Supervisory Orientations and Salesperson Work Outcomes: The Moderating Effect of Salesperson Location

Although a growing number of companies have salespeople stationed at a site other than their supervisors' (i.e., are remotely located), relatively little attention has been paid in the literature to the differences between managing co-and remote located salespeople. Accordingly, we test the moderating effect of salesperson location on the relationships between three supervisory orientations—output, activity, and capability—and salesperson satisfaction with supervisor and performance.

The results show that salesperson location moderates the relationship between supervisory activity orientation and satisfaction such that activity orientation has a positive effect on the satisfaction of remote located salespeople, but a negative effect on the satisfaction of co-located salespeople. We find that end-results orientation is positively related to the satisfaction of co-located salespeople but not of remote located salespeople. Finally, supervisory capability orientation is positively linked to the performance of co-located salespeople but not of remote located salespeople. The results provide guidance for sales managers about how to structure their interactions with remote and proximally close salespeople.     

It is all in good humor? Examining the impact of salesperson evaluations of leader humor on salesperson job satisfaction and job stress

Abstract

Salesperson job stress and job satisfaction have been identified as critical factors affecting job performance. Academic research suggests that sales managers can influence salesperson job stress and job satisfaction. Interestingly, a review of the sales literature finds very little research on the impact of sales leader humor usage on the stress and satisfaction of salespeople. Consequently, we explore how salespeople’s evaluation of their manager’s use of humor influences their individual levels of job stress and satisfaction. We investigate both the positive and negative roles of humor by analyzing the impact of salesperson evaluations of their managers’ use of affiliative and aggressive humor on their job stress and job satisfaction. Furthermore, we examine the mechanism by which these evaluations affect salesperson stress and satisfaction by identifying two critical mediating variables – social loneliness and willingness to cooperate. Using a sample of 299 professional salespeople, we empirically test this process model to find that affiliative humor usage by sales managers, as evaluated by salespeople, reduces social loneliness and stress for salespeople while also increasing followers’ acceptance of cooperation. Evaluations of aggressive humor, on the other hand, increase stress levels among salespeople. Both social loneliness and acceptance of cooperation, in turn, significantly affect job satisfaction.     

Salesperson time perspectives and customer willingness to pay more: roles of intraorganizational employee navigation,customer satisfaction,and firm innovation climate

This research aims to fill a critical gap in the sales literature by proposing a relationship-based model of customer willingness to pay more, involving salesperson time perspectives (i.e., long-term perspective and short-term perspective), intraorganizational employee navigation, and customer satisfaction with the salesperson. We also examine the moderating role of firm innovation climate. Multisource survey data were collected from 204 salespeople in a business-to-business sales context along with external ratings from customers of these salespeople three months later. The findings indicate that both long- and short-term perspectives have positive effects on intraorganizational employee navigation and customer satisfaction, which, in turn, positively affect customer willingness to pay more. In addition, short-term perspective has a stronger impact than long-term perspective on intraorganizational employee navigation. Further, the effect of long-term perspective on customer satisfaction is strengthened by the innovation climate of the firm, whereas the effect of short-term perspective on customer satisfaction is weakened by it.     

The role of delight in driving repurchase intentions

A channel differentiator for brick-and-mortar retail stores is the availability of salespeople to assist customers directly in their purchase decision. This research considers two aspects of customer interactions with retail salespeople that lead to perceptions of extraordinary service and enhance repurchase intentions: customer comfort and salesperson expertise. Retail customers desire value-added informational assistance from the salesperson to minimize ambiguity associated with the product and to reduce the risk associated with a purchase decision. A retail salesperson needs to make customers feel comfortable so that the customer will share specific needs during the interaction, and the salesperson can recommend appropriate products and services. Our findings reveal that while both customer comfort and salesperson expertise positively influence satisfaction with the salesperson and customer delight, only customer delight leads to repurchase intentions. While satisfaction is a commonly asserted goal for retailers; the present research suggests that in a transaction-based environment, elevated emotions such as customer delight represent a more powerful predictor of repurchase intentions. This research provides evidence of trainable salesperson behaviors that enhance customer perceptions of extraordinary service and offer firms an opportunity for significant performance gains.     

