sales as possible the last months. The timing is fantastic, if you are being ironic.

Timing

Salesperson F It was introduced during the part of the year when we were most busy.

Manager B The timing is never good. But it had to be done at year end. Then you have the figures from last year and need to plan the coming year.

Table 5: Process - Representative quotes and codes.

In this theme, one of the strongest challenges, that all of the salespeople mentioned, was regarding Tools. The general view is that the simple tools developed to measure and follow up the sales process, activities and results is inadequate compared to a complete CRM system. A simple to use interface connected with all other systems with functionality to get an easy overview of the work and different customer would be preferred. Both local management and salespeople know it is a temporary solution before implementing a complete CRM system, but not when that will happen. There is a frustration in using these tools since it is time consuming compared to not doing it and the instant overview of sales and customer statistics is not yet implemented. Manager B is reasoning that this is faster to implement and requires a lot less training than a complete CRM system. Besides, using these tools can provide a better understanding of what needs to be included in the CRM system.

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Goal setting was also something many of the salespeople found challenging. The majority not being used to measuring activities or steps in the sales process at all, making this challenge quite obvious. The goals were set individually by the salespeople based on the sales plan, discussion with their manager and estimations from previous years and periods. The initiatives in the sales plan were to dictate the number of activities in general and the sales manager was trying to challenge the salespeople in order to raise the numbers towards a higher level. Challenges regarding Support have been recurrent in the interviews. It has been expressed by some that the support was present, but it might be painful to ask for help when you have been working with sales for a long time. It has also been expressed that the focus of the support in the follow-ups was mainly on whether or not the set goals were attained. As described above, goal setting was experienced as difficult and therefore focusing on this during the follow-ups was not regarded as value adding. Rather, the salespeople, in general, wanted to have more discussion regarding why the numbers look that way instead. Regarding the overall way the implementation was conducted, some mentioned it would have been better to perform a Test/pilot. This way teething problems could have been discovered and handled before implementing in full scale. This would have made a lot of sense to do if the overall strategy of implementation was quality over speed, but as mentioned before, it was the opposite. A majority of the salespeople have expressed that there has been Lack of time/stress in the implementation and that it has become a problem. Often described as frustrating and hard to find time to do. As field salespeople, spending little of their time at a computer, the fact that the computer is needed to use the tools has been expressed as an obstacle. The managers argue that with a perfect CRM system, it would still require a lot of time. It has been discussed whether using tablets or being able to use the tools on smartphones could be a partial solution to this, so that time is not wasted. But it still remains a challenge when implementing BBC that more measuring will require more time and that this can cause stress if the normal workload remains. It is a Process challenge since refining and streamlining the processes and tools used can be used to overcome it. Timing has been brought up by some salespeople as a negative part of the implementation process. The complaints were regarding the decision to start the implementation and planning in the end of last year, as it is a very busy period. The response from Manager B is quite clear regarding this issue: the timing is never right. In this case when the implementation is regarding the process, sales plan and goal setting for the upcoming year, there is no other time to do it than when the budget for the

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upcoming year is set and the sales results from the year before are in. It is still kept as a part of the Process theme since it can be important to bear in mind the timing aspect.

5.2.2. Purpose

Purpose refers to the sensation of being relevant to the organization as well as the feeling of having a reason for what you do. During an implementation of new strategies or work routines, it is particularly important to ensure that all employees understand the reason for change and how it relates to their individual roles within the organization. In the context of this thesis, the sensation of purpose and meaningful work could be achieved through a good understanding of the linkage between the broader long-term company strategy and the personal work tasks at a daily basis. Communication plays an important role in transmitting the purpose of an implementation but is defined as a separate theme, hence will be excluded in this section. The main codes identified within the Purpose theme include understanding of the purpose, linkage to company strategy, measuring customer care as well as positive input of a more general character. The codes are presented below in Table 6 together with a sample of representative quotes explaining emerged challenges related to the implementation of BBC at the case company. Worth noting is that Salesperson A and H have been involved in the development of the long-term national strategy for the company, and Salesperson D has given input on the tools before they were implemented, hence their answers may be biased. Purpose Interviewee Representative quote Code Salesperson A I think I understand the purpose of it. But then, it’s still a

little bit that I don’t know exactly what I’m getting from it. Well, I’m still a little uncertain about what the company gets out from me filling in exactly what I do either. They could basically just check my calendar to see what I do. That’s it.

Under-standing the purpose

Salesperson A I understand that activities should be measured, I think it is good to collect that information to see if and what in the long run produces any results. It is more difficult in the short term, though.

Salesperson B They just want to control us. Salesperson C I understand that they may want to know what’s going on, but

everything we enter, all orders, invoices and everything that is out there waiting, it is already in the computer system where it can be obtained from. I do quotes for all jobs, and because I do, they already exist, so they could just enter the system to see how many orders per day that has been made. So in reality I’m just rewriting it again in the sales funnel.

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Salesperson E The purpose I think we all grasp. I understand it. The purpose of course I accept. A system is needed, that’s not the problem, but a tool for this should be a tool, for all of us.

Salesperson G No one can justify why we should do it. I see no benefits. Salesperson G I don’t think this works well for anyone. I don’t believe in it.

I see it as a way to control us and what we do. It is a little sad that you feel like not being trusted.

Manager A I think that several of them still haven’t understood the purpose, that many of them just do it because they have to.

Manager A Our strategy was to choose speed over quality, had we done the opposite, we would certainly have spent a lot more time on explaining the purpose, to sell in the concept and to make sure everyone understood everything. But we chose to go for a quick implementation, and then it is often the case that the purpose takes a hit.

Manager B There is not a single job in the world where you are not being controlled or evaluated by what you do or deliver.

Manager B Mixed. Some have understood the purpose, others may have understood it but may not want to understand it. Reluctant just for the sake of change. Could also just be that they have a lot of other things to do.

Salesperson B When we found out about the 3- and 5-year plan for the company centrally at EMEA level, when we understood what a journey we will be part of, then you also understood that okay, yeah, now I know why we have to do things differently.

Linkage to company strategy

Salesperson D I think the company has announced with its five-year plan that we should go in a certain direction, which I think fits very well with my own values for the job.

Salesperson E I understand that the company needs this. Salesperson G It is crystal clear, but it’s just that there is so much extra work.

So that’s it. As I see it with, no real benefit in return. We have always succeeded before. I see it as a fashion phenomenon, that now everything should be measured.

Manager A We have talked a lot about the importance of working in a more structured, uniform and efficient way within our sales organization. The global long-term strategy was presented at the Swedish sales workshop and training sessions.

