Modeling Factors Affecting Salesperson Behavior Using the Grounded Theory

The present research considers the behavior of the seller as a dependent variable and identifies several factors that result in the formation of the salesperson’s behavior. This study was carried out by the exploratory approach, the qualitative methodology and Grounded theory. To this end, we used open interviews with three questions with the content of the factors affecting the salesperson’s behavior, the seller's response and behavior in engagement with the customers. The findings show that factors such as personal creativity, interest to the job, level of knowledge and awareness, purposefulness, experiences, level of earnings, skills, type of rules applied in the organization, attractiveness of organization and industry, customer performance, support of colleagues, sellers motivation and working environment can be considered as influencing factors on salesperson’s behavior in the context of technical, personality, social and environmental variables and presented as a model. By carrying out interviews, coding and obtaining the contents, pattern of seller behavior is determined. Accordingly, the behavior of the salesperson is directly affected by technical, personality and social factors. Based on this model, factors affecting the salesperson’s behavior are influenced by the "environmental variables", which indirectly affect the seller's behavior to some extent.

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Master of Marketing Management , Faculty of Management and Accounting , Farabi college , University of Tehran , Qom , Iran