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1 – 10 of 197Fortune Edem Amenuvor, Richard Basilisco, Henry Boateng, Kwan Soo Shin, Dohyun Im and Kwasi Owusu-Antwi
This study sets out to empirically investigate the effect of salesforce output control on perceived job autonomy, customer-oriented selling behaviours and sales performance.
Abstract
Purpose
This study sets out to empirically investigate the effect of salesforce output control on perceived job autonomy, customer-oriented selling behaviours and sales performance.
Design/methodology/approach
Data are gathered from 704 salespeople and their visiting customers in Ghana. The hypotheses are tested using the structural equations modelling technique (SEM).
Findings
According to the findings of the study, output control has a significant and positive impact on perceived job autonomy. It also discovers that perceived job autonomy improves both customer-directed problem solving and adaptive selling behaviours. Furthermore, the study finds that customer-directed problem solving and adaptive selling behaviours both improve sales performance. Moreover, the study uncovers that perceived job autonomy mediates the relationship between output control and customer-oriented selling behaviours, whereas both customer-oriented selling behaviours mediate the relationship between perceived job autonomy and sales performance.
Practical implications
The current study provides both practical and theoretical insights into salesforce control dynamics, job autonomy, adaptive selling behaviour, customer-directed problem-solving behaviour and sales performance. The findings have important implications for sales organisations because they can assist sales managers in determining the best type of salesforce control systems to deploy and highlight the strategic role job autonomy plays in enhancing sales performance.
Originality/value
The current study shows how output control can influence salespeople's perceived job autonomy, adaptive selling and customer-directed problem-solving behaviours, and how these can improve sales performance.
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Kwan Soo Shin, Fortune Edem Amenuvor, Henry Boateng and Richard Basilisco
The current study aims to empirically examine the impact of formal salesforce control systems on salespeople and customer behavior.
Abstract
Purpose
The current study aims to empirically examine the impact of formal salesforce control systems on salespeople and customer behavior.
Design/methodology/approach
Data are collected from 704 salespeople and their respective visiting customers (704) in Ghana. The suggested hypotheses are tested through the structural equation (SEM) modeling technique.
Findings
The study results show that all three formal control mechanisms have positive and significant effects on customer-directed problem-solving and adaptive selling behaviors. Similarly, the study finds that salespeople's customer-directed problem-solving behavior increases, respectively, customer-directed opportunism and relationship continuity. Adaptive selling behavior also has significant positive effects on both customer-directed opportunism and relationship continuity, respectively.
Practical implications
The study offers practical and theoretical insights into understanding salesforce control dynamics, customer-directed opportunism, adaptive selling behavior, customer-directed problem-solving behavior and continuity of relationships. The results also have significant consequences for sales organizations as they can help sales managers decide on the best form of salesforce control systems to deploy.
Originality/value
The current research demonstrates how control mechanisms can influence both adaptive selling and customer-directed problem-solving behaviors and how these could generate both customer-directed opportunism and relationship continuity.
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Maureen L. Ambrose, Regina Taylor and Ronald L. Hess Jr
In this chapter, we examine employee prosocial rule breaking as a response to organizations’ unfair treatment of customers. Drawing on the deontic perspective and research on…
Abstract
In this chapter, we examine employee prosocial rule breaking as a response to organizations’ unfair treatment of customers. Drawing on the deontic perspective and research on third-party reactions to unfairness, we suggest employees engage in customer-directed prosocial rule breaking when they believe their organizations’ policies treat customers unfairly. Additionally, we consider employee, customer, and situational characteristics that enhance or inhibit the relationship between employees’ perceptions of organizational policy unfairness and customer-directed prosocial rule breaking.
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Wenzhu Lu, Bo Sun, Shengxian Yu and Shanshi Liu
This research examined how customer mistreatment activates individual customer-directed counterproductive work behavior (CWBC) by investigating the mediating roles of negative…
Abstract
Purpose
This research examined how customer mistreatment activates individual customer-directed counterproductive work behavior (CWBC) by investigating the mediating roles of negative work reflection and negative affect. It also explored whether job autonomy buffers the negative impact of customer mistreatment on CWBC.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors tested their predictions using an experience-sample method with a sample of data from 79 service workers across eight days. A multilevel structural equation model was used to test the hypotheses.
Findings
The authors found that negative work reflection and negative affect mediated the association between customer mistreatment and CWBC. In addition, job autonomy moderated the indirect impact of daily customer mistreatment on employees' CWBC through negative work reflection and negative affect.
Research limitations/implications
There are some concerns about a common method because all of the study variables were self-reported. Moreover, the study sample consisted of participants recruited exclusively from China, thus limiting this research's generality.