Salesperson A A lot of time is spent on customer care during periods. I would like to include customer care as a parameter to measure.

Measuring customer care Salesperson B If I’m being completely honest, this is only an excuse by lazy

salespeople who are unable or unwilling to do important activities.

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Salesperson D No, I feel no need for me to report every hour, but then I also expect the management to also have confidence in the work I do, that the trust is mutual if you say so.

Salesperson E To measure it is irrelevant to me actually. Salesperson F We are only being measured to be controlled. In that case, you

should also measure customer care. Salesperson F I think you should measure customer satisfaction; I think it is

very important that you look at how customers are taken care of as well. However, I definitely do not want more administration.

Salesperson H I don’t think we got this system because they don’t trust that we do things, but to see if we can do better business. And then I feel that customer care I hope the employer knows we do and that it is important. I do not hope this is to show our existence, but I really hope that customer care is also important for the employer and that we do not need to document it.

Manager A We are fully aware that what is being measured in the sales funnel does not cover everything that is part of a salesperson’s job. But we don’t want to measure everything. There is a purpose to it, we want the salespeople to better understand which are the value-creating activities. Of course, there is a great value in building long-term relationships with customers, but this is not where we are lacking, we are super talented at that part already.

Manager B It is important that we do not just measure for the sake of measurement, we have to measure the right things, otherwise it becomes a filling in exercise.

Salesperson A I think it is good that we work more actively with the sales plan, that is the idea at least when we do the follow-up and stuff.

Positive input

Salesperson B Fun to be part of the change process, to improve and transform.

Salesperson C In all such measurement systems where you fill in something, you will eventually be able to find certain patterns, but it must pass some time before you can see it.

Salesperson D I think when our manager presented this to us, I just felt yes, god that’s great!

Salesperson E Appreciate getting an overview of customer behavior, but not to be controlled at a detail level.

Salesperson F What I found to be positive was that we were given what initiatives to measure and a little introduction on how to think, but that we still got to design our own plan ourselves.

Salesperson G Some plan may be good to have, of course, you must have a plan to meet the budget. So, I guess it’s good to have this.

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Salesperson H Initially thought that the sales plan would take a lot of time, but it takes less time once you get used to it.

Table 6: Purpose - Representative quotes and codes.

During the interviews, it was clear that two of the main challenges for the entire implementation process were the codes Understanding the purpose and the Linkage to the company strategy. The two codes are interrelated, but several interviewees responded differently depending on the code. Understanding the purpose refers to the understanding of why this new work routine is important, both to the company as a whole but also at a personal level. If the purpose is well understood, it is easier to implement changes in one’s individual work and to see the personal benefits from it. Even though several respondents state that they understood the purpose, most of them also stated that they feel that they do not see any, or only few, benefits with the system, they need to do a lot of unnecessary double work, or they just feel like they are being controlled. According to Manager A, this was a calculated risk as the management decided to prioritize a quick implementation where the understanding of the purpose could be jeopardized. Manager A presented the global long-term strategy at the first workshop and training sessions for the Swedish sales organization, and some respondents stated that the Linkage to the company strategy was crystal clear. However, several highlighted that they got a better understanding of the general purpose, and especially the linkage to both the national and the EMEA long-term strategy, during the sales conference with the other EMEA sales organizations, which took place about two months after the implementation was initiated. Whether the reason for the increased understanding during the European meeting originated from a better presentation or the implementation process being at a later stage, and therefore more familiar, is hard to tell. However, it is clear that the EMEA sales conference was the tipping point for the understanding of the purpose and linkage to the company strategy for most salespeople. The code Measuring customer care was detected during the interviews as the opinions of what to include and not in the measurement was very divided. Some stated that if some activities were to be measured, then it would be better to measure everything they do in order to better present what they actually spend time on at a daily basis. Others, on the other hand, were clearly against additional measuring and administrational work, and instead pointed out that they hoped that the management team would have trust enough in them taking customer care seriously even if it wasn’t being measured. There is a linkage between the ones who answered that they have not entirely understood the purpose or could see the linkage to the company strategy and the desire to include customer care as a parameter, which could be the explanation to their sensation of only being controlled. However, both managers clearly state that it has never been the intention to measure everything the salespeople do, contrary they claim that they have

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high confidence in the salespeople’s ability and willingness to care for excellent customer relations without being measured. The code Positive input was included as it nuances the otherwise quite negative tone and could implicitly indicate if the purpose somewhat had been understood and accepted even though the respondent explicitly stated the contrary. During the interviews it was found that every single salesperson could see at least some positive sides of the implementation. Some stated it was fun to be part of the change process itself, others highlighted the opportunity to set their own goals was motivating, that a new tool was needed or the positive surprise that it did not require as much additional time as they had initially expected. One apparent pattern is that most respondents were clearly more positive in general towards the implementation during the second phase of interviews, which is probably because they have had more time to get familiar with the new routines and to adjust to the new system.

5.2.3. Communication

Communication is about the acts of transferring information from one person or group to another. It includes the efficacy and efficiency of the meaning getting transferred. Given that a message or meaning could be interpreted differently depending on the receiver, as well as that different means of communication can vary in efficacy depending on both sender and receiver, it is not surprising that multiple challenges have been identified in this theme. The main codes include unclear definitions, training, reception of feedback, presentation and omitted information. The codes are presented in Table 7 below with representative quotes explaining the challenges that have emerged during the implementation of BBC in the case company. Communication Interviewee Representative quote Code Salesperson D It is difficult when the definitions are not crystal clear. Unclear

definitions Salesperson F Yes, because it was very unclear, well, it is still very unclear. Salesperson E Not even those responsible can define what a lead is etc. Salesperson B Crystal clear that it has led to many questions and reflection

that has not been answered. Manager A Not surprised, we know that this has been an issue and some

ambiguity regarding this. I think it is because of the classic tradeoff between quality and speed, where speed was chosen in this case. There was not a lot of time between the decision to do it and the presentation. We were aware that it was not perfect and that there would be some hiccups and local question marks.

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Salesperson B The more you understand why something should be done, as long as you agree, it gets easier. The motivation increases every minute as you understand it better.

Training

Salesperson E From the first week we were just going to fill it in, after a presentation of half an hour, and take questions later.

Salesperson H I would have appreciated if there were more documented instructions how to do so that everyone does it similarly. If everyone does the same the numbers can be interpreted correctly.

Salesperson E Opinions are received but no action is taken, regarding other important activities.