Ideal Versus Actual Number of Sales Calls: An Application of Disconfirmation Theory

The current study focuses on the relationship that buyers have with their salespeople. Specifically, the study uses disconfirmation theory to evaluate whether a salesperson that meets or exceeds the buyer’s ideal number of sales calls has higher levels of commitment, trust, and satisfaction from the buyer than a salesperson that does not meet expectations. The study also looks at the impact of meeting expectations on the buyer’s evaluation of the salesperson’s commitment and performance versus a salesperson that does not meet expectations. Findings suggest that when a salesperson contacts a buyer with a frequency and consistency that the buyer perceives as ideal, the buyer will have a higher level of satisfaction with and trust of the salesperson as well as a higher level of commitment to the buyer–seller relationship. Managers could take advantage of this by making an effort to align a salesperson’s call frequency with what a buyer perceives as ideal.     

Salesperson brand attachment: a job demands-resources theory perspective

Sales researchers have largely ignored the idea that salespeople form attachments to the brands that they sell, and that these attachments hold important consequences for sales outcomes. Drawing on job demands-resources theory, the authors suggest that salesperson brand attachment (SBA) serves as a unique psychological resource for salespeople. Using data from 154 salespeople from the beverage industry, they provide evidence that SBA increases selling effort toward the brand, and ultimately job satisfaction. In addition, they show that salesperson's brand attachment acts as a buffer against perceived job demands, including job codification and hierarchy of authority. In general, results support the job demands-resources framework and confirm that SBA is a resource that may be leveraged to offset job demands, under certain situations.     

Personal Selling and Sales Management Abstracts

This study builds on previous research to investigate the effects of ethical climate on salesperson’s role stress, job attitudes, turnover intention, and job performance. Responses from 138 salespeople who work for a large retailer selling high-end consumer durables at 68 stores in 16 states were used to examine the process through which ethical climate affects organizational variables. This is the first study offering empirical evidence that both job stress and job attitudes are the mechanisms through which a high ethical climate leads to lower turnover intention and higher job performance. Results indicate that ethical climate results in lower role conflict and role ambiguity and higher satisfaction, which, in turn, leads to lower turnover intention and organizational commitment. Also, findings indicate that organizational commitment is a significant predictor of job performance.     

Leaders in Selling and Sales Management: Elbert Hubbard

With the current uncertainty in the job market, coupled with an emphasis on customer satisfaction and long-term business relationships, there is a renewed interest in salespeople who are highly involved in their jobs. Before any convincing research in this area can be undertaken, a psychometrically sound scale of salesperson job involvement must be available. Our paper provides an assessment in a sales setting of three versions of the most widely used job involvement scale—the Lodahl and Kejner (1965) scale. Results suggest that all three versions have serious flaws and should be used with extreme caution. While one study is never enough to make final recommendations, a classic scale development project with salespeople may be beneficial.     

The 30‐Sec Sale: Using Thin‐Slice Judgments to Evaluate Sales Effectiveness

A successful sale depends on a customer's perception of the salesperson's personality, motivations, trustworthiness, and affect. Person perception research has shown that consistent and accurate assessments of these traits can be made based on very brief observations, or “thin slices.” Thus, examining impressions based on thin slices offers an effective approach to study how perceptions of salespeople translate into real‐world results, such as sales performance and customer satisfaction. The literature on the accuracy of thin‐slice judgments is briefly reviewed. Then, 2 studies are presented that investigated the predictive validity of judgments of salespeople based on thin slices of the vocal channel. Participants rated 20‐sec audio clips extracted from interviews with a sample of sales managers, on variables gauging interpersonal skills, task‐related skills, and anxiety. Results supported the hypothesis that observability of the rated variable is a key determinant in the criterion validity of thin‐slice judgments. Implications for the use of thin‐slice judgments in salesperson selection and customer satisfaction are discussed.     

