Engaging Inexperienced Salespeople to Work Hard to Be Lucky: Towards the Attribution of Sales Performance to Luck

Inexperienced sales professionals face high probability of failure, especially in the exploration stage of their career (Cron and Slocum 1986; Dixon et al. 2005). As a result, their learning and performance orientation along with their supervisors’ support is key to their motivation and success (Dixon et al. 2003; Kholi et al. 1998; Sujan et al. 1994). This research investigates an unexplored area of the attribution theory which should help young salespeople, sales managers, and sales educators understand better the relationship between believing in luck and becoming successful.