Factors Affecting the Acceptance of Individuals to Work as Sales Representatives (Applied Study on the Students of the Marketing Department)

Companies nowadays rely heavily on sales representatives to sell and promote their products and achieve direct contact with the consumers, as sales representatives constitute an effective link between the companies and the customers in the various markets. However, this link will not be able to achieve its intended goals if the sales representative does not believe in what he/she does, or feels that there are many obstacles facing him/her in this field of work. This feeling can negatively affect the performance of the sales representative and form an obstacle that stands in the way of achieving the goals planned by the company. One of the factors behind conducting this research is that the researcher has noticed -during her teaching career in the marketing department- that there is a lack of acceptance of marketing students to work as a sales representative. Thus, the present research focuses on identifying the factors affecting the degree of acceptance of marketing students to work as sales representatives. In order to achieve the objectives of this research, a questionnaire was designed, consisting of 26 questions covering four dimensions where each dimension relates to a hypothesis of the study, namely: (The nature of dealing with the sales representative, the sales representative’s financial return, the sales representatives’ guarantees and the sales representative’s characteristics). The questionnaire was administered to the marketing students at Zarqaa University and Al-Zaytoonah University. Through statistical analysis and the utilization of means, the first hypothesis, suggesting that the sales representative is treated in a good and satisfactory manner by others, is rejected, indicating that a sales representative is not well-treated by others with a mean of (2.956). As for the second hypothesis, which suggests that the financial factor has a positive impact on the marketing students’ acceptance of working as sales representatives, it is accepted with a mean of (3.550). The third hypothesis, suggesting that legal and social guarantees have a positive impact on the marketing students’ acceptance of working as sales representatives, is accepted with a mean of (3.741). The fourth hypothesis, suggesting that the sales representative’s personal characteristics have a positive impact on his/her success, is also accepted with a mean of (3.640).