Reception of feedback

Salesperson G Poor communication about what the benefits are. Presentation Salesperson H I was not successfully motivated why to do it. They failed to

inspire me and explain why it was important. Salesperson E It went pretty fast, there was a lot of information, I thought

that it would be straightforward. But there were some setbacks when applying it to everyday use.

Salesperson B It should have been crystal clear from the start to gain salespeople’s trust. Why we do it, from the salespeople’s perspective.

Salesperson H Should have had a salesperson or working group to validate and get the salespeople’s input on this.

Omitted information

Manager A Nothing was intentionally withheld at the presentation. Table 7: Communication - Representative quotes and codes.

One of the codes that many of the salespeople have expressed as a challenge in the interviews is the Unclear definitions. This related to the definitions of stages in the sales process that were included in the sales plan as a measurement. Goal setting of these stages require clear definitions and they were not perceived as clear. This creates another set of problems in the implementation as salespeople adopt their own perceived definition or sees this as an obstacle to get started. Disregard of which, most salespeople saw this as a demotivating factor. As Manager A expressed, this was known from the beginning since the speed of getting started was prioritized and that question marks would be straightened out in time. Regarding Training some salespeople requested more documents and instructions in order to ensure uniform use and measurement so that conclusions can be drawn from the data. Some salespeople mentioned that there was little training initially and that they were just told to start working with it, and that after working with it for some time it became clearer. One salesperson linked the understanding to motivation, as long as you agree with why it should be done. Disregard of the amount of training, if there is a lack of understanding why it should be done, the message of the training might not be received.

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Reception of feedback was mentioned by a few salespeople, in the context of opinions being taken in but that no action is taken. This is a part of the Communication theme as feedback from the salespeople could be important in the beginning of the implementation phase, and the communication regarding whether this feedback will lead to changes or not could give more transparency. The code Presentation includes the challenges emerging mainly from the perceptions of the first presentation of the implementation. This presentation was crucial to spur motivation and action in the start. Many of the salespeople expressed their perceptions of the presentation as inadequate to communicate the purpose of it, resulting in a lack of motivation. This code lies somewhat in the interface of the themes Communication and Purpose, it has been placed within Communication since it relates more to the actual communication issue of the purpose rather than issues in understanding the purpose itself. Regarding Omitted information, some of the comments were that someone from the sales organization should have been included in the work process to establish processes and tools. What makes this a challenge within Communication is that one of the salespeople, with previous experience of a similar implementation was actually included and was able to give input and validate drafts of the tools, however, it was not communicated to the rest of the group. According to Manager A, it was not withheld intentionally. “I think it would be strange if all salespeople were on board from the beginning. Then there is no open discussion, and there are problems that are not spoken of. But if you dare to express your concerns and complaints, you are at least engaged. So, I would rather have this type of demotivation than silent acceptance.” - Manager B. This quote aims to describe a positive aspect of the fact that concerns and complaints are at least raised and communicated, which shows there is an open discussion in the group and that the salespeople are engaged.

5.3. Conceptual framework mapping

The conceptual framework presented in chapter 3 lays the foundation of the first phase of the data collection. The questions asked can be found in Appendix B: Interview Protocol, first set of interviews of the thesis and the results will be presented in this chapter. The answers to the questions have been analyzed and found to be very similar in general, with a few outliers. In order to understand whether the conceptual framework can be used to understand implementation of BBC, this section will describe the findings

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in the interviews related to the hypotheses tested and supported by Johnson & Sohi (2017). The results from the questions will be presented primarily with the AMO-constructs in focus, to understand how the factors of the conceptual framework are affected by one another. The median answer will be used as a guide through the mapping of the framework acting as the representative answer of the group, while the outlying answers will be used to describe other relations when seen fitting. A graphical display of the mean and median results as well as two individual respondents’ answers to the structured interview questions are presented in Appendix C: Structured interview – Graphic presentation of findings.

5.3.1. Motivation

Most of the respondents answered that they were motivated in regard to plans associated with implementing a new sales plan. However, even though both the median and the average answer was positive, the answers spanned over the entire scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree. When asked what could have been the factors influencing their motivation, the comments were many and widespread, but often of a more general nature and only few were related to involvement in strategy development, role autonomy or training. The questions regarding involvement in strategy development were understood differently among the respondents, some linked it to involvement in development of the long-term company strategy, others related it to their individual sales plan or the local sales organization’s common sales strategy. Depending on how the questions were interpreted, the answers vary. Most respondents agreed that they were involved in strategy development at an individual level, but only few would explicitly link it to their motivation. Among the salesforce, some have been involved in developing the strategy for the Swedish sales organization, and even if they said it made them more motivated, they also highlighted that it made them more motivated towards their work in general, and not automatically towards this particular implementation. If we got few explicit answers regarding involvement in strategy development and how it impacted their motivation, comments regarding role autonomy were clearly outspoken. Everyone had something to say about role autonomy and how it affected their motivation. Several stated that they felt a lot more monitored and controlled by the new system, which had a clear negative impact on their motivation. Others pointed out that part of the purpose of the new system was to give the salespeople freedom to set their own goals and work independently with the sales plan, which they saw as motivating. In

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reality, however, managers had often adjusted the goals in their sales plans and thereby decreased their autonomy and, in turn, motivation. The answers to questions regarding how training had impacted their motivation were quite uniform. Most agreed they had gotten a lot of training in terms of time and occasions, but several highlighted that some definitions were still unclear or inconsistent to them, as well as that they still found the goal setting challenging due to lack of experience. However, it is noteworthy to mention that not everyone who acknowledged unclear definitions or difficulties with goal setting implied it had a negative impact on their motivation. A selection of representative quotes related to motivation are presented below in Table 8. Motivation Interviewee Representative quote Salesperson F I think what motivates me is that we got to plan and design our individual

sales plan in our own way, quite independently. Salesperson D I got the opportunity to review a draft of the new tools and give my input

and opinion on it. I highly appreciate that they actually asked what I thought as I think it is important to include input from the sales organization and the salespeople’s perspective too.

Salesperson B I hate the feeling of being monitored, so to me it has been very important that I get to feel relatively independent to be motivated.

Salesperson B Some of the goals you had sat yourself were adjusted by a manager, then there’s no point in doing it yourself.

Salesperson D In an organization that is non-dynamic I would be bored very soon; I need the challenge of being part of an organization that is constantly developing.

Salesperson H I would have appreciated if we got more documented information, in addition to training, on how to use the new tools, to ensure everyone measures and defines things in the same way.

Salesperson B It is obvious that the better you understand something, the easier it is motivate oneself to do it.

Table 8: Motivation - Representative quotes.

