Although cross-selling offers significant benefits for both vendors and
customers, three-quarters of all cross-selling initiatives fail,
typically for sales force–related reasons. Prior research examining the
antecedents of salespeople’s product adoption has not yet shown whether
or under which conditions such adoption behavior leads to better
salesperson cross-selling performance. The authors develop a model of
the role of supervisory behavior, compensation-based controls, and their
interactions in enhancing the effect of salespeople’s adoption behavior
on cross-selling performance in a complex selling context. To test the
model, the authors use a matched, multilevel data set from company
records and surveys of salespeople and sales managers working in a
biotech firm. The analysis shows that transformational leadership
enhances the effect of salespeople’s product portfolio adoption on
cross-selling performance, whereas transactional leadership diminishes
the effect. Furthermore, the effect of leadership type depends on
whether cross-selling incentives are provided: the positive performance
effect of transformational leadership is crowded out when monetary
incentives are provided, and the negative effect of transactional
leadership becomes even more negative. These results have significant
theoretical and managerial implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]