Nick Lee, Professor of Marketing, and John Rudd, Professor of Marketing and Head of the Marketing group at Warwick Business School, have been awarded the James M. Comer Award by the Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management (JPSSM) for their paper (Re) defining salesperson motivation: current status, main challenges, and research directions. The award recognises the best contribution to selling and sales management theory in 2018 and is voted by the Editorial Review Board and Senior Advisory Board of JPSSM.

(Re) defining salesperson motivation: current status, main challenges, and research directions was written with co-authors, Dr Rushana Khusainova and Professor Greg Marshall of Aston Business School, and Professor Ad de Jong of Copenhagen Business School. The paper critically evaluates the construct of motivation in selling and sales management research and, through a thorough review of past research and methodologies, suggests new research opportunities in the field.

Speaking on their award win, Professors Lee and Rudd said: “We feel honoured and humbled to be awarded the James M. Comer award for Best Contribution to Selling and Sales Management Theory, in the Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management. The award recognises the hard work and collaborative efforts of the author team, that produced a theoretically meaningful and impactful paper. Taking a fresh and novel perspective, the paper “(Re) defining salesperson motivation: Current status, main challenges, and research directions” presents new and interesting insights and research directions for sales researchers and practitioners alike. We are tremendously proud to be amongst the impressive list of previous winners of this award, such as distinguished Professors Tom Ingram, Raymond LaForge, David Cravens, Jessica Ogilvie and Adam Rapp.”

Full paper details:

Khusainova, R., de Jong, A., Lee, N., Marshall, G. W. and Rudd, J. M. (2018) "(Re) defining salesperson motivation: current status, main challenges, and research directions", Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, 38, 1, 2-29. (ABS 2)

Professor Nick Lee leads the core Marketing module on our Distance Learning MBA, currently ranked first in the world by the FT Online MBA Ranking 2019.

Professor John Rudd is Head of the Marketing group and teaches on the Distance Learning MBA, Executive MBA, and Undergraduate courses.