Intra‐role conflict and the selling decision: The case of Taiwan's life insurance industry

Abstract

Purpose

In the personal selling industry, it is particularly difficult for salespeople to manage a conflict of interest that exists between the company and customers. The purpose of this research is to examine the impact of time based compensation on salespeople's selling decisions when the conflict occurs.

Design/methodology/approach

Questionnaire surveys were collected from 361 full‐time life insurance salespeople in Taiwan.

Findings

The results indicate that compensation, training, and marketing policy may affect salespeople's selling decisions.

Originality/value

Very little research addresses what salespeople would do when a conflict of interest occurs between the company and customers. Also, how time based compensation would affect salespeople's selling decisions in company‐customer conflict is unknown. Furthermore, training and marketing policy may affect salespeople's selling decisions in the conflict. This paper relates to these issues and provides some discussions of them.

Citation

Tseng, L. (2011), "Intra‐role conflict and the selling decision: The case of Taiwan's life insurance industry", International Journal of Conflict Management, Vol. 22 No. 4, pp. 373-393. https://doi.org/10.1108/10444061111171378