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Revisit: USEF Grants 2010

Introduction

University Sales Education Foundation Annual Research Grant Program; Deadline now 7 May 2011

 : : : Posting

: : awards

ANNOUNCING

University Sales Education Foundation

Annual Research Grant Program, 2010
Submission Deadline Extension – May 7th 2011

The overall mission of the University Sales Education Foundation (USEF) is to promote the profession of sales and its role as the driving force to the economy. As part of that mission, the USEF proposes to fund high-quality research that deals with topics of importance to sales practitioners and researchers.

The USEF Grant Program strongly encourages research with the potential for application by sales executives, sales managers, and/or salespeople. However more basic or exploratory work will be considered as well. No one approach or method is favored over another; proposed research may be conceptual or empirical and may involve field surveys, field or laboratory experiments, model building, or theory development. However, USEF strongly endorses using actual salespeople, sales managers and executives, and customers rather than students as participants in research projects.

Eligibility and Amount of Support

Faculty members or doctoral students working collaboratively with faculty advisors can apply for financial support for research projects. Practitioners may apply, but must meet the standards for academic research. USEF grants are made to cover researchers’ out-of-pocket costs for data collection, respondent fees, research assistants, and similar expenses. Generally, these grants are in the $1,000 to $5,000 range. Note that USEFI does not provide salary supplements for the principal researcher(s), funds for the purchase of equipment or software, university/organization overhead, tuition, or funds for travel to conferences.

Grant Recipient Responsibilities

The grant recipient will be expected to provide the results of their research in the form of a report to the USEF as well as a presentation at a conference of interest to the USEF.

Proposal Evaluation

The proposals will be evaluated on the bases of three criteria:

  1. Contribution of the research – Is the research innovative? Does it offer new concepts or methods for studying and understanding problems facing salespeople and sales executives? Does it develop new approaches and /or methods for enhancing sales productivity?
  2. Potential application and utility of the research – will the results of the proposed research be of interest and useful to sales executives as well as researchers?
  3. Dissemination of the research – will the results of the research likely be widely disseminated in a variety of outlets (e.g., articles in refereed journals, scholarly monographs, working papers posted on web sites and disseminated to university sales centers, conference presentations)?

Proposal Submission

The proposals should include the following information:

  • One page summary of the research.
  • A statement of expected contributions, such as a better understanding of how key variables affect the sales process, new information to assist mangers in improving sales productivity, or new frameworks and methods for studying the sales process.
  • A very brief section that reviews the literature that is directly relevant to the research.
  • A description of the research questions, hypotheses, and/or model to be tested.
  • A detailed description of the research design and methodology.
  • A timetable, including key process completion dates as well as a completion date, and a report deliverable date.
  • Research support needs. This should take the form of an itemized budget.
  • Vita (e) of the researchers.

The proposal should not exceed 15 double spaced pages of text (Times Roman 12 font). However the proposal may include greater detail in appendices, such as questionnaires, pretest results, description of data bases, and/or detailed explanation of statistical analyses and/or modeling (an additional 5 pages maximum). The proposal should not exceed 25 pages including all references, figures, appendices, and tables. Shorter proposals are preferred to longer ones.

Proposal Due Dates: May 7th, 2011

Proposals should be emailed to: Rosann Spiro, Chair of the USEF Grant Program Committee, spiro@indiana.edu , with a copy to Jeanne Frawley, Executive Director of the University Sales Education Foundation: jeannefrawley@saleseducationfoundation.org

Questions concerning the program should be directed to Rosann Spiro or Jeanne Frawley

Proposal Evaluation and Decisions

The research proposals will be evaluated and ranked by the Research Grant Committee consisting of four or five people, the majority being academic researchers. A subset of the committee will be comprised of sales practitioners. Decisions will be announced by May 21.