5.3.2. Opportunity

When asked regarding having ample opportunity to act and support in regard to plans associated with implementing a new sales plan the response of the group, both the median and average answer, was neutral. When asked what the contributing factors of the perceived opportunity was, there were very few comments regarding involvement in strategy development, role autonomy or training. Looking at the answers to the questions regarding opportunity, involvement in strategy development, role autonomy and

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training, there are no common patterns to the answers for the different salespeople. Rather the answers to the question regarding opportunity seems to have been interpreted to be related more closely to the support of management and the opportunity the tools give in the implementation. The comments regarding what affected the perceived opportunity ranges from lack of support and flaws in the tools from those disagreeing, to being satisfied with the support from management and seeing the positive future opportunities the tools will bring in the future from those agreeing or being neutral. Other contributing factors to the opportunity construct that are not connected to the conceptual framework but were found are presented in Table 9. Opportunity Interviewee Representative quote Salesperson A Everything will be clearer the more data we have, I get that. I understand

why we do it, to put it that way, but I want it to be beneficial for me. Salesperson A As a relatively unstructured person, who has an organized chaos, that

makes me see that it can be helpful. Salesperson B There was always support stand by to help us. Salesperson C In all such measurement systems where you fill in something, you will

eventually be able to find certain patterns, but it must pass some time before you can see it.

Manager A They have received support, but it could have been better, for example if we had Manager B present, who would have really dedicated even more time for it and discussed more with the salespeople.

Salesperson E You know it should be of good use but it just isn’t. You do enough counterproductive already, so with more administration it should give something back.

Salesperson G I don’t see the opportunity, we have so few customers, I don’t need to write down to see what they do. I know them and know how they work.

Salesperson H I would appreciate more coaching, not necessarily as a scheduled meeting, just a call to check in how it’s going is enough.

Table 9: Opportunity - Representative quotes.

5.3.3. Ability

Most of the respondents answered that they were skillful and have sufficient knowledge in regard to plans associated with implementing a new sales plan. A minority disagreed and one strongly disagreed leaving the mean answer at neutral and median answer at agree. Questions regarding the contributing factor to the perceived ability differed. According to their answers, many quite simply said that they have enough knowledge in the context of using the tools, but not necessarily connected to the full context. In regard to training, one answer clearly stated that inexperience in doing sales plans made it

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difficult. A few others mentioned that with practice it became clearer, and you get used to it, which is more related to practice than training as defined in the framework. No connections between perceived ability and involvement in strategy development or role autonomy can be found. In regard of training, the comments regarding inexperience and practice cannot be said to be specifically related to training the way it is defined in the framework. Representative quotes related to ability are presented below in Table 10. Ability Interviewee Representative quote Salesperson A I interpret the question as if it is something that I lack in my knowledge

to carry out my activities or plan them. I really don’t think so. Salesperson B In this case, it is how structured one is as a person. If you are basically

a controlling and structured person, this is a whole lot easier. And then it is, you must not be proud either, you may need help with certain things, you have to dare to ask for help. The skill, it is probably more how you are as a person.

Salesperson C I think more that it has become more live that we have started to work more with it, and then maybe some loose ends that we did not really know then, you have now understood.

Salesperson D I think I have quite a lot of expertise to work with the sales plan. I’m used to using it if you say so. The sales plan and sales funnel, I don’t think is anything strange at all.

Salesperson H I have enough knowledge; I know how to fill in and everything. Salesperson F So, I think probably a lot depends on how it was presented, but it is clear

that it also affects that I am not used to making sales plans, it is obvious. This is a new part, so I may have experienced that it was more difficult than colleagues who worked with it before, so it also plays a role in the whole context.

Salesperson G Knowledge of it, now you start to get used to filling it in. I know how it works; I do.

Table 10: Ability - Representative quotes.

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Chapter summary This chapter has presented the empirical settings of the implementation in the case company with the main reasons for the implementation being a new long-term strategy formulated by the new senior management focusing more on customers and sales. The overall strategy of the implementation of the so-called Sales Excellence initiative was to prioritize speed over quality. The empirical findings regarding the challenges that has emerged are presented in three themes; Purpose, Process and Communication. The Communication theme includes codes such as unclear definitions, training and presentation. The Purpose theme includes codes such as understanding the purpose, linkage to company strategy and measuring customer care. The Process theme includes codes such as tools, goal setting and support. The conceptual framework mapping was presented with findings related to each of the AMOs. Few patterns similar to the ones found in the original study could be identified. In the next chapter, these findings will be discussed further, connecting these findings to previous studies and findings.

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6. Discussion In this chapter, the empirical findings are revisited and some discussions with prior literature are provided. Firstly, a general overview and a description of Figure 6 is presented. Secondly, codes found within the themes are discussed with relevant literature. Thirdly, the implementation AMO antecedents of the conceptual framework are revisited and their connections to Figure 6 are discussed. Finally, the CRM implementation literature is revisited and its connection to Figure 6 is discussed.

6.1. Overview

In line with the purpose of this thesis, the challenges that have emerged in the implementation of BBC in the case company have been presented in the empirical findings and consists of the three themes, Purpose, Process and Communication. In the prior literature regarding sales force control systems, many mediators between salesforce control and sales performance have been studied. As an attempt to better understand the linkages between these, Benet-Zapf et al. (2018) have clustered these mediators using the AMO framework. The AMO framework has also been used in the framework by Johnson & Sohi (2017) regarding implementation of new products. The model below in Figure 6 is the result of the empirical findings: it conceptualizes the main insights regarding how these themes of challenges relates to the AMOs. These relationships will be discussed in this chapter together with the existing literature. The model should be interpreted from the outside in, where the three circles are the themes of challenges, and their intersections are the AMOs. For instance, the Purpose theme affects both opportunity and motivation, while Communication affects motivation and ability. The intersection of Purpose and Communication visualizes that it is the combination of Purpose and Communication that will have the most impact on motivation. And the opposite, as found in the case study, the challenges regarding Purpose and Communication will together impact motivation negatively.

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Figure 6: Emerged framework of empirical findings.

