Fargo, N.D. – Two NDSU College of Business faculty members, Michael Krush, assistant professor of marketing, and Sukumarakurup Krishnakumar, assistant professor of management, were awarded the Tanner, Honeycutt and Erffmeyer/Prentice Hall Best Paper Award at the 2012 National Conference in Sales Management March 14-17 in Indianapolis. The award recognizes the top manuscript in terms of quality and relevance.

The paper, “The Salesperson’s Ability to Bounce Back: Examining the Influence of Salesperson’s Resiliency on Job Attitudes, Behaviors, and Performance,” was co-written with Raj Agnihotri of William Paterson University and Kevin J. Trainor of Northern Arizona University. It focuses on the influence of emotional regulation on salespeople’s job-related behaviors and performance. One form of emotional regulation lies in the salesperson’s level of resiliency. Resiliency is relevant in a sales setting because salespeople are consistently exposed to ever-changing environments and frequently face the potential for failure due to the nature of their jobs. The scholars proposed and tested a model of salesperson resiliency and its direct impact on a salesperson’s job-related variables and indirectly on sales performance. The study findings support that resiliency provides a salesperson with a sense of personal buoyancy that supports two pathways – amplifying motivation control and adaptive selling, and reducing stress and anxiety.

The National Conference in Sales Management is an international gathering of scholars, instructors and practitioners designed to develop and distribute knowledge regarding personal selling and sales management teaching and research.