Brent Smith
Saint Joseph's University, Department of Marketing, Faculty Member
- Professor of Marketingedit
In today's more diverse sales organizations, sales managers face important interpersonal challenges to achieving high-quality relationships, which result in better performance within their sales force. In this article, it is argued that... more
In today's more diverse sales organizations, sales managers face important interpersonal challenges to achieving high-quality relationships, which result in better performance within their sales force. In this article, it is argued that cultural distance can negatively influence sales manager and sales subordinate relationships. The quality of these relationships ultimately influences the level of effort that sales subordinates exert toward achieving organizational sales goals. However, despite the potential obstacle of cultural distance, sales managers can utilize transformational leadership as a means to mitigate its adverse effects on one-to-one relationships with members of the sales force. C 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Purpose of the Study: Academic dishonesty is endemic in business education, and research suggests strongly that marketing students are frequent culprits. In this study, the authors investigate (a) what students think of various cheating... more
Purpose of the Study: Academic dishonesty is endemic in business education, and research suggests strongly that marketing students are frequent culprits. In this study, the authors investigate (a) what students think of various cheating behaviors, (b) whether students perceive cheating as a serious ethical problem, and (c) whether students exhibit ethical intentions (e.g., not cheat, report on peers) in response to problematic situations. Method/Design and Sample: A sample of 235 marketing students completed a self-administered questionnaire that included items dealing with personal ethical ideologies, perceptions of cheating behaviors, and reactions to four academic dishonesty scenarios. Data were analyzed using frequencies, analysis of variance, and regression. Results: Overall, students have mixed perceptions about cheating behaviors. They recognize that cheating is an ethical problem and exhibit ethical intentions not to cheat; however, they are reluctant to report, or snitch, o...
Purpose of the Study: Teaching highly motivated marketing students can be rewarding, yet efforts to serve them effectively can be undermined by the drag of unmotivated, uncommitted, or free-riding students. Perceived increasingly as an... more
Purpose of the Study: Teaching highly motivated marketing students can be rewarding, yet efforts to serve them effectively can be undermined by the drag of unmotivated, uncommitted, or free-riding students. Perceived increasingly as an industry, higher education has integrated broad interpretations of customer concepts that could help or hinder the teaching-learning experience. Hoping to expand and update narratives about treating student as customers, the author invites students to ponder whether and how the business practice of firing customers should be applied in class settings. Taking cues from professional service providers that may fire/replace problematic customers, the author asks, for discussion and reflection, " If students are customers, then what might happen if faculty, as service providers, could retain the most engaged (drop the least diligent) students from a class? " Method/Design and Sample: 120 marketing students were asked to review Mutual Drop/Add (MD...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
... Ultimately, they aim to ''unveil the relationship between cultural and institutional environments'' (McSweeney, 2002), which, to global strategy scholars, has been largely ignored or understudied in... more
... Ultimately, they aim to ''unveil the relationship between cultural and institutional environments'' (McSweeney, 2002), which, to global strategy scholars, has been largely ignored or understudied in the cross-cultural management literature (Singh, 2007). ... BRENT SMITH 222 ...
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... Brent Smith a , Trina Larsen b & Bert Rosenbloom b * pages 277-291. ... Much prior research has viewed differences between cultural groups as persistent, stable, and unchanging (Segall, Lonner, & Berry, 199823. Segall , M. ,... more
... Brent Smith a , Trina Larsen b & Bert Rosenbloom b * pages 277-291. ... Much prior research has viewed differences between cultural groups as persistent, stable, and unchanging (Segall, Lonner, & Berry, 199823. Segall , M. , Lonner , W. , & Berry , J. ( 1998 ). ...
Research Interests:
ABSTRACT Today’s young marketers transition from schools and into the workforce with a variety of career options in sales, advertising, and general marketing after graduation. Beyond their discipline-specific knowledge of market research,... more
ABSTRACT Today’s young marketers transition from schools and into the workforce with a variety of career options in sales, advertising, and general marketing after graduation. Beyond their discipline-specific knowledge of market research, consumer behavior, and marketing communications, these individuals bring along their own set of personal values and ideologies that may influence how they engage the people, personalities, and priorities of the business organization. As new generations of young professionals enter the publicly scrutinized fields of sales and marketing, they are expected to make morally grounded decisions that may be informed by these values and ideologies. This study frames this state of affairs by examining the inquiry “Who Shall Lead Us?” whereby young marketers evaluate the fitness of a leadership climate in which they would potentially work. Here, individual cultural values and ethical ideologies are posited to influence evaluations of transformational leadership. Keywordscultural values–ethical ideology–leadership–marketing organization
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As today's marketing graduates formally enter the business profession, they are expected to demonstrate the fruits of their ethics-intensive education. Hence, their professors and future bosses may call upon these graduates to discern... more
As today's marketing graduates formally enter the business profession, they are expected to demonstrate the fruits of their ethics-intensive education. Hence, their professors and future bosses may call upon these graduates to discern and deal with ethical situations that affect various aspects of company and consumer relations. However, students enter the classroom and business environment with their own individual orientations and ideology that help them determine when an issue is ethical and requires a certain response. Here, I examine the influences of the marketing student's personal cultural orientation and ethical ideology on ethical perception and ethical inclination within the context of two hypothetical marketing/sales scenarios. The findings contribute to the ongoing debate about whether or how much business ethics can really be taught.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
ABSTRACT International strategic alliances in marketing channels have become increasingly common in recent years. The parties to the alliance often involve exporters and foreign distributors. In the context of this type of alliance, the... more
ABSTRACT International strategic alliances in marketing channels have become increasingly common in recent years. The parties to the alliance often involve exporters and foreign distributors. In the context of this type of alliance, the channel partners view themselves as equals or colleagues rather than channel captain and follower. Therefore, influence rather than power becomes the relevant construct, especially when communication flows upstream rather than downstream. In this study, we examine such influence attempts as they occur across different cultural contexts to determine whether cultural differences are related to such upstream influence attempts.
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... and the link between culture and communication has been reviewed in the communications literature (Samovar, Porter, and Jain 1981), the ... Hence, numerous studies have cast doubt on whether they should be used (see, for instance,... more
... and the link between culture and communication has been reviewed in the communications literature (Samovar, Porter, and Jain 1981), the ... Hence, numerous studies have cast doubt on whether they should be used (see, for instance, Govindarjan 1988, Naman and Slevin 1999 ...