6.2. Challenges

In our case study, one of the codes in the Process theme is goal setting. It was found to be challenging for the salespeople to set goals since the majority were not accustomed to break down their budget into steps and activities in the sales process. This means that it is difficult for the salespeople to know whether the goals are set high or low. Fang et al. (2005) showed that the effect that activity control has on behavior performance is weaker when goal specificity is high. The authors also found support, in one of their two studies, that the effect activity control has on behavior performance is stronger when goal participation is high. Several salespeople in our case study mentioned that though the goal setting was challenging, they realized that it was a work in progress. Even though it has been seen as a challenge, for the salespeople to be able to participate in goal setting to a high extent should increase the perceived opportunity. Further, since goal participation has been shown to mediate activity control’s effect on behavior performance, it could be positive in a longer perspective. These mediators have been clustered as opportunity constructs in the work by Benet-Zapf et al. (2018), which aligns with our empirical findings as the Process theme affects opportunity. Another code within the Process theme that has been seen as a challenge or obstacle is lack of time/stress. The extent to which the job, evaluations, and achievement of performance goals cause stress is referred to as job tension (Jaworski & McInnis, 1989). Challagalla & Shervani (1997) found that excessive focus on the day-to-day activities

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can increase job tension. On the other hand, Cravens et al. (2004) showed that under a high control system, where the extent of control is high regarding both output and activities, the role stress is lower than under other control systems. Job tension and role stress have been clustered as motivation constructs in the work by Benet-Zapf et al. (2018). Perhaps this stress is more significant during the implementation before it becomes a natural part of the job. In our case study it has been clear that it has affected the motivation by those who have viewed this as a challenge. Therefore, motivation stretches into the middle of the conceptualized model presented in Figure 6, as all three themes relates to motivation. Within the Purpose theme the code linkage to company strategy was identified as a challenge. Several of the respondents stated that they could see the linkage between their individual sales plan and the broader company strategy, but while some found it to be inspirational, others thought it to be additional or unnecessary administrative work to complete. The extent to which salespeople recognize the sales organization to express flexibility and willingness to adopt new ways of problem solving related to the sales function is referred to as sales innovativeness (Evans, et al., 2007). Organizational commitment refers to the degree of involvement and loyalty towards the organization (Grant & Cravens, 1996). Joshi & Randall (2001) redefined the construct of organizational commitment to also include the development of personal identification with the organization, as well as the sensation of the relationship with the organization being a satisfying and self-defining relation. Salespeople who show high organizational commitment, tend to also demonstrate high outcome and behavior performances (Grant & Cravens, 1996; Piercy, et al., 1998). For organizations applying BBC, Grant & Cravens (1999) found organizational commitment to be closely related to the sales unit effectiveness. Benet-Zapf et al. (2018) clustered sales innovativeness as a motivation construct and organizational commitment as an opportunity construct. In our study, it has been clear that the code understanding the purpose has had both positive and negative impact on the motivation and the opportunity, depending on if it has been seen as a challenge or a source of inspiration. Another code that has been identified as a challenge within the Purpose theme is measuring customer care. Salespeople’s voluntary commitment in activities and attitudes that are crucial for the organization to function successfully and effectively, but which are not explicitly rewarded through the formal reward system, are referred to as organizational citizenship behavior (Piercy, et al., 2004; Piercy, et al., 2006). The extent of which the management’s definition of the role expectations differentiate with the actual role or task orientation of the salesperson is referred to as role conflict (Jaworski, et al., 1993). Organizational citizenship behavior is a similar and interrelated mediator to organizational commitment (Benet-Zapf, et al., 2018). Piercy et al. (2006) found a positive path from managers performing BBC to in-role behavior performance when

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organizational citizenship behavior among the salespeople was used as a mediator. However, role conflict occurs when the salespeople’s task orientation does not align with the management’s guidelines, and is found to be a negative mediator between control systems and sales performance (Cravens, et al., 2004; Joshi & Randall, 2001; Jaworski, et al., 1993). The mediator organizational customer orientation refers to the extent of which the salespeople perceive that the sales organization engages in activities aiming to provide service of high quality and to increase the customer satisfaction (Evans, et al., 2007). The perception of high organizational customer orientation is an important determinant of performance and job satisfaction among salespeople with boundary spanning roles (Evans, et al., 2007). Organizational citizenship behavior and role conflict is clustered as motivation constructs, whereas organizational customer orientation is clustered to opportunity in the work by Benet-Zapf et al. (2018). During the interviews conducted in our study, we found the opinions regarding if customer care should be measured and included as a parameter in the new system to differ a lot. Some highlighted the importance of being able to prove to the management how much time is spent on customer care in contrast to other activities being measured, whereas other respondents expected the managers to have confidence in the salespeople engaging in customer care activities even if it was not being measured. The conflicting answers could be linked to all three constructs, organizational citizenship behavior, role conflict and organizational customer orientation, and are found to affect both the salesperson’s motivation and opportunity. The third code of the Purpose theme is positive input, which was identified to be an opportunity rather than a challenge. Entrepreneurial orientation of the sales department refers to the extent of which the salespeople are actively seeking to find new innovative selling approaches or business opportunities with the aim of constituting strategic advantages by proactively readjusting to altering customer preferences to differentiate from competitors (Spillecke & Brettel, 2013). Entrepreneurial orientation at an organizational level is widely studied and found to be strongly linked to firm performance (Rauch, et al., 2009). Spillecke & Brettel (2013) conclude that capability control has a positive impact on entrepreneurial orientation and sales performance, especially in highly competitive and volatile environments. Spillecke & Brettel (2013) link entrepreneurial orientation of the sales department to motivation, whereas Benet-Zapf et al. (2018) cluster it to the opportunity construct. In our case study, several of the comments related to positive input could be linked to entrepreneurial orientation of the sales department and have an impact on either motivation or opportunity. Within the Communication theme the code unclear definitions was identified as a common challenge. Task clarity refers to the extent to which the salesperson is aware of what activities to perform and how the performance will be measured (Joshi & Randall, 2001). Task clarity is found to affect the salespersons sales performance, but is found to

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have no significant effect on customer orientation (Joshi & Randall, 2001). Sales manager control competences refer to the extent of how well control is applied by managers, including both the team leadership role, but also the skillset of coaching and evaluating performance that is needed for the role (Piercy, et al., 2009). Piercy et al. (2009) found sales manager control competences to be a strongly related mediator between BBC and salesperson performance as well as BBC and sales organization effectiveness. Benet-Zapf et al. (2018) cluster task clarity to the motivation construct, and sales manager control competences to the ability construct. In our study, most respondents identified unclear definitions as a challenge, and it is clear that it has negatively affected both the salespeople’s motivation and ability to perform. The next code identified as a challenge within the Communication theme is training. Learning orientation refers to the salespeople’s strive to continually improve their abilities and selling skills, as well as acknowledging achievement situations as learning opportunities to increase their competence (Dweck & Leggett, 1988). Kohli et al. (1998) found a mediating effect of salesperson’s learning orientation between both OBC and BBC and salesperson’s performance. Benet-Zapf et al. (2018) have clustered learning orientation to the ability construct. In our study, the comments related to the code training indicates that the salespeople have a desire to master the new skills, but are frustrated as they still do not have sufficient competence, hence it has hindered their ability to perform. The last code identified as a challenge within the Communication theme is reception of feedback. Information asymmetry refers to the extent of which a salesperson has more information than the manager (Ramaswami, et al., 1997), and is clustered to the motivation construct by Benet-Zapf et al. (2018). Idea transfer on the other hand is clustered to the opportunity construct by Benet-Zapf et al. (2018) and refers to the distribution of a salesperson’s innovative ideas or knowledge to other members of the organization, as well as the transmission of organizational knowledge to the salespeople (Flaherty & Pappas, 2012). Information asymmetry aligns with the empirical findings of our case study as the Communication theme affects ability and motivation. However, it could be argued that the comments regarding reception of feedback also refer to idea transfer, implying that opportunity, similar to motivation, stretches into the center of the model, impacting all three themes.

