Improving the Effectiveness of Field Sales Organizations: A European Perspective Abstract For companies competing in rapidly changing business environments, the sales force can be an important source for improving organizational effectiveness. The results of a study of 159 field sales managers in 79 Austrian companies point to higher effectiveness in organizations utilizing sales management directing and evaluating activities to a greater sales extent than managers in less effective organizations. Moreover, the effective sales organizations place more emphasis on their sales territory design, and, additionally, their sales forces show significant differences in both personal characteristics and performance dimensions. Salespeople in the more effective sales units display higher levels of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, sales support orientation, and customer orientation. Both salesperson behavior and outcome performance were rated higher by managers in the organizations with more ...