简单规则对销售人员的绩效影响：一项实地实验研究

Abstract

In highly complex and dynamically uncertain market environments, traditional sales management systems face severe challenges due to cumbersome processes and excessive control, particularly in complex sales scenarios characterized by heavy assets and long cycles, such as the engineering machinery industry. China's excavator industry has been deeply mired in "involuted" competition in recent years, with intense price wars and sharply declining channel profits, leaving nearly 85% of dealers in a state of continuous losses. Against this backdrop, how to achieve systematic improvement in sales performance through management innovation without significantly increasing resource investment has become a core issue urgently needing resolution in the industry. Based on this, this study introduces the "Simple Rules Theory" (Eisenhardt & Sull, 2001) from the field of strategic management to explore whether it can be migrated to sales control practices, how a limited set of key rules can enhance salesperson performance, and to deeply analyze its underlying mechanisms.
This research adopts a mixed-methods approach combining theoretical construction and empirical testing, systematically developing three modules of research content. Firstly, through theoretical integration and adaptability analysis, a cross-domain integrated framework of "simple rules - sales control" is constructed, demonstrating its feasibility and theoretical boundaries for application in complex sales scenarios. Secondly, using the "Objective - Bottleneck - Process" three-step method, combined with multi-source data (including three rounds of internal enterprise interviews, two external expert seminars, and historical operational data), the core bottleneck of the sales system is identified as the "contradiction between sales representatives' scarce attention and the surge in market complexity." Accordingly, five core simple rules are designed, covering boundary rules, priority rules, timing rules, operational rules, and coordination rules, forming a rule system that is both instructive and actionable. Finally, through a longitudinal field experiment involving 126 sales representatives from dealers of a leading engineering machinery brand across three provinces, a matched-group design is used to assign them to an experimental group and a control group. A four-month intervention tracking period is conducted, utilizing both questionnaires and objective performance data to examine the impact of simple rules on sales performance and their cognitive and psychological mechanisms.
The findings indicate: First, the simple rules intervention had a significant positive impact on sales performance. The experimental group significantly outperformed the control group in both cumulative sales revenue and gross profit margin. This effect remained robust even after controlling for demographic variables and baseline performance, confirming the effectiveness of simple rules in complex sales environments. Second, the mediating role of cognitive load was not supported. The intervention did not significantly reduce salespersons' cognitive load, and no significant relationship was found between cognitive load and performance, suggesting that the mechanism of simple rules may align more closely with an "attention allocation model" rather than the traditional "cognitive load reduction model." Third, work autonomy did not mediate the performance path as expected; instead, it showed a suppressing trend. Although the intervention significantly enhanced work autonomy, its relationship with sales performance was negative. This indicates that in highly uncertain, goal-oriented sales tasks, excessive autonomy can become a decision-making burden, and the "freedom within a framework" provided by the rules themselves drives performance more directly. Fourth, work autonomy fully mediated the path through which the rules intervention enhanced job satisfaction, indicating that simple rules effectively improve employee well-being by enhancing their sense of psychological empowerment, achieving a management effect of "control without rigidity, guidance without pressure." Fifth, subgroup analysis revealed that high-performing employees benefited more from the rules intervention, suggesting individual differences in the effectiveness of the rules and the need for differentiated empowerment strategies.
At the theoretical level, this study makes three significant contributions: Firstly, it successfully extends Simple Rules Theory from the strategic management level to the sales operations level, verifying its applicability in "structured uncertainty" contexts, and responds to the theoretical proposition of "how rules are generated" through the "Objective-Bottleneck-Process" methodology. Secondly, it proposes a "simple rules control" model as an important supplement to the traditional behavior-outcome control duality, enriching the theoretical spectrum of sales control. Thirdly, through the empirical testing and reflection on the mediating mechanisms of cognitive load and work autonomy, it deepens the understanding of the boundary conditions of Self-Determination Theory and promotes the systematic application of Attention Economy theory in sales management.
At the practical level, this study provides actionable solutions for the struggling engineering machinery sales industry and its enterprises: it offers the industry a asset-light paradigm for shifting from "resource competition" to "management efficiency competition"; it guides enterprises in translating strategic intent into frontline action guidelines, building an "empowerment-oriented" sales management system; and ultimately, it empowers salespersons, helping them transition from "being overwhelmed" to "acting with precision," thereby enhancing both performance and job satisfaction.
In summary, through a full-chain research process encompassing theoretical integration, rule design, and mechanism testing, this study not only confirms the effectiveness of simple rules in sales management but also reveals the complexity and context-dependency of their influence pathways, provides a theoretical basis and practical guidelines for sales organizations to achieve high-quality growth in a complex environment.

Date of Award	8 Oct 2025
Original language	Chinese (Simplified)
Awarding Institution	China Europe International Business School
Supervisor	Yuan Jiang (Supervisor) & Yuhchang Hwang (Supervisor)