Salesperson creative performance: conceptualization, measurement, and nomological validity

To succeed in an era of increasing competition requires salespeople to engage in creative problem-solving activities. However, the contemporary sales literature has not explicitly examined the creative aspects of selling. Based on social psychological research on creativity and our own qualitative study, we conceptualize salesperson creative performance as the amount of new ideas generated or behaviors exhibited by the salesperson in performing his/her job activities. Following recommended steps in scale development, we develop a seven-item scale for measuring the construct that demonstrates acceptable unidimensionality, internal consistency, and construct validity. Implications and future research directions are discussed. (C) 2002 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.