This study aims to investigate the direct effect of the behavior-based sales control system on job outcomes: salesperson’s performance and turnover intentions. The current study also intends to integrate these two streams by conceptualizing work engagement as a mediating variable between behavior-based sales control systems and salespersons’ job outcomes in the pharmaceutical sales context. Data was collected through multi-stage stratified random sampling from a sample of 619 salespersons working in 20 pharmaceutical firms (multinational and national) through self-administered questionnaires. The structural equation model yielded results indicating that the behavior-based sales control system was positively related to salespersons’ work engagement and negatively to turnover intentions while the relationship between the behavior-based sales control system and salespersons’ job outcomes was mediated by work engagement. Two relatively separate lines of investigation have appeared in academic literature. The first line centered on sales force control systems and salespersons’ related consequences, whereas the second line of investigation emphasizes work engagement and its consequences. Although both lines are important, a diminutive research effort has been made to join these two different lines of investigation in sales management, specifically, in the pharmaceutical context. Focusing on this, the current research explores the role of an unexplored construct of work engagement in a pharmaceutical sales context. Second, it addresses the need to identify additional mediating variables to clarify the inconsistent relationship between sales control systems and job outcomes, such as job performance and turnover intentions.
The emergence of social media applications has opened up new avenues for firms to establish digital connections with their consumers, with a particular emphasis on creating personalized advertising on social media platforms. It is crucial to ensure proper synchronization of content used for advertising on these platforms. The current study focuses on the theoretical model that elucidates how social media advertising contributes to the development of robust brand-related images on social media platforms. Prior research shows that advertising has a significant impact on brand image. Hence, it is essential to discover how this relationship works in terms of social media advertising and how the attitude toward advertising mediates the relationship. This study employed a quantitative research approach. Data were obtained using the convenience sampling method from a sample of 325 respondents. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22.0 and Smart PLS 4.0 were used for the data analysis. The study concluded that social media advertising has a direct effect on brand image and attitude towards advertising acts as a mediating role between advertising and brand image. Also, brand image has a direct effect on brand equity. The results provided several practical implications in understanding the underlying process of creating an effective social media advertising campaign that will impact the formation of consumers’ attitudes toward advertising and brand image, eventually leading to brand equity.