The influence of formal and informal sales controls on customer-directed selling behaviors and sales unit effectiveness

•Both formal and informal sales controls affect customer-directed selling behaviors.•Sales controls improve performance both directly and indirectly, i.e. via an increase in adaptive selling and customer-oriented selling.•Different types of sales controls exert different impacts on different behaviors of salespeople.•Customer-oriented selling improves performance only indirectly, by stimulating adaptive selling.

Adaptive selling (AS) and customer-oriented selling (COS) constitute two key customer-directed selling behaviors for the success of the modern sales force. However, knowledge regarding the organizational factors that can induce salespeople to engage in those behaviors is strikingly limited. Against this background, we develop a comprehensive model that delineates the influences of formal and informal sales controls on AS and COS and, through them, on sales unit effectiveness. Based on a sample of sales managers in a major European Union country, we present new evidence that (a) formal and informal sales controls exert differential impact on salespeople's AS and COS behaviors; (b) AS directly and positively influences sales unit effectiveness; (c) COS affects sales unit effectiveness only indirectly, i.e. by fostering AS; and (d) outcome and cultural controls directly improve sales unit effectiveness. We conclude with a discussion of our findings for academics and practitioners.