Practical implications
To eliminate the detrimental impact of customer mistreatment, supervisors can strive to improve the autonomy of those who interact with customers frequently to reduce their CWBC.
Originality/value
This study offers an integrative view to explain why service workers engage in CWBC when suffering customer mistreatment by testing the mediating mechanisms of negative reflection and negative affect in the association between daily customer mistreatment and CWBC. Second, the authors have broadened the study of customer mistreatment by introducing job autonomy as a critical condition, eliminating the indirect association between customer mistreatment and CWBC.
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Chyi Jaw, James Po-Hsun Hsiao, Tzung-Cheng (T. C.) Huan and Arch G. Woodside
This chapter describes and tests the principles of configural theory in the context of hospitality frontline service employees’ happiness-at-work and managers’ assessments of…
Abstract
ABSTRACT
This chapter describes and tests the principles of configural theory in the context of hospitality frontline service employees’ happiness-at-work and managers’ assessments of these employees’ quality of work performances. The study proposes and tests empirically a configural asymmetric theory of the antecedents to hospitality employee happiness-at-work and managers’ assessments of employees’ quality of work performance. The findings confirm and go beyond prior statistical findings of small-to-medium effect sizes of happiness-performance relationships. The method includes matching cases of data from surveys of employees (n = 247) and surveys completed by their managers (n = 43) and uses qualitative comparative analysis via the software program fsQCA.com. The findings support the four principles of configural analysis and theory construction: recognize equifinality of different solutions for the same outcome; test for asymmetric solutions; test for causal asymmetric outcomes for very high versus very low happiness and work performance; and embrace complexity. The theory and findings confirm that configural theory and research resolves perplexing happiness–performance conundrums. The study provides algorithms involving employees’ demographic characteristics and their assessments of work facet-specifics which are useful for explaining very high happiness-at-work and high quality-of-work performance (as assessed by managers) – as well as algorithms explaining very low happiness and very low quality-of-work performance.
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Morten H. Abrahamsen and Håkan Håkansson
The purpose of this paper is to analyse how different policy perspectives or logics regarding industry organising affect network interaction, with particular focus on how the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyse how different policy perspectives or logics regarding industry organising affect network interaction, with particular focus on how the availability of resources is organised.
Design/methodology/approach
To examine this, the authors compare two cases from the Norwegian seafood industry: in the pelagic industry, the main resource (mackerel) is caught at sea by fishing vessels and trade is restricted by an auction system, whereas in the salmon industry, the main resource (farmed salmon) is an industrial product produced at fish farms and there are no such restrictions.
Findings
The results indicate that conditions under which resources are available to a network have strong effects on connected relationships: in the pelagic industry, interaction in the network becomes supplier-directed in an attempt to reduce the uncertainty created by unstable and restricted availability of resources, whereas in the salmon industry the interaction becomes customer directed as resource availability is stable and predictable. Here the actors can broaden the scope of interaction and they can direct their efforts to solve their customers’ problems, whereas this is difficult in the pelagic industry. The authors conclude that policy considerations play a major role in these effects. If the resource (fish) is seen as a commodity and the interaction is seen as a market mechanism, the policies designed to facilitate the exchange of resources will be beneficial for the actors directly involved, but may have unintended negative consequences for indirect relationships.
Originality/value
For policy makers this implies that whenever developing an industrial policy there are strong reasons to look beyond the single transaction in order to create policies that are effective and/or beneficial for all involved and connected parties.
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Alexandre J.S. Morin, Christian Vandenberghe, Jean‐Sébastien Boudrias, Isabelle Madore, Julien Morizot and Michel Tremblay
This paper seeks to examine the relationships between affective commitment and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) across four foci: organizations, supervisors, coworkers…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper seeks to examine the relationships between affective commitment and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) across four foci: organizations, supervisors, coworkers, and customers. Further, it aims to determine whether relationships among commitments and OCBs involve mediated linkages.
Design/methodology/approach
This study relies on matched employee‐supervisor data (n=216). The relative fit of different models representing relationships among commitments and OCBs was examined using structural equations modeling.
Findings
Results revealed that commitments to coworkers, customers and supervisors displayed positive relationships with OCBs directed at parallel foci. In addition, commitment to the global organization partially and negatively mediated the relationship of commitments to coworkers and customers to parallel OCBs dimensions. Results also revealed cross‐foci relationships between local commitments and OCBs. Finally, no commitment target was significantly associated with organization‐directed OCBs but the latter were positively related to local OCBs.
Originality/value
The paper demonstrates that multiple commitments and OCBs are involved in a complex net of relationships among which local foci play a critical, and positive, role.
