Regaining control of salesforce

This study develops a theory explaining how an employer can regain control over its salespeople. We posit that two forms of salesforce opportunism - shirking and influence activities - are the key sources of control loss. We theorize that an employer can regain control through a selective match of a formal control mechanism with a salesforce opportunistic behavior. We test our predictions using data from 304 South Korean automobile dealers. We found that greater output control mitigates control loss when it is matched with salespeople's shirking, whereas it aggravates control loss when it is matched with salespeople's influence activities. Conversely, greater behavior control mitigates control loss when it is matched with salespeople's influence activities, whereas it aggravates control loss when it is matched with salespeople's shirking. These findings support our theory of discriminating match between a formal control mechanism and a salesforce opportunistic behavior for regaining control.