In any field of business endeavor, the purpose of the control system in sales management is to ensure the attainment of desired organizational objectives. It is the supervisor who has the prime responsibility of implementing the control system and coordinates effort that translate into efficient and productive performance of the firm. To investigate the phenomenon, this study is undertaken to understand supervisory control and the scope of its effects on salesperson behavior. The researcher has chosen in particular the salespersons of companies in the shipping industry. Using the descriptive and correlation designs, a survey has been administered to 142 salespersons from two international shipping lines. The data gathered from the survey questionnaire are analyzed using various statistical tools, namely: the Mean, the Pearson Product Moment Correlation Analysis, and the Stepwise Regression Procedure. The study presents (1) supervisory control in terms of its nine facets: output information, output rewards, output punishments, activity information, activity rewards, activity punishments, capability information, capability rewards, and capability punishments; and (2) salesperson behavior in terms of job satisfaction and job performance. Findings reveal that (1) the supervisors exercise high levels of control with output information as the most predominant means of control and activity punishments as the least predominant; (2) the salespersons in the shipping firms have high levels of job satisfaction and job performance; and (3) supervisory control has a significant effect on salesperson behavior with capability information, activity rewards, activity punishments and output rewards as the set of predictors for job satisfaction, and activity information and output rewards as the set of predictors for job performance. Based on the results and its implications, the following recommendations will be of practical use to international shipping lines and other related industries: continue developing supervisory control; maintain high level of job satisfaction; sustain high level of job performance; reinforce good sales management performance; continue research in other related areas; and adopt the specially designed survey questionnaire of this research as a means to periodically evaluate salesperson job satisfaction and job performance.