Drivers and outcomes of salespersons’ value opportunity recognition competence in solution selling

Abstract

In B2B markets, firms seek to provide customer solutions instead of merely selling goods or services. As boundary-spanners, salespeople are pivotal for implementing this strategic shift. Yet, extant literature provides limited insights into salesperson’s resources and competencies required for customer solutions, particularly in the early phases of solution selling. This research focuses on salesperson’s value opportunity recognition competence (VOR), which is a central requirement for salespeople to be able to navigate the early phases of solution selling. Analyzing large-scale, multi-level data of 799 salespeople and their respective sales managers in 29 sales organizations, the authors investigate the role of different salesperson resources and work environment characteristics for strengthening their VOR. The authors find that salespeople need both customer and technical knowledge, but customer knowledge is more important. Salespeople also can substitute individual technical knowledge with strong internal relations, but strong customer relations are no substitute for individual knowledge about customers’ business models and processes. Formalization turned out to be a double-edged sword in the context of VOR development, while transformational leadership has positive effects only. The findings bear concrete implications for improving the selection, training, and work environment of solution salespeople.     

The effect of environmental orientation on salesperson effort and participation: the moderating role of organizational identification

Environmental orientation has emerged as a noteworthy strategy for firms attempting to provide an authentic, unified image of environmental commitment to stakeholders. However, it is yet to be assessed from those employees most responsible for conveying an environmental image. This research examines the construct from the salesperson's point of view. Integrating social identity theory within a traditional Input-Process-Output framework, we demonstrate the importance of aligning firm ideals with individual boundary spanner identity in an environmental context. Our findings suggest that salespersons' perceptions of a firm's environmental orientation directly influence their effort and participation. Further, this relationship is amplified when the salesperson also has strong organizational identity. Finally, when salespeople put more into their work or actively engage in improving their company's environmental image, this increased effort and participation ultimately contributes to individual sales performance and job satisfaction.     

Reexamining the Influence of Career Stages on Salesperson Motivation: A Cognitive and Affective Perspective

Career stage theory suggests that salespeople vary in their motivation systematically across career stages. However, empirical evidence using valence, expectancy, and instrumentality components of motivation have failed to find consistent support. Drawing on social psychology and recent sales literature, we decompose global intrinsic and extrinsic (I/E) motivation into distinct cognitive and affective dimensions to empirically test a more current conceptualization of salesperson motivation. Empirical results using a cross section of salespeople indicate that salespeople’s I/E motivation differs along the cognitive, but not affective, dimensions across career stages. Specifically, salespeople in the establishment stage were found to have higher levels of challenge seeking than those in the disengagement stage, and compensation seeking was higher among exploration- and establishment-stage salespeople than those in the maintenance stage. The research findings highlight the need to distinguish between cognitive and affective dimensions of I/E motivation in understanding career stage–based expectations of salesperson motivation.     

Salesperson ambidexterity and customer satisfaction: examining the role of customer demandingness,adaptive selling,and role conflict

This research investigates the effects of sales-service ambidexterity on salesperson role perceptions, behaviors, and customer satisfaction. Using a business-to-business, salesperson-customer sample, we build and test a model which highlights both the positive and negative consequences of this simultaneous goal pursuit. Specifically, while sales-service ambidexterity positively impacts adaptive selling behaviors, it also increases perceptions of role conflict among salespeople. Customer demandingness moderates these relationships. Taken together, the results provide insights for firms on how to manage their sales force to optimize both sales and service outcomes based on characteristics of their salespeople and customers.     

Serving first for the benefit of others: preliminary evidence for a hierarchical conceptualization of servant leadership

In this paper, we examine servant leadership as a promising leadership style for today's dynamic sales environments. Conceptual and empirical literature points to servant leadership's strong potential in facilitating benefits to salespeople and the organization. Yet that same literature evidences a problematic lack of consensus regarding components that distinctly reflect servant leadership. Existing conceptualizations include dimensions like humility and providing direction, which clearly overlap with various other leadership styles. In this paper, we first consider unique distinctives of servant leadership. We then propose an extension of the augmentation hypothesis from the transactional and transformational leadership literature. Specifically, we posit that servant leadership distinctives are hierarchically built on transformational characteristics, which themselves are built on transactional characteristics. Using secondary data from a sample of professional salespeople, we apply Guttman scaling and show this hierarchical conceptualization to be empirically tenable. We demonstrate that sales leadership at higher levels on the hierarchy produces incremental gains in salesperson satisfaction, salesperson performance, organizational citizenship behaviors, and corporate social responsibility. We confirm our findings in a validation sample and demonstrate an additional relationship with customer-directed extra-role behaviors. Our results imply that sales organizations can reap enhanced multi-faceted benefits through higher levels of servant leadership.     

