Organizational support theory is used to investigate the moderating effects of both instrumental and social/psychological support on the relationships between a salesperson’s customer orientation and level of psychological empowerment and job performance. Results obtained within a sampling of 830 financial services salespeople operating from remote locations indicate that organizational support may interfere with salespeople’s attitudes in the development of salesperson performance. Specifically, this study found that under conditions of low social/psychological support the positive effect of empowerment on job performance becomes weaker, but the positive effect of customer orientation on job performance becomes significantly stronger. Further, instrumental support seems to be somewhat counterproductive to high-performing salespeople by diminishing the positive relationship between empowerment and performance. Implications of such findings are discussed.

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to explore the possible negative asymmetric effects in the impact of service quality on the satisfaction and retention of different customer segments in a professional business services context. Negative asymmetry means that a lower than average service quality evaluation has a stronger effect on customer satisfaction and retention than a higher than average evaluation.Design/methodology/approach: The article provides a survey of 124 business customers of a Midwestern radio advertising services provider, preceded by nine in‐depth interviews with account reps of the advertising firm and two focus groups with business customers.Findings: Along the service quality dimensions – customer satisfaction – retention chain, there are significant negative asymmetric effects and the mediating role of satisfaction varies widely. There are important differences across customer groups: service outcomes are most important determinants of customer satisfaction for large and relatively newer accounts; functional quality dimensions (empathy) are most important factors for small and relatively mature accounts.Research limitations/implications: Surveying customers of one organization in one industry reduces the generalizability of the findings. The study employed only two segmentation variables, while many other variables could be investigated. The focus is on the asymmetric effects of service quality; other factors, such as costs, were not considered.Practical implications: Managers should invest resources in improving low performance in the service quality dimensions with strongest impact on customer satisfaction and highest negative asymmetry. The identified segment differences suggest the need to achieve strong results for large accounts and relatively new accounts. The customer relationship is most important for small accounts and relatively mature accounts. Maintaining service reliability is critical for small and new account retention.Originality/value: This study is a first effort to explore the differences in effects across service quality dimensions and customer segments in a professional business service context. The findings indicate that aggregating customers and the service quality measurement can offer misleading information to managers.

Given the critical need for retail firms to provide high quality customer service and satisfaction, this article investigates the importance of formalizing customer complaint handling policies and procedures with regard to its relationship to the ways in which retail companies receive, record, and respond to customer complaints. A survey of 184 firms from the retail environment of a midsized community reveals that the existence of such formalized procedures is significantly associated with firm size, better channels of communication with customers, mechanisms of recording customer feedback, and better-trained employees, which have been shown to relate to higher firm performance.

SUMMARY The paper discusses the changes in the retailing environment of a privatizing economy of Eastern Europe. As Eastern European independent retailers face increasing competition from each other and from large foreign retail chains entering their markets, their future competitive viability depends on the ability to identify strategic niches. One strategy for survival is to become embedded in the local communities. A survey of 191 small retail business managers in Romania explores the relationships between managers' collectivist and individualistic values, market orientation, retail-mix strategy and performance. The results of this study indicate that managers' collectivist values appear to have a positive impact on their ability to assume a customer orientation, which significantly impacts their community oriented strategy (especially through service and merchandising), customer retention and community leadership performance. In contrast, the consequences of managers' individualistic values are unclea...

The current study draws upon socialization theory to investigate both antecedents and outcomes of support service utilization within a sales employee context. Research indicates high performing, in contrast to low performing, salespeople may be more adept at discerning the ways in which an organization’s support services can be useful to them. The empirical results obtained from sales personnel of a financial services firm suggest that effective socialization/communication is important in securing an employee’s reliance upon organizational support. Further, high-performing salespeople are more proactive and instrumental in relation to utilization of support services, while low-performing salespeople are more passive and conforming in interfacing with support. Implications to both practice and research are discussed.

The paper advances a framework and a set of propositions regarding the relative influence of collectivist and individualistic values of small retail business managers on the management of the retail-mix and business performance, in the context of the privatizing economies of Central and Eastern Europe. The conceptual discussion, supported with two case illustrations from Romania, suggests that managers embracing the two value systems develop complementary retail strategies. Managers with more individualistic values tend to be more competitor-oriented and emphasize business growth and innovation, while managers with more collectivist values tend to be more customer-oriented and emphasize business relationships, stability and predictability.