Doctoral Dissertations
Date of Award
12-1986
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy
Major
Business Administration
Major Professor
William B. Locander
Committee Members
David J. Barnaby, John W. Philpot, Joseph O. Rentz
Abstract
Since the sales presentation is a focal point of personal selling efforts in industrial markets, it is important to understand the ways in which industrial buyers and buying groups respond to the presentation of sales material. Present understanding, however, is limited by the failure of past research to adequately examine the effects of sales presentation information content. No prior research has considered the possibility that industrial buyers may systematically differ in the way they respond to the information content of sales presentations as a function of differences in their buying task responsibilities and observational goals.
A conceptual model based in schematic information processing theory suggests that organizational buyers with different buying task responsibilities, mood states, and observational goals systematically differ in the ways in which they pay attention to, interpret, evaluate, and remember the information content of sales presentations.
Hypotheses derived from this conceptual model were tested by means of an experiment which was conducted in a field setting. Subjects were industrial buying task group members listening to tape recorded presentations as part of a hypothetical industrial purchase task. The experiment employed a two by three repeated measures design with two covariates and multiple dependent measures. Data were analyzed using multivariate analysis of covariance procedures.
Results of the experiment provided some support for the model. Substantial findings of the study are:
1) Information content influenced subjects' message involvement, attention and arousal.
2) Schema complexity influenced the extremity of evaluation which subjects made about the salesperson, the vendor, and the presentation.
3) Mood had a strong influence on subjects' evaluation and inference making, but only for subjects in high arousal states.
4) There was only weak evidence to support the hypothesized effects of observational goals.
5) There was no evidence to support hypothesized interaction effects.
Recommended Citation
Forrester, William R., "A cognitive process model of industrial buyer responses to the information content of three sales presentations. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 1986.
https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/12247