Bouncing back and adapting to change: managers’ resilience, skills and pharmaceutical sales team performance

Abstract

This thesis explored the relationship between the personal resilience of pharmaceutical sales managers (District Managers), manager skills and the sales performance of their teams of sales representatives. The variables included 2009 and 2010 quarterly financial performance against sales targets for each sales district, manager performance against specific objectives, and annual skills assessment ratings and performance review ratings, as well as assessed manager resilience from February, 2009 using the Personal Resilience® Questionnaire. The data were analyzed using four statistical methods: Internal Reliability Analysis, Exploratory Factor Analysis, Structural Equation Modeling and Correlation Analysis. The analysis demonstrated a small (2%) but statistically significant relationship between manager resilience, which was fully mediated by manager skills, and sales team performance. This relationship was interrupted by a major organizational realignment and restructuring, and was reestablished after three quarters of relative organizational stability. Implications and future research possibilities are discussed.