Are Students Driven by Negative or Positive Perception about Sales Profession in France?

The purpose of this study is to investigate students’ perceptions of personal selling as a career in France. Studies in the United States highlighting the negative perception of the sales profession by people are numerous, especially when it comes to issues of ethics and honesty (Futrell 2007). Lee et al (2007) argued that students generally try to avoid salespeople as best as they can; in addition, the lack of information about the profession perpetrates the negative image in their minds. Logistic regression and Z test are used in this research. The results confirm the findings of previous studies that personal factors play a significant role in predicting students’ perception of sales profession as a career. The findings presented in this study show that French students have a biased perception about sales as a career. However, interestingly, few dimensions show a significant effect and results are contradictory to studies conducted in other countries