Navigating Difficult Waters: Publishing Trends and Scholarship in Sales Research

Abstract

In this paper, we examine long-term knowledge-dissemination trends and future prospects for personal selling and sales management research. We augment data from a more than two-decade, 1,200+ article content analysis of sales research with perceptual data from a survey of leading sales researchers worldwide. The content analysis exposes a marked decline of published sales manuscripts at the most prestigious marketing journals. Three lenses are then offered to better understand this trend—the methods chosen, the theories leveraged, and the topical areas pursued. Survey data from sales scholars provide additional insights into these issues. Overall, we highlight a remarkable congruence between the largely disconcerting publishing pattern of sales research in recent decades and the sentiment of sales scholars as to why this might have transpired. We conclude with a broader discussion and set of recommendations for the continued advancement of sales research in marketing going forward.