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This paper aims to undertake a simultaneous assessment of interdependence in the behaviours of front-line and back-office employees and their joint effect on customer-related organisational performance. It also tests for a moderating influence of the emotional intelligence of front-line salespeople and back-office employees.

The sample comprises 105 front-line sales employees and 77 back-office employees. The customer-related organisational performance data come from a UK business-to-business (B2B) electronics company. With these triadic data, this study uses partial least squares to estimate the measurement and structural models.

Salespeople’s customer orientation directly affects customer-related organisational performance; the relationship is moderated by salespeople’s emotional intelligence. The emotional intelligence of salespeople also directly affects the customer-directed citizenship behaviour of back-office employees. Furthermore, the emotional intelligence of back-office staff moderates the link between the emotional intelligence of salespeople and back-office staff citizenship behaviour. Back-office staff citizenship behaviour, in turn, affects customer-related organisational performance.

The emotions deployed by employees in interactions with customers clearly shape customers’ perceptions of service quality, as well as employee-level performance outcomes. However, prior literature lacks insights into the simultaneous effects of front-line and back-office employee behaviour, especially in B2B settings. This paper addresses these research gaps by investigating triadic relationships – among back-office employees, front-line employees and customer outcomes – in a B2B setting, where they are of particular managerial interest.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of work‐family conflict, emotional exhaustion, and intrinsic motivation on front‐line employees' job performance, job satisfaction, and affective organizational commitment in Turkish retail banks as its setting.

A total number of 363 usable questionnaires were personally retrieved from front‐line employees in the research location. The relevant writings were canvassed in order to design the survey instrument. The hypothesized relationships were tested using LISREL 8.30 through path analysis.

Results reveal that work‐family conflict increased emotional exhaustion and decreased job satisfaction. Intrinsic motivation was found to exert a significant negative impact on emotional exhaustion. Results demonstrate that high levels of intrinsic motivation resulted in high levels of job performance, job satisfaction, and affective commitment to the organization. The empirical results also indicate that emotional exhaustion exerted a significant negative effect on job satisfaction. As hypothesized, high levels of job performance led to increased job satisfaction. However, work‐family conflict and emotional exhaustion did not have any significant effects on job performance and affective organizational commitment. As expected, the empirical results provided support for the significant positive effects of job performance and job satisfaction on affective organizational commitment.

Job performance was operationalized via self‐report measure. In future research, incorporating non‐work variables such as family, leisure and life satisfaction into the research model would shed further light on one's understanding about the relationships of work‐family conflict and emotional exhaustion with those variables.

Top managements of banks should be committed to establishing and maintaining family‐supportive work environments. By doing so, properly trained bank managers can create a culture that helps front‐line employees balance work requirements with non‐work responsibilities. In addition, these managers should provide ongoing training programs, which aim to teach front‐line employees how to manage time effectively and resolve problems associated with work‐family conflict and emotional exhaustion.

The present study makes useful additions to the current knowledge base by investigating the effects of work‐family conflict and intrinsic motivation on emotional exhaustion and the effects of work‐family conflict and emotional exhaustion on various job outcomes of front‐line bank employees in a developing economy.

This paper seeks to explore drivers and consequences of customer trust in the salesperson in the financial services industry. Its theoretical foundations are based on literature on customers' interpersonal relationships with salespeople and front‐line employees, as well as on literature in the area of customer trust.

A conceptual model, specifying a set of hypotheses linking a salesperson's behaviours to customer trust, and the latter to behavioural loyalty intentions, was tested using partial least squares (PLS) on a sample of 150 customers in the Italian banking industry. Multiple models were compared in order to evaluate the mediating role of customer trust.

The results of the empirical study show that both salesperson's customer orientation and expertise positively influence customer trust in the salesperson. Conversely, selling orientation has a negative impact on it. Moreover, a salesperson's likeability does not influence customer trust. Finally, trust in the salesperson positively influences a customer's intentions to re‐buy/cross‐buy and to recommend, while it decreases a customer's intention to switch to competitors.

The study suggests that different relational antecedents may have different impacts on different relational mediators and outcomes. Since the mechanisms of interpersonal relationship formation and development are multifaceted, to understand fully the complexity of relational phenomena researchers should develop and test models incorporating multiple relational antecedents and outcomes.

