The impact of relational and functional customer-centered of sales force on the success of new product development (Intervention variables: Transformational Leadership, Interdependence with Sales Unit, Customer Behaviorism)

International Journal of Applied Research in Management and Economics

Year: 2018 | Volume: 1 | Issue: 3 | Page No.: 30-44
DOI: http://www.doi.org/10.33422/IJARME.2018.10.42

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The impact of relational and functional customer-centered of sales force on the success of new product development(Intervention variables: Transformational Leadership, Interdependence with Sales Unit, Customer Behaviorism)

Alireza Mohammadkhani and Zeinab Jaripour

ABSTRACT: 

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of functional and relational customer-centered on the success of the product development process in pharmaceutical companies in Tehran province. Research hypotheses include the positive and significant effect of functional and relational customer-centered on seller’s creativity, seller’s creativity on new product development, transformational leadership intervention of sales director in the relationship between functional customer-centered and seller’s creativity, intervention of interdependence with sales unit in the relationship between relational customer-centered and seller’s creativity, intervention of customer behaviorism in the relationship between seller’s creativity and positive points of new product, intervention of positive points of new product in the relationship between seller’s creativity and new product development and the introduction of new product of sales force in the relationship between seller’s creativity and new product development. The research method is descriptive and the research population includes sales staff in pharmaceutical companies in Tehran province, with 1020 people. The sample size is determined 279 people by the Cochran method. Sampling is done randomly and two researcher-made questionnaires are used as a research tool. The reliability of the questionnaire is measured using the Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient, which is more than 0.70 in each of the questionnaires of customer-centered and the success of the product development process. Providing structural model is done using PLS software. The results indicate that the functional customer-oriented variable does not affect the seller’s creativity, and its impact, despite the intervention of the transformational leadership variable, will still not be significant.

Keywords:Functional customer centered, Relational Customer-centered, Product development process.