An empirical investigation of the antecedents of sales force control systems

The author summarizes 11 hypotheses from agency theory, transaction cost analysis, and Ouchi's theoretical approach about the impact of environmental, company, and salesperson characteristics on the design of sales force control systems (outcome- versus behavior-based) and tests them on a data set of 270 German sales organizations. Many of the hypotheses receive empirical support. Sales force size, the only construct for which the author derives two opposing hypotheses, is related negatively to the use of behavior-based control in sales forces. Thus, the hypothesis derived from Ouchi's approach is supported, whereas the contradictory hypothesis from transaction cost analysis is rejected.