Implementing an ambidextrous sales strategy at the front line: an internal marketing perspective

Ambidextrous sales strategies, wherein managers pursue the concurrent sale of new and existing products, often fail at the front line. A proposed internal marketing perspective accounts for the role of two vertical relational mechanisms (manager ambidexterity and salesperson organizational identification) that transfer an ambidextrous strategy to the front line. The findings demonstrate that both mechanisms have crucial roles in the implementation of an ambidextrous selling strategy. They enhance salespeople’s proactive selling of new and existing products; in addition, they interact, such that the effect of manager ambidexterity depends on organizational identification. In turn, this two-part empirical study links salespeople’s proactive selling of new and existing products to their commensurate forms of objective performance and shows that combining the behaviors does not impair performance.