Special Issue Call for Paper: Emergent Technologies in Sales and Sales Management and the Impact on Buyer-Seller Relationships
Emerging technologies are transforming the field of personal selling and sales management. Tools and platforms, once considered optional, are now integral to everyday selling activities. These shifts are impacting how salespeople create value, how managers guide their teams, and how companies build and sustain relationships. As technology continues to move into the center of the selling process, the field stands at an important moment, one that calls for updated thinking, clear explanation, and research that keeps pace with practice. Across B2B and B2C markets, firms are already experiencing the effects of this transformation. Recommendation systems, customer-scoring tools, digital communication platforms, and a wide range of automated systems shape how salespeople prepare for interactions and how customers experience them (Peltier et al., 2024; Goel, 2025). These tools are not simply making traditional tasks more efficient; they are changing the skills that matter, the expectations customers bring to each interaction, and the ways salespeople frame value. These developments require scholars to take a fresh look at long-standing questions about salesperson behavior, productivity, relationship development, and sales enablement.
Artificial intelligence is an emergent technology reshaping the structure of selling and sales management (Peltier, Dahl, and Schibrowsky, 2024). AI-driven systems, such as predictive analytics, natural language processing tools, and automated content generators, are increasingly supplementing human judgment and transforming how customer needs are identified and addressed. AI expands the salesperson’s capability to interpret large volumes of digital trace data, tailor interactions in real time, and anticipate customer concerns before they are voiced. At the same time, AI introduces new challenges: salespeople must develop the skills to interpret algorithmic outputs, navigate blended human–machine communication environments, and manage customer expectations shaped by machine-generated recommendations. These dynamics highlight the need for research that clarifies when AI enhances value creation, when it risks undermining trust or authenticity, and how organizations can foster balanced, responsible adoption.
Technology is also changing the social side of selling. As more interactions unfold in hybrid or digital environments, social and interactive platforms play an increasingly important role in forming impressions, shaping expectations, and influencing buyer–seller relationships (Peltier et al., 2024). Social media and interactive tools have become key spaces where customers express needs, signal concerns, and share brand-related experiences. These conversations influence how salespeople enter discussions, how they communicate and how trust develops over time. Research shows that these platforms shape brand meaning in B2B markets (Carew, Peltier & Dahl, 2025), highlighting the need for studies that explain how salespeople manage messages in environments shaped by both customer-generated and machine-generated content. These changes are amplified in global selling settings. As Chaker et al. (2024) emphasize, technology influences how sales teams coordinate across markets, manage different cultural expectations and adapt strategies to varied institutional environments. Digital tools help teams stay connected, but they also bring questions about alignment, consistency and cultural fit. Research is needed to understand how technology supports, or complicates, cross-border selling, global account management, and multinational coordination.
Emergent technologies are increasingly central to the growing shift from product-focused strategies to service-based and solution-led business models. Digital platforms, usage-tracking systems, and data-supported service tools allow companies to maintain ongoing contact with customers, anticipate needs, and create deeper relationships (Kowalkowski, 2025). Salespeople take on expanded roles that involve education, coordination, and continuous relationship building. Research that explains how technology supports these roles and how customers experience value in technology-supported service relationships will be valuable to this special issue.
With this growing dependence on technology comes a human challenge. Salespeople vary in how they react to new tools. Some see new systems as helpful, while others may feel pressure, uncertainty or fear that their value is diminishing. Rigopoulos (2025) notes that emotions related to technology adoption can shape performance, identity, and motivation. Understanding how salespeople adapt, how managers support these transitions, and how organizations maintain a healthy balance between technology and personal interaction is a pressing need. Technology introduces important methodological opportunities as well. Digital trace data, text from conversations, social interactions, and customer responses can all be studied in new ways. Peltier et al. (2024) highlight the potential for text analysis, sentiment measurement and multimethod approaches that combine human insight with digital evidence. These opportunities call for careful attention to design, measurement, and theory. Papers offering new methods or creative approaches to studying technology in sales will be especially welcome.
Given the pace and scope of these changes, this special issue encourages submissions that clarify how emergent technologies influence selling, sales management, and customer engagement. We welcome work that offers strong conceptual insight, rigorous empirical analysis, or meaningful methodological innovation. Our goal is to gather research that explains how selling is changing and provides direction for both scholars and practitioners.
Potential topics include, but are not limited to:
- Technology-supported selling interactions and customer engagement
- New roles and responsibilities for salespeople
- Communication and coordination across hybrid and digital environments
- Social and interactive media in the sales process
- Global selling supported by digital tools
- Manager decision-making and team development under new technological conditions
- Technology-supported service and solution selling
- New methods and data sources for studying technology-rich selling
- Ai-augmented customer journey mapping and real-time personalization
- Human–ai collaboration in sales decision-making
- Ethical, trust-related, and fairness challenges in the use of ai for customer scoring, lead qualification, and recommendation systems
- Influencer ecosystems and their role in b2b and b2c sales processes
- Social listening tools, sentiment analysis, and their effects on sales strategy
The aim of this special issue is to encourage research that captures ongoing change, offers clarity in areas where practice is moving quickly, and supports a more complete understanding of the future of selling. We look forward to receiving submissions that help advance the field and deepen insight into emergent technologies in sales and sales management.
CO-EDITORS
Dr. James (Jimmy) Peltier
Professor of Sales and Marketing, Emeritus
Coordinator, UW-Whitewater Sales Team,
College of Business and Economics
University of Wisconsin-Whitewater
Email: Peltierj@uww.edu
Google Scholar link: James Peltier Google Scholar Citations
Research Expertise: Sales, Interactive Marketing, Artificial Intelligence, Healthcare Marketing, Education
Dr. Lenita Davis
Professor
Executive Director of UWEC Professional Sales and Sales Management Program
College of Business
University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
Email: DAVISLEN@uwec.edu
Google Scholar link: Lenita Davis Google Scholar Citations
Research Expertise: Sales, Global Sales, Digital Commerce
Submission Procedures and Deadlines
Manuscripts should be submitted online via the Journal of Applied Business & Behavioral Sciences submission system at https://jabbs.credamopress.com/index.php/jabbs/index. Article Process Charge (APC) will be waived for high quality papers submitted to this special issue (please indicate “SI: Emerging Technology & Sales” in the cover letter to qualify for fee waiver). Please ensure that submissions adhere to the journal’s manuscript preparation and submission guidelines.
Submission Deadline: July 30, 2026