6.3. Conceptual Framework Mapping

The results presented by Johnson & Sohi (2017) showed full support for the positive relation between all three AMO antecedents, involvement in strategy development, role autonomy and training, and the implementation motivation. The study also found a significant correlation between implementation motivation and all three implementation

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behaviors, as well as an indirect significant relation to implementation success (Johnson & Sohi, 2017). Comparing the answers to the empirical findings based on the structured interview questions regarding motivation and implementation behaviors as well as AMO antecedents, no signs of such relationships could be found in our conceptual framework mapping. In the framework by Johnson & Sohi (2017), opportunity has no direct effect on the implementation behaviors, but rather acts as a moderator. The authors found support for their hypotheses regarding opportunity to positively moderate motivation’s effect on the implementation behaviors and opportunity to negatively moderate abilities effect on implementation behaviors (Johnson & Sohi, 2017). Looking at the answers of opportunity and motivation together with the answer of the implementation behaviors, there are no signs of this relationship. The answers regarding the implementation behaviors do not alter much, with both the average and mean answer being agree on all three. However, the answers to motivation, as discussed in 5.3, ranges from strongly disagree to strongly agree using all the alternatives. A majority of answers regarding ability are agree, two disagree and one strongly disagree. Since the answers to implementation behaviors are so similar and the combination of both opportunity and motivation and the combination of opportunity and ability differ, no conclusions to either verify or reject the hypotheses. An important difference between the two studies is the applied methods. The study performed by Johnson & Sohi (2017) was of quantitative nature, whereas this case study was conducted qualitatively. The significantly smaller sample size in this study, 8 in comparison to 277, could potentially explain why the findings could not verify, nor reject, all of the results presented by Johnson & Sohi (2017). The data in this case study was collected through interviews with structured questions based on the survey questions applied by Johnson & Sohi (2017). The respondents’ ability to discuss the formulation of the questions and what they referred to before answering was by the authors of this thesis considered a strength. In hindsight however, it is evident that the respondents still interpreted the questions differently. The different understandings of the questions could explain both the nonuniform findings of our study, but also the inability to find similarities to the findings of Johnson & Sohi (2017). Despite the lack of strong parallels between the empirical findings of the structured interview questions and the results presented by Johnson & Sohi (2017), some connections to the empiric findings of the semi-structured interviews could be identified. Several respondents stated that they appreciated that they got to design the strategy for their individual sales plan quite independently, and some explicitly linked it to their motivation: “I think what motivates me is that we got to plan and design our individual sales plan in our own way, quite independently” - Salesperson F. Another common opinion among the respondents was the sensation of being controlled or monitored. While

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most expressed their general dislike towards the idea of having less role autonomy, some articulated the direct impact it would have on their motivation: “I hate the feeling of being monitored, so to me it has been very important that I get to feel relatively independent to be motivated” - Salesperson B. Regarding training, none of the quotes do explicitly declare a direct linkage to ability. However, it could be argued that several of the representative quotes of the codes unclear definitions and goal setting could be related ability and seen as the result of insufficient training. As motivated in Conceptual framework mapping inexperience and practice are part of training, hence training is related to ability. The connections between the findings from the semi-structured interviews and the conceptual framework is presented below in Figure 7.

Figure 7: Display of connections between findings and conceptual framework.

The findings in the literature regarding CRM implementation and where they would fit in our framework are illustrated in Figure 8. As Ahearne et al. (2012) proposed, a bottom-up strategy will be more effective in a complex sales environment with more complex products and long sales cycles. In our empirical findings, the theme Purpose includes codes regarding strategy, such as the code linkage to company strategy. Although this AMO antecedent is similar to the one previously discussed, involvement in strategy development, it should be discussed separately due to some important differences. Involvement in strategy development has been described by Colletti & Chonko (1997) as related to willingness to change. In our case study, Salesperson D was involved in the strategy development of the implementation of BBC, in the stage related to the design of the tools. This salesperson also stood out from the group regarding implementation AMOs and especially motivation. Top-down or bottom-up strategy, however, is wider than salesperson involvement in strategy. It determines where in the organization the strategy origins. Naturally, a bottom-up strategy will be the definition of high-level

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involvement in strategy development by the salespeople. However, there can be considerate involvement in a top-down strategy as well. Although CRM implementation is not always included in BBC implementation, the subjects are related. In a BBC implementation where activity control is included, there needs to be a way to measure activities. Whether this is done in an existing CRM tool, a new one is implemented or, as in this case study, simple tools to do so are developed, it needs to be done. If a new CRM tool or simpler tools for tracking activity are used, there needs to be a strategy for the implementation. If there is an existing CRM tool when BBC is implemented, it probably needs to be adjusted to align with the activities that should be measured. In the case study, the strategy was top-down with some involvement from the salespeople. However, most salespeople were not involved in the strategy and it was not communicated properly to them that some salespeople actually were involved, which was evident in the code omitted information. The barriers to CRM implementation identified by Ryals & Payne (2001) were described briefly in the literature review. In the case study, four out of the six barriers were identified. Inadequate investment is one of these, and it is mainly connected to the Process theme. The strategy of the implementation has been described previously as prioritizing speed over quality. This has had a direct impact on the tools developed instead of procuring a complete CRM system. The issues regarding tools has been a separate code within the Process theme. The issues regarding inadequate investment found in the study by Ryals & Payne (2001) relates more to gaining funding for the CRM requirements, particularly as the projects expanded. In this case study, the strategy was not to procure a CRM system and instead develop own tools to facilitate the speed of getting started. Because of this, it cannot be said to have had inadequate investment, however, it can be an interesting antecedent when considering implementation of BBC from a wider perspective, given that it in some cases will coincide with CRM implication. Failure to understand the benefits was another barrier identified by Ryals & Payne (2001) that also was found in our empirical data in the code failure to understand the purpose; this code in combination with linkage to company strategy entails similar issues. The failure to effectively communicate the purpose and benefits, persuading the users, has led to challenges in both this case study and in the study by Ryals & Payne (2001). Inadequate measurement systems was also identified as a barrier by Ryals & Payne (2001). It relates to measures used to determine success or assess performance. In our empirical data we have identified goal setting as a code that is part of the Process theme. In our case study, this relates to the goals set for activities and steps in the sales Process, as a way to assess performance. Ryals & Payne (2001) also noted that “sometimes, the organization is not clear about its goals or does not communicate its goals to its people” (Ryals & Payne, 2001, p. 21). In our case study this has been somewhat true; the goals