The study provides sales managers with some evidence of the behaviours that salespeople should adopt to influence successfully the creation of long‐term relationships, especially in the context of “credence” services. The findings suggest that the optimal behaviours of salespeople may vary, depending on the ultimate goal of the sellers' relational strategy. The authors suggest drivers that managers can leverage to stimulate salespeople to perform the desired behaviours.

The model tested in the empirical study highlights the mediating role of customer trust and incorporates a broad set of drivers and consequences of interpersonal trust. As such, it improves knowledge of trust‐building processes in the context of credence services, where trust and interpersonal relationships are very relevant.

The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a comprehensive model of customer trust in a retail service setting. Three levels of the customer‐to‐store relationship are simultaneously taken into account: customer to sales associates, customer to store branded products, and customer to the store itself.

Using partial least square (PLS) on a sample of 393 customers of an Italian supermarket retailer, a model linking customer trust (in the store, in store branded products and in sales associates) to overall perceived value and store loyalty intentions and behaviors is tested. Subsequently an expanded model to determine the influence of managerially controlled antecedent variables (salespeople's trustworthiness, store environment, store assortment, and communications) is estimated on the various trust levels.

Trust in the salesperson and trust in store branded products have positive effects on overall store trust. Store trust, in turn, increases perceived value and loyalty intentions. Looking at the drivers of the three levels of customer trust, salesperson trustworthiness positively affects only trust in the salesperson. Store environment has a positive impact only on overall trust in the store. Store communication fosters all three levels of customer trust, while store assortment increases both overall trust and trust in store branded products.

Findings of the study suggest an alternative perspective to the dominant strategies in grocery retailing services. To foster store patronage, retailers have typically invested in price cuts, promotions and loyalty schemes. Store managers may rather use sales associates, the store environment, store assortment, store branded products, and communication to foster customer trust and increase customer loyalty. Managing store brands with the goal to build trust, as opposed to increase immediate profit margins, may call for a completely different approach to private labels. Similarly, the potential relevance of interpersonal trust may suggest retailers to devote more resources to selection, recruitment and training of sales associates, and may stimulate changes in evaluation criteria, incentive schemes and reward systems.

The study aims at filling two important gaps in the literature: the scarcity of comprehensive store patronage models and the lack of exploration of the operational means of improving customer trust in retail services.

The purpose of this study is to develop and test a model of the antecedents and outcomes of one aspect of customer mind-set (CMS) – external CMS (ECMS) — among front-line employees. The goal of this paper is to help managers address customer-level orientation by further investigating the external dimension of CMS (referred to as ECMS).

Data were gathered from a sample of front-line employees of a variety of firms located in a mid-sized southeastern US city.

The results indicate that greater amounts of job autonomy and job satisfaction are positively associated with front-line employee ECMS, while the employee’s global role ambiguity, customer-specific ambiguity and role conflict are negatively associated with ECMS. In turn, front-line employee ECMS is associated with increased work motivation and sales performance.

The data are cross-sectional in nature; so, strictly causal relations cannot be inferred from these results. Also, the sample primarily consists of younger females with less work experience and who are employed at smaller organizations. Therefore, future research should further test these relations in different samples to increase the robustness of the results.

This research utilizes a rich description of the front-line employee’s job attitudes and work characteristics to build a model describing their association with the extent to which the ideas of market orientation have taken hold at the operational level and their relationship with the employee’s motivation and subsequent performance. It shows that both internal and external characteristics are associated with front-line employee ECMS, which itself is very strongly related to desirable job outcomes.

The firm’s financial performance is most directly affected by how well it serves its external customers. However, there has been no research on the role and the consequences of employee ECMS. There are only a few studies (less than five) that have empirically explored the CMS. Therefore, the many potential benefits from a deeper understanding of a market orientation culture and behaviors at the level of the front-line employee remain unclear, particularly in regards to its ECMS dimension.

Factors such as globalization and market size have made India a major consideration for multinational firms and their salespeople. Despite the appeal of the market, the majority of theories and empirical studies of sales have been based on Western thought and within a Western context. This study seeks to address the issue of what interpersonal traits impel outcomes and behaviors of Indian salespeople.

A model was tested using survey data collected from salespeople and their respective sales managers within a print media company located in India. A structural equation model was used to test the hypotheses.

