2012 National Conference in Sales Management Proceedings Page 20 PROFESSIONAL SALES COACHING: AN INTEGRATIVE REVIEW AND RESEARCH AGENDA Vishag Badrinarayanan, Texas State University - San Marcos Vicki L. West, Texas State University - San Marcos Gail M. Zank, Texas State University - San Marcos ABSTRACT To enable their salespeople to achieve and maintain desired levels of competence and productivity, selling organizations continually invest in training and development programs that emphasize relevant task-related, growth-related, and meta-KSAs (Cron et al. 2005; Powers, DeCarlo, and Gupte 2010). It is estimated that U.S. corporations spend $7.1 billion annually on such programs (Attia, Honeycutt, and Leach 2005). In recent years, there has been an increased emphasis on sales coaching as a critical salesperson developmental program. This paper responds to calls from academicians and practitioners for more systematic research on sales coaching and (a) integrates research on coaching in a variety of contexts to identify different approaches and types of coaching, (b) provides an in-depth review of coaching-related research in the sales literature, and (c) develops a research agenda by juxtaposing perspectives from extant research with data collected from exploratory, qualitative interviews of ten sales managers to identify compelling research questions for future investigation. Coaching Approaches and Types Coaching, in general, is defined as the “process of equipping people with the tools, knowledge, and opportunities they need to develop themselves and become more effective” (Peterson and Hicks 1996, p.14). Coaching has become widely accepted as a management and leadership process for developing employees’ skills, facilitating learning, and even transforming executives from excellent performers to peak performers. Academic research on coaching, especially in the contexts of athletics, executives, employees, and project management, has drawn from theories in psychology, therapy, and human behavior to identify a variety of approaches that can be utilized to influence changes in an individual’s behavior and job performance ( e.g., Berg and Karlsen 2007; Feldman and Lankau 2005; Peltier 2001). For instance, the humanistic approach focuses on an individual’s internal frame of reference and emphasizes self-understanding and self-transformation. The cognitive approach focuses on individuals’ cognitions to influence emotions, behavior, and performance. The behavioral approach advocates that behavior depends on consequences and that ‘contingencies of reinforcement’ influence activity and productivity. The psychodynamic approach holds that human behavior is the result of conflict between internal forces and focuses on identifying deeper underlying issues for symptoms that are apparent. The existential approach attempts to aid the performance of individuals by addressing issues such as the meaning of life, work-life balance, and overcoming barriers and burdens of responsibility. The systems approach places emphasis on the system or context in which an individual is nested and holds that behavior is a response to the demands of that system.