This study aims to examine personal selling through a paradox lens to explore the inherent dualities that salespeople navigate in their day-to-day roles.
Adopting a qualitative research design and grounded in the theories-in-use approach. The empirical evidence is based on 21 in-depth interviews conducted using theoretical sampling procedures.
This study identifies three forms of paradoxes: paradox of belongingness, paradox of learning and paradox of performance that salespeople deal with. Notably, each of these paradoxes entails inherent tensions.
This study has three key limitations. First, it is confined to exploring dualities and paradoxes within the domain of personal selling and sales management, thereby limiting its scope to a specific functional context. Second, the exclusive reliance on a qualitative research design restricts the generalizability of the findings and does not provide objective, quantifiable evidence. Third, the study identifies only three forms of paradoxes, leaving the paradox of organizing unexamined within the present investigation.
To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study of its kind that has aimed to see personal selling through paradoxical lens and present personal selling as a multidextrous activity.