The results suggest an interesting interplay between interpersonal traits and pro‐social sales behaviors. Empathy proneness was positively related to helping behaviors targeted at other salespeople, while guilt proneness was positively associated with behaviors targeted at customers.

The research suggests that a salesperson's capacity for empathy does not always translate into customer‐based behaviors. Hence sales training and other interventions targeted towards building empathy may actually impact on behaviors between salespeople versus the interface between the salesperson and the customer. Theoretical and managerial applications are also discussed.

The paper combines a data collection of salesperson‐sales manager dyadic responses and examines whether the theoretical undergirding of the Western‐based pro‐social literature is appropriate to apply in Eastern cultures such as India.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how salesperson’s emotional intelligence (EI) influences salesperson behaviors (i.e. emotional labor strategies) and the influence these behavioral strategies have on customer’s outcomes.

The study develops a conceptual model using past literature and tests hypotheses using a salesperson-prospective customer dyadic sample. To participate in the study, 224 salespeople and their potential customers were recruited from three different companies.

Results reveal the importance of conceptualizing the dimensionality of a salesperson’s EI ability, as different dimensions impact customer outcomes differently. Additionally, the importance of salesperson’s authentic emotional labor strategies is highlighted.

EI is a foundation for successful selling in a business-to-business environment, but it is not a silver bullet. Sales managers and recruiters should use assessment tools to evaluate sales recruit’s EI, but it is also critical to train salespeople to engage in deep acting, creating authentic emotions in the buyer-seller relationship.

Using a dyadic sample, this study suggests that the dimensions of EI and emotional labor strategies influence customer’s perception of salesperson’s trustworthiness and propensity to continue the relationship with the salesperson differently. Specifically, not all dimensions of salesperson’s EI is found to be positive, and only salesperson’s authentic (deep) emotional strategies are found to influence customer outcomes positively.

The focus on ongoing customer relationships is the most distinctive aspect of relationship marketing. To date we still have a poor understanding of the role played by interpersonal‐related factors in gaining and developing customer loyalty. This paper explores the impact of interpersonal relationships (both with a firm employee and with another customer) on customer satisfaction and loyalty towards the firm. Based on a review of different streams of research, the paper develops and empirically tests an original multi‐level and multi‐subject model. The findings show that customer‐to‐employee and customer‐to‐customer relationships contribute differently to the development of customer loyalty. Finally, the paper discusses managerial implications and directions for future research.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of the salespeople profile (i.e., effort, commitment and creativity) – and its degree of market orientation (MO) – on the success of new product launch and sales outcomes. An emerging economy context is taken as a reference.

A structural equations model is proposed. The data are based on a sample of retail sector sales managers in Peru.

The results indicate that salespeople effort, creativity and degree of MO influence overall sales performance. Salespeople commitment, however, does not have a significant impact. These antecedents are helpful when attempting to understand both the potential success of a new product and sales outcomes.

There is no evidence to date of studies that simultaneously assess the impact of seller profiles and degree of MO on new product launch success and sales outcomes. This paper breaks new ground in analyzing this phenomenon in the context of an emerging economy. The findings are of general interest both for sales force management and for companies interested in familiarizing themselves with the peculiarities of emerging economies and the potential need to adapt policies to these specific realities.

This study aims to investigate the new connotations, key antecedents, outcomes and contingency factors of value-based selling (VBS) in the context of business to business (B2B) industrial marketing.

This study develops a comprehensive conceptual framework of VBS by analyzing and synthesizing the existing literature on VBS and associated solutions.

The paper describes the research streams of VBS; proposes a comprehensive conceptual framework consisting of the factors influencing VBS at the organizational, individual, customer and environmental levels, together with 12 research propositions; and provides an agenda for future research.

The paper is conceptual; empirical studies are required for examining the suggested propositions and agenda.

VBS is a process-oriented sales approach that involves multiple value creation and plays a crucial role in industrial solution selling. The successful implementation of VBS depends on the micro-foundations of an organization’s dynamic capabilities and considers the influence of individual, customer and environmental factors.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to introduce value co-creation and dynamic capability theory into VBS research in the context of industrial marketing. It discusses the antecedents, outcomes and contingency factors of VBS in detail in the form of a comprehensive research framework and proposes a future research agenda. These discussions expand the theoretical research on VBS and provide useful implications for B2B marketing practice.