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Hyewon Park, Won-Moo Hur and Seung-Yoon Rhee
This study aims to investigate the impact of overnight off-work relaxation on the performance of frontline service employees (FLEs). Specifically, the authors focused on FLEs'…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the impact of overnight off-work relaxation on the performance of frontline service employees (FLEs). Specifically, the authors focused on FLEs' customer-directed extra-role service behavior (C-ERSB) and coworker-directed extra-role service behavior (CW-ERSB) as indicators of outstanding service performance. Drawing on the conservation of resources (Hobfoll, 1989) and ego depletion theories (Baumeister, 2002), the authors hypothesized that the positive effect of overnight relaxation on ERSBs will be mediated by the state of recovery. Additionally, the authors examined the boundary conditions of these relationships by testing the moderating effects of work–family conflict (WFC) and family–work conflict (FWC).
Design/methodology/approach
The study employed an episodic sampling method. One hundred thirty-five FLEs completed two daily surveys (before- and after-work) over five consecutive workdays, yielding 636 time-lagged day-level observations. Multilevel path modeling was performed to analyze the mediation and second-stage moderated mediation effects.
Findings
Results showed that overnight off-work relaxation was positively related to FLEs' next-day C-ERSB and CW-ERSB via next-morning recovery state. The positive relationship between overnight off-work relaxation and the next-morning recovery state was weaker for FLEs who experienced overnight WFC. FWC during work hours weakened the positive relationship between the next-morning recovery state and CW-ERSB, but not the relationship between the next-morning recovery state and C-ERSB.
Originality/value
The study used an episodic sampling method to reveal the significance of off-work relaxation, recovery and family–work interface on FLEs' ERSBs, a critical yet underexplored phenomenon in service literature. This study sheds light on the pathways to achieve exceptional service performance by revealing the importance of overnight off-work relaxation and the conditions that promote ERSBs.
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Harindranath R.M., Bharadhwaj Sivakumaran and Jayanth Jacob
The principal purpose of this study is to examine the moderating influence of selling experience on the following two relationships – adaptive selling and job satisfaction and…
Abstract
Purpose
The principal purpose of this study is to examine the moderating influence of selling experience on the following two relationships – adaptive selling and job satisfaction and customer orientation and job satisfaction – using unionized salespeople as respondents. It also tests for the mediating role of adaptive selling in the customer orientation–job satisfaction relationship.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper uses data from a survey conducted on 208 pharmaceutical unionized salespeople from 46 pharmaceutical firms in India. The model was tested using structural equation modeling. Moderation hypotheses were estimated using process macro and the Johnson–Neyman technique.
Findings
The data fitted the model well. This research found that customer orientation drove adaptive selling behavior and job satisfaction, and that adaptive selling influenced job satisfaction (all positively); it was found that adaptive selling partially mediated the relationship between customer orientation and job satisfaction. Results revealed that job experience negatively moderated the adaptive selling behavior–job satisfaction and customer orientation–job satisfaction relationships.
Practical implications
The results show that pharma firms may hire young recruits and, importantly, measure their customer orientation and adaptive selling levels. For the purposes of training to enhance customer orientation and adaptive selling, pharma firms may send only their less experienced salespersons.
Originality/value
To the authors’ knowledge, this study could be the first to examine the interaction of job experience and customer-directed selling behaviors such as adaptive selling and customer orientation on job satisfaction. Moreover, this is possibly the only study in this domain that uses unionized salespeople in an emerging market (India).
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Yen-Chun Chen, Adriana Amaya Rivas and Wann-Yih Wu
While the importance of salesperson market orientation behavior (SMOB) is widely acknowledged, as evidenced by the increasing research attention this concept is receiving…
Abstract
Purpose
While the importance of salesperson market orientation behavior (SMOB) is widely acknowledged, as evidenced by the increasing research attention this concept is receiving, discussion of its antecedents and consequences in the literature remains limited. The purpose of this paper is to focus on the antecedents of SMOB and the underlying process through which it influences sales performance.
Design/methodology/approach
A causal model was developed to analyze the antecedents and consequences of SMOB. This proposed model and various hypotheses were tested using data obtained from a sample of 264 salespeople in the Taiwanese financial services industry.
Findings
The learning orientation and behavioral controls of salespeople positively influence SMOB. In addition, SMOB plays a critical role in improving two types of “working-smart” behaviors (i.e., sales planning and adaptive selling), thereby achieving better sales performance.
Originality/value
This report sheds light on the importance of SMOB in today’s personal sales environment and uncovers the underlying mechanisms through which SMOB contributes to sales performance. It also offers specific guidelines for the assessment and management of SMOB to enhance the performance of salespeople within the financial services industry.
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