ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the critical issues raised in the Introduction, as follows:
The changing nature of sales and the need for a new focus that shows the collaborative nature of relationships between salespeople, customers and business colleagues. This is contrary to many current sales practices that still position customers as competitors rather than as partners. Practitioners’ knowledge can contribute to this new focus.
The need for sales to be seen as a credible area for study, and for research to be conducted by salespeople themselves, as well as by business leaders and academics in higher education. Salespeople’s experiential knowledge should be seen as the grounds for valid theories, and their practices as a form of theorising in action.
The need for critique. The fact that salespeople’s knowledge is not highly valued stems mainly from a lack of critique about what counts as legitimate sales research and theory, who is qualified to do research, and how theory and practice may be linked. This situation needs interrogating.
