The article examines the ways students in the school-based part of the vocational education and training (VET) in Sales begin to make sense of the world of work they are about to enter. Drawing on a qualitative study of upper-secondary Sales VET students in Norway, a four-fold typology of orientations to retail work is analysed: first, the…

This paper investigates the speech act of refusal taking as a case study British responses to a salesperson's offer through the study of recordings of 109 conversations between the salesperson and a potential British customer. The data are analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively with the aim of finding the most frequent responses that denote…

The UK labour market is subject to significant graduatisation. Yet in the context of an over-supply of graduates, little is known about the "demand" for and "deployment" of graduate skills in previously non-graduate jobs. Moreover, there is little examination of where these skills are developed, save an assumption in higher…

A comprehensive project for the Advanced Selling course that has been tested at three universities is introduced. After selecting an industry and a company, students engage in a complete industry analysis, a company sales analysis, a sales-specific SWOT analysis, complete a ride day with a salesperson in that firm, then present their findings in a…

This article presents an innovative, experiential-learning project that incorporates students from two different courses: sales management and professional selling. Sales management students actually manage sales students on an outside sales project. Students apply classroom knowledge to a real-life sales project for a local community…

While sales force automation (SFA) and customer relationship management are important concepts in business-to-business selling, many instructors struggle to effectively integrate these topics into their curriculum. The research described in this article offers a role play and two coordinating sets of slides that aim to help students better…

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics play an important role in shaping the economies of countries. It is now well documented that females are underrepresented in these fields. This study examines whether gender differences exist in Lebanon with regard to the career choices of boys and girls at the secondary school level. Three hundred…

Each year employees aggressively seek undergraduate business students to fill openings in their companies. While the number of universities offering sales programs is growing, it is apparent students' desire to pursue a career in sales continues to lag behind demand for sales professionals. This article presents a study of college-bound high…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to understand which change process the supplying organization should define for its customer-facing organization in order to successfully increase customer orientation and to be on the short list of their customers' key suppliers. Design/methodology/approach: Action research was used to carry out this…

Students who take university sales courses are expected to graduate with a better understanding of what contributes to a successful sales career. The current research identifies 33 factors recruiters use in evaluating sales candidates. The top 10 attributes identified by recruiters as most important to the sales candidate's selection are: 1)…

The purpose of this paper is to present a project that builds labor market skills employers are seeking through experiential classroom learning. The sales management training exercise described in this article provides students with an opportunity to think and act like sales managers by working together in teams to collaborate on a training…

While international demand for sales positions is growing, negative sales stereotypes, partially fueled by ethical abuses in the sales arena, are prevalent and may dissuade students from pursuing sales careers. To help combat the situation globally, educators must develop and utilize effective sales ethics pedagogies. The first step involves…

The present paper is a case study of how the commodification of the Russian language has transformed a market in New Delhi, India, inaugurated in 1969 and known as Yashwant Place. Over the years, the market slowly assumed a new identity, referred to as Yashka not only by Russian visitors but also tourists from countries of the former Soviet Union,…

Door-to-door sales is an emotionally demanding job with a high rate of burnout and, as such, has been the subject of multiple studies on employee motivation. However, the role that communication among fellow sales team members plays in salesperson motivation has been largely neglected, which represents a critical gap in research considering the…

Sales education has grown in importance, particularly throughout the last decade, with an increasing number of university sales centers offering programs to prepare new generations of sales professionals. In this article, we describe how work-based learning, action research, and reflective practice used in a sales master program can be used in…