When does sales system agility lead to organizational performance?

Although academics and practitioners express strong interest in agility, prior research has not investigated sales system agility (SSA). Rapid developments in customer preferences, technology, and the competitive landscape conflict with rigid sales systems. This study introduces SSA and examines its performance consequences using a cross-industry, multisource data set. The authors find that SSA does not always affect performance, but managers need to overcome execution challenges. Drawing on the dynamic capabilities view and contemporary extensions of agency theory, the authors identify sales system design and sales system management as focal contingency factors. Multichannel usage (as the major design component of sales systems) diminishes the positive returns of SSA. By contrast, both formal and informal governance mechanisms enhance the positive performance effects of SSA. These sales system management components decrease agency conflicts in the manufacturer–sales partner dyad and thus curtail reactance and/or increase decision-making speed. The focal managerial implication of the study is that SSA is not a one-size-fits-all approach. Instead, the findings suggest that managers need to align their agility approaches with effective governance mechanisms