Salesperson Ethical Decision Making: The Impact of Sales Leadership and Sales Management Control Strategy

Enhancing the moral behavior of salespeople is increasingly important, but difficult, in today’s fast-paced and complex selling environment. Sales organizations need to emphasize ethical codes of conduct, but must also address the potential impact of all sales management decisions on the ethical behavior of salespeople. We expand the focus on ethical codes to include an interpersonal dimension of sales organization ethical climate and the cognitive moral development of salespeople. Relationships among sales leadership and sales management control strategy, the structural and interpersonal dimensions of sales organization ethical climate, salesperson cognitive moral development, and salesperson moral judgment are discussed and specific propositions presented. These propositions suggest specific directions for future sales ethics research and have key implications for sales organizations.     

How the Performance of Mentoring Activities Affects the Mentor's Job Outcomes

Peer mentoring occurs in a sales force when a more experienced salesperson (mentor) takes responsibility for the development and guidance of a less experienced salesperson (protégé). Few studies have examined how this work relationship affects the mentor. This study explores the relationships between the mentoring activities performed by the mentor and the benefits that are achieved for the mentor. Data was collected from real estate salespeople who indicated they were serving as mentors. The exploratory findings demonstrate that the different activities performed by a mentor could affect the benefits received by the mentor. For example, providing a protégé with exposure to others in the organization rejuvenates the mentor's career and improves some aspects of the mentor's satisfaction. Helping the protégé with his or her selling skills has a positive impact on several aspects of the mentor's own performance. Results help explain why an experienced salesperson might choose to mentor.     

Dysfunctional Behavior among Sales Representatives: The Effect of Supervisory Trust,Participation, and Information Controls

This study investigates the efficacy of supervisory trust, participation, and information controls in curbing dysfunctional salesperson behavior so that salesperson actions are in line with organizational goals. Using a sample of 210 salespeople, we develop and test a model incorporating supervisory trust, participation, information controls (output information, activity information, and capability information), and dysfunctional behavior. Output and activity information controls directly affect dysfunctional behavior, whereas capability information controls work positively through trust in the supervisor to reduce dysfunctional behavior. Providing sales representatives with information about their capabilities appears to enhance the supervisor–salesperson trust relationship. Results also indicate that salespeople’s supervisory participation is an effective lever for reducing dysfunctional salesperson behavior through the intervening role of trust in the supervisor.     

Index to Volume 26 of Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management

Organizational support theory is used to investigate the moderating effects of both instrumental and social/psychological support on the relationships between a salesperson’s customer orientation and level of psychological empowerment and job performance. Results obtained within a sampling of 830 financial services salespeople operating from remote locations indicate that organizational support may interfere with salespeople’s attitudes in the development of salesperson performance. Specifically, this study found that under conditions of low social/psychological support the positive effect of empowerment on job performance becomes weaker, but the positive effect of customer orientation on job performance becomes significantly stronger. Further, instrumental support seems to be somewhat counterproductive to high-performing salespeople by diminishing the positive relationship between empowerment and performance. Implications of such findings are discussed.     

Antecedents and Outcomes of Organizational Commitment: A Study of Salespeople

The role organizational commitment plays in salesperson behavior is unresearched. To increase understanding of both causes and outcomes of organizational commitment for salespeople, this study proposed and tested a path model. The model was drawn from the framework for studying organizational commitment proposed by Chornco (1986).

The study results imply that salespeoples' performance is not determined by commitment or by effort, but that it is positively affected by the sales manager, income and education. Commitment was positively affected by anticipatory socialization, work satisfaction and manager satisfaction. Means for building commitment are discussed, as are situations where management should stress salesforce commitment.