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have been set by each salesperson with their individual sales plan as the base, and since these measurements have not been used before there was some uncertainty regarding how to set them. Lack of skills was another barrier identified by Ryals & Payne (2001), in which the need for skills in operating the new system was stressed and that training was needed. In our case study, some of the codes in the Communication theme are related to this, namely training, unclear definitions and presentation. More technical skills in how to use the sales process and tools could have led to more effective communication regarding the definitions, training and presentation.

Figure 8: Display of connections between CRM theory and the conceptualized model.

Chapter summary After examining the challenges found in our case study coupled with AMO theory, the connections with prior literature within AMO theory, implementation AMO antecedents and CRM implementation have been discussed. Many of the findings in prior literature within salesforce control discussed in this chapter support the connections between the themes and AMO theory. Further, the literature within implementation AMO antecedents and CRM implementation and the connections to our challenges has been discussed. The discussion concluded that the themes of challenges in this case has support from prior literature and that they could explain the reasons why challenges emerge when implementing BBC.

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7. Conclusion In this chapter, the conclusion of the thesis is presented and is connected back to the introduction of the thesis. First, the summary of the thesis is outlined. Second, theoretical implications are presented. Third, managerial implications are provided. Last, suggestions for further research are briefly outlined.

7.1. Summary

The extant literature within salesforce control provide support that behavior-based control, in many cases, positively affects sales performance. AMO theory has been largely accepted within HRM, and has recently been proposed to explain the mediating role between salesforce control and performance, as well as between AMO antecedents and implementation behaviors. There is limited research on implementation of BBC. Hence, the purpose of this thesis has been to explore the challenges that emerge during the implementation process of BBC at the Swedish sales organization of a global MedTech company, and to investigate whether these challenges can be explained by prior research. In this master thesis, the research question “what are the reasons for the emerged challenges when implementing behavior-based salesforce control in the Swedish sales organization of a MedTech company?” has been addressed. The conducted case study included structured- and semi-structured interviews. The qualitative empirical data from the interviews was combined with prior literature of salesforce control, AMO theory and implementation. The empirical findings of challenges that emerged during the implementation of BBC resulted in the three themes Process, Purpose and Communication. The empirical findings were discussed in comparison with relevant prior literature; several findings within AMO theory and CRM implementation were in line with the empirical findings. The findings of the conceptual framework mapping could neither confirm nor reject its fit with BBC implementation. The empirical findings suggest a wider set of AMO antecedents within BBC implementation. A graphical display of how the findings of this thesis is related to the framework presented by Benet-Zapf et al. (2018) is presented in Figure 9.

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Figure 9: Graphical display of how the conceptual model of how this thesis relates to the framework presented by Benet-Zapf et al. (2018).

7.2. Theoretical Implications

This thesis set out to explore whether Johnson & Sohi’s (2017) framework could be used to explain the challenges the sales organization in the case company implementing BBC faced when implementing BBC. Since the duration of the implementation is long and the thesis is delimited by a timeframe, the implementation success could not be studied. However, the most important parts of the framework to examine in order to explore the challenges that can emerge when implementing BBC are the AMO antecedents and the AMOs. Since the empirical findings cannot confirm or reject the AMO antecedents in the conceptual framework, this needs to be studied further. On the other hand, the three themes of challenges found in the empirical data had several aspects in line with prior findings in extant literature. The delimitations of the thesis should however be considered. Since it was a single case study, the results cannot be argued to be generalizable on a detailed level in other contexts.

7.3. Managerial Implications

The findings of this thesis include three themes of challenges that has emerged in the case study during the implementation of BBC. These themes are quite general and could be helpful for sales managers who are facing an implementation of BBC themselves. The Purpose and Process of the implementation might be factors outside the power of the sales manager. However, the Communication regarding the Purpose and the Process will be possible to control, plan and execute in order to tackle the challenges affecting ability, motivation and opportunity. Since it is the salespeople’s perceived AMOs that affect

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their behaviors, Communication should be properly used in order to increase the perceived AMOs. Even though the Purpose and Process of the BBC implementation is perhaps not in the direct control of the sales manager, the Communication regarding the purpose is. If the Communication is effective, the Purpose itself as well as the benefits of the Process should be clear. Regardless of what the Purpose is, where the decision is coming from and who is responsible for the decisions regarding Process, BBC will be implemented with the intention to improve sales performance. Our findings suggest that the Process is also important and could probably be influenced by the sales manager. The tools will perhaps not be able to develop precisely the way every salesperson wants, but support along the implementation and in combination with training and Communication regarding benefits and Purpose might be useful to avoid challenges.

7.4. Further Research

Our findings in juxtaposition with the framework by Johnson & Sohi (2017) provides an expansion and adaptation of their framework proposed to be used to further explore the implementation of BBC. In Figure 10, their original framework is shown, with an expansion of their AMO antecedents into the themes found in this case study. As our findings suggest, Process affects Ability, Motivation and Opportunity, Purpose affects Motivation and Opportunity and Communication affects Ability and Motivation, hence these lines are marked as bold in the figure. We suggest this framework could be used in future research to study the implementation of BBC in a structured and systematic way. Since our case study was limited to one case company during the implementation, it would be interesting to use this framework in a multiple-case study in order to validate our findings. The AMO antecedents suggested, Process, Purpose and Communication should be operationalized, but we would suggest including the extant literature presented in this thesis, including salesforce control literature and CRM implementation literature.

Figure 10: Suggestion of how the framework presented by Johnson & Sohi (2017) could be extended in future research.

