Alan J. Dubinsky, Roy D. Howell, Thomas N. Ingram, & Danny N. Bellenger Salesforce Socialization Successfully assimilating salespeople into an organization is a critical responsibility of sales managers, but little published research has explored this topic. The authors test a model of salesforce assimilation (socialization). The findings indicate that realism and congruence are important antecedents to several desirable job-related outcomes. T HE sales effort of most organizations depends on effective personnel management. Finding, assim- ilating, training, motivating, and keeping good sales- people are vital tasks for sales managers. It has been suggested that "from a manager's point of view, whom one recruits is important, but probably not as impor- tant as what one does with the recruits-and to them- after they have been hired" (Churchill et al. 1985, p. 111). Effective development of requisite job skills, acquisition of appropriate role behaviors, adjustment to the work group and its norms, and internalization of organizational values are likely to have a favorable effect on an individual's motivation, job satisfaction, and performance (Feldman 1980; Walker, Churchill, and Ford 1979). Despite the importance of salesforce assimilation, or socialization, little research on the topic has been reported in the marketing literature. The objective of our study is to explore organi- zational socialization in a sales context. We build on previous work (Feldman 1976b) and propose a revised model of salesforce socialization based on empirical Alan J. Dubinsky is Visiting Associate Professor of Marketing, School of Management, University of Minnesota. Roy D. Howell is Associate Professor of Marketing and Danny N. Bellenger is Professor of Market- ing, Texas Tech University. Thomas N. Ingram is Associate Professor of Marketing, University of Kentucky. 192 / Journal of Marketing, October 1986 findings and the unique characteristics of the sales job. The goal is to provide sales managers with a useful tool for designing and assessing the efficacy of their sales organizations' assimilation programs. The study also provides a basis for assessing the relative impact of "whom one recruits" versus "what one does with the recruits-and to them" on such job-related out- comes as general job satisfaction, mutual influence, and job involvement. In addition, the findings afford some key insights into factors that assist in the reso- lution of conflicting demands at work, or role con- flict, a variable previously shown to have an impor- tant impact on job performance in sales (Churchill et al. 1985). Unique Characteristics of the Sales Job The socialization process has been studied in various nonselling occupations. The sales job, however, has numerous unique characteristics that warrant special attention (Bagozzi 1980c; Hise 1970; Walker, Churchill, and Ford 1975). 1. Salespeople are physically, socially, and psy- chologically separated from other line and staff personnel. This separation tends to lessen the Journal of Marketing Vol. 50 (October 1986), 192-207.