Date of Award
Summer 2012
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Doctor of Business Administration (DBA)
Department
Marketing
First Advisor
Dr. Scott Widmier
Second Advisor
Dr. Richard E. Plank
Third Advisor
Dr. Brian N. Rutherford
Abstract
Many companies are faced with rising numbers of regulations with which they must comply. Regulations are particularly common in the areas of employment, environmental protection, and licensing of businesses. In recent years, a growing trend of new regulations has emerged in the selling and sales management business environment, changing the nature and scope of salespeople’s jobs. How do regulations affect the way salespeople do their jobs? This is an important and largely unexplored question. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to empirically construct a taxonomy of regulations that reveals their effect on current selling activities. A total of 7,493 observations were obtained from pharmaceutical representatives via an electronic survey which served as the basis for creating factor scores that were subsequently entered into a two-step cluster analysis. The analysis produced a six cluster solution of regulations indicating distinct taxonomic structures of regulations that affect selling activities. The resulting framework is useful to researchers, and practitioners, who can view regulations in terms of the degree to which selling activities are impacted.