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Appendix

Appendix A: Interview Manuscript, first set of interviews

Introduction:

We will ask a few different questions today regarding what we at the company calls Sales Excellence. We need to keep a fairly high pace to catch up on all the issues. This will be anonymous in the published thesis but not internally as the control questions we use, such as the type of product and time within the company, will still reveal who answered. We hope you still answer as honestly as possible. The questions are not intended to assess your work performance but to be able to explain the implementation as best as possible from an academic perspective and the framework we use in the study. We also need to ask for your permission to record the interview so that we can more easily compile the answers afterwards. We will follow the guidelines for good research practice as presented by Vetenskapsrådet. In the academic world you are basically talking about two different ways to lead and manage a sales organization. One is called outcome-based control and is based on measuring only the salesperson’s performance in the final result on the sales figures. Relatively little support is given, the salespeople are seen more as entrepreneurs who perform their work in the way that suits them, and the salary is usually based mainly on performance. The second is called behavior-based control and as a counterpart to outcome-based control, one measures the salespeoples’ activities and in some cases capabilities. Coaching and support from the manager is seen as necessary to ensure that you as an organization and individual salesperson focus on both long-term and short-term goals as well as customer satisfaction. We want to separate the concepts of behavior-based control and Sales Excellence in certain questions as Sales Excellence is a much broader term. Therefore, it is important to keep in mind that what is fundamentally about behavior-based control in the company’s implementation of sales excellence so far is measuring activities. From December 2019, we measure the number of visits, trainings, new customer contacts, other activities as well as the number of leads, qualified opportunities and demos with customers. Then, there are other parts of Sales Excellence that are obviously related to this. Such as the new sales process, the company’s strategy of five years, EMEA’s of three years, Sweden’s of three years and each salesperson’s individual strategy of one year, as well as the various tools implemented to work with this, such as the sales plan, sales funnel management, monthly follow-ups, etc. During today’s interview, we will ask questions related to two different steps during the implementation process, both when the new concept and strategy were first presented to you, and then we will ask about

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the current situation as you have now started to implement the new sales strategy and sales plan in your daily work and tried most parts of it at least once.

Information about the next step:

In a few weeks’ time we would like to schedule a second interview with all of you in order to follow up on findings from today’s interview. During the second interview we will both follow up on, and confirm, findings from your individual first interview, but also on patterns of commonalities or contradictions found when comparing the answers provided by all of you during this first set of interviews. The second interview will require less time as you then are already familiar with the subject. Today’s interview will focus on two early steps of the implementation process, and during the next interview we would also like to see if the experience of the implementation as a whole has changed over time as you then have completed at least one more cycle of the sales plan.

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Appendix B: Interview Protocol, first set of interviews

During the first set of interviews, the respondents were asked both structured and semi-structured questions. The structured questions were based on the questionnaire used in the framework presented by Johnson & Sohi (2017). The semi-structured questions were of open-end character and based on vaguely defined initial themes. Each interview commenced with some control questions to get a better understanding of their individual background and experience in the field.

Initial Control Questions:

- Experience – How many years have you worked for the company? - Experience – How many years have you worked within sales? - Product portfolio – Are your products mainly complex, non-complex or a

mixture? - Geographically – How far away from your supervisor are you located and how

many times do you meet in person annually? - Were you involved in the development of the national three years strategy? - How many hours do you spend on average on the sales plan each week?

Structured Questions:

The structured questions were answered based on scales to get standardized and comparable answers. Two different scales were being used, the first fourteen questions were answered on a scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree, and the rest of the questions were answered on a scale spanning from to very low extent to to very high extent. Naturally, a lot of additional comments were provided during the structured questions, notes were taken and then further discussed and followed up on as part of the following semi-structured section. Scale: Strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, strongly agree When I am asked to implement a new sales plan;

1) I respond quickly and participate in the necessary activities. 2) I spend a lot of time, focus and energy on accomplishing them. 3) I collaborate with colleagues and act as a leader internally if necessary to carry

them out. Regarding plans associated to the implementation of the new sales plan in mind;

4) I am motivated and driven to do it. 5) I have a good opportunity and get support and help to do it. 6) I have enough knowledge and am skilled at accomplishing it.

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In the realization of plans related to the implementation of a new sales plan;

7) Do I have permission to do as I please. 8) Do I have great independence. 9) Do I feel like my own boss. 10) Do I make my own decisions.

How do you experience, since the implementation was initiated;

11) That the new strategy was generally implemented effectively. 12) That the implementation as a whole can be considered a great success. 13) That you personally believe that the implementation can be seen as successful. 14) That the implementation was good.

Scale: To very low extent, to low extent, neutral, to high extent, to very high extent While designing the sales plan, to what extent are you involved in;

15) Identification of problems in the current strategy? 16) Suggesting new goals for the strategy? 17) Developing new alternatives to the strategy? 18) Evaluating new alternatives to the strategy? 19) Providing input on how the strategy should be designed to best fit your field? 20) Choosing how the new strategy should be applied?

During the implementation of the new sales plan, to what extent did you receive education or training regarding;

21) What is included in the new sales plan? 22) The benefits of the new sales plan in comparison to the old strategy? 23) How to use the new sales plan?

Semi-Structured Questions:

- Which are the main challenges you have experienced during the implementation process?

- What do you think about the new sales process? - How did you find the process of measuring activities? - What do you think about the new tools? - How do you present feedback regarding potential improvements?

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Appendix C: Structured interview – Graphic presentation of findings

The findings from the structured questions during the first set of interviews are presented as a median and mean value in the two figures below. In addition, two respondents were either clearly more positive or clearly more negative in general than the rest of the group, their respective maps are also included below to highlight the broad spectrum of answers.

Median

Figure 11 illustrates the median answers in the case study to the questions in regard to the conceptual framework. The color keys are explained in the right side of the figure.

Figure 11: Graphic presentation of the median result.

Mean

Figure 12 illustrates the mean answers in the case study to the questions in regard to the conceptual framework. The color keys are explained in the right side of the figure.

Figure 12: Graphic presentation of the mean result.

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Salesperson D – Clearly more positive than the rest of the group

Figure 13 illustrates the answers from salesperson D in the case study to the questions in regard to the conceptual framework. The color keys are explained in the right side of the figure. This figure is included to illustrate the positive end of the spectrum of the answers.

Figure 13: Graphical display of the results of Salesperson D, which are clearly more positive than the rest of the group.

Salesperson G – Clearly more negative than the rest of the group

Figure 14 illustrates the answers from salesperson G in the case study to the questions in regard to the conceptual framework. The color keys are explained in the right side of the figure. This figure is included to illustrate the negative end of the spectrum of the answers.

Figure 14: Graphical display of the results of Salesperson G, which are clearly more negative than the rest of the group.

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