University of Ljubljana

Faculty of Economics

OVERVIEW OF DOCTORAL DISSERTATION

Ph.D. student: Selma Kadić-Maglajlić, MBA

Supervisor: Irena Vida, Ph.D.

Sarajevo, September 2011

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1. TENTATIVE TITLE OF THE DOCTORAL DISSERTATION

The impact of ethics and emotional intelligence on salesperson behavior and performance

2. BROADER SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH AREA

Personal selling has existed for centuries, but the principles behind it have changed over time.

The sales evolution began with transactional sales, and in the late 1960's and early 1970's, due

to increased competition and complexity of goods and services, evolved into consultative

customer-oriented sales, based on the successful communication between buyer and seller

(Manning & Reece, 2008). During the 1980's, sales moved to strategic sales, while in the

1990’s, partnerships were created through strategic long-term relationships that solve the

customer's problems through a win-win philosophy (Paparoidamis & Guenzi, 2009). In

today's competitive market, personal selling is a critical element in the efforts of modern

companies to achieve organizational success based on consumer satisfaction, loyalty and

profitable sales volume (Anderson, 1996). In order to meet the needs of consumers,

salespeople must work in cooperation with buyers as "helpers" rather than competing with

them as "persuaders" (Kirman & Campbell, 2004).

Personal selling is a promotional vehicle that allows its messages to be adapted and adjusted

specifically to meet the communication needs of the receiver. At the same time, it is an

extremely costly marketing vehicle (Roman & Martín, 2008), particularly compared to e-

alternatives (Spiro & Weitz, 1990). The changes brought by globalized, virtually borderless

competition, an increasingly globalized world economy and the recent economic recession are

more than evident. Some consequences have been the result of technological changes, such as

the replacement or supplementation of personal selling with Internet sales channels; yet others

have been customer-driven, such as customers’ price sensitivity, an increased emphasis on

value and a desire for co-creation (Sheth & Sharma, 2008). As a result of such external

pressures, sales organizations have had to undergo dramatic changes (Geiger & Guenzi, 2009)

and to redefine their sales process.

The sales process is a sequential series of seller actions that leads towards the buyers’ desired

activities and finishes with various forms of post-selling services that ensure the buyers’

satisfaction (Tomasevic-Lisanin, 2010) in the long term. The essence of the selling process

can be summarized as consisting of six stages: prospecting for customers, opening the

relationship, qualifying the prospect, presenting the sales message, closing the scale and

servicing the account (Churchill, Ford & Walker, 2005, p. 31). Storbacka, Ryals, Davies and

Nenonen (2009) suggest that the sales process must be two-way: first, collecting customers’

information and requirements and feeding them back to their own organization; second,

collating organizational knowledge and resources.

The fact that the key to long-term success lies in a relational approach to the buyer-seller

interaction has been recognized as one of the most important recent trends in business-to-

business (B2B) s research (Dwyer, Schurr & Oh, 1987). Recent sales literature (Dwyer et al.,

1987; Jones, Busch & Dacin, 2003; Jaramillo, Ladik, Marshall & Mulki, 2007) has mostly

agreed upon the theoretical framework of buyer-seller relationships. At the same time, it is

evident that there is a lack of empirical evidence on the interrelationships between various

aspects of buyer-seller interaction (e.g. orientation, adaptability, emotional intelligence and

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ethics of salespersons) and the performance of individual salespersons. There is even less

empirical research on buyer-seller relationships in a global cross-cultural context.

The crucial elements in the development of the buyer-seller relationship are salespersons. As

the costs of hiring sales representatives continue to rise, it is predicted that individuals

successful in sales will likely become increasingly important (Darmon, 2004). Firms are

rightly concerned about the variables that can predict whether a salesperson is a top or a

bottom performer (Jaramillo & Grisaffe, 2009). Jack Welch, the former CEO of General

Electric, said: ―Hiring great people is brutally hard.‖ This sentence conveys all of the risks of

hiring poor performers. ―Hiring the right salesperson, however, might be as simple and

economical as trusting an adaptive unconscious or thin-slicing‖ (Emery & Handell, 2007,

p.17).

Knowing that contemporary sales management focuses on the recruitment and selection of

capable candidates to sales positions (Piercy, Cravens & Morgan, 1998) this thesis will offer

new insights into antecedents of sales performance that will make it possible to understand the

individual performance of new employees. The main outcome of this thesis/dissertation will

enhance our understanding of the factors leading to high performance.

3. SUBJECT OF THE RESEARCH

Geiger and Guenzi (2009), in their research on future directions in personal selling, reported

that salespersons’ motivations and selling tactics (as a part of the buyer-seller interaction) are

seen as highly relevant to both academics and practitioners. These are probably affected by

the reality of their central and persistent significance to the selling operation and as such will

continue to form the backbone of sales research and publication efforts. On the other hand,

judged by the attention paid by practitioners and academicians in speeches, textbooks, and

scholarly papers, a firm’s market orientation (which should be the core of seller behavior) is

at the very heart of modem marketing management and strategy (Narver & Slater, 1990;

Storbacka et al., 2009).

The impact of market orientation manifested through sellers’ behaviors on personal sales

performance is, in a concise sense, the topic of this doctoral dissertation. In the next part of

this PhD proposal, constructs of interest will be conceptually defined. These are: salesperon

performance, salesperson orientation, adaptive behavior, ethics and emotional intelligence.

3.1. Sales Performance

Considering that organizational performance accounts for a cumulative representation of

individual outcomes (Schultz & Good, 2000), it is clear why a sales performance was one of

the key issues that were discussed in the first known paper on personal sales, which was

published by Oschrin in 1918. Since that period, till the recent economic downturn,

determinants of personal sales performance have remained unresolved (Singh & Koshy, 2010)

and unpredictable. The issue of salesperson performance has been addressed in a number of

studies in the marketing literature (Churchill, Ford, Hartley & Walker, 1985; Sujan, Weitz &

Kumar, 1994; Deeter-Schmelz & Sojka, 2007; Plouffe, Hulland & Wachner, 2009; Singh &

Koshy, 2010). Very often, the results have been contradictory, resulting in an incomplete

understanding of the construct. This becomes even more serious when Walker, Churchill and

Ford (1979) stated that the best predictors of salesperson performance can only explain

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around 10% of the variance in salesperson performance. Similar conclusions were drawn by,

Holmes and Srivastava (2002) who succeed in explaining about 4%, while less than 2% of the

variance in performance was explained by Jaramillo et al. (2007).

In the literature, the salesperson performance construct has been very often conceptually

defined in different ways. Chi, Yeh and Chen (2010) claimed that salesperson performance

represents an individual contribution to the organizational sales goal and action performed on

the job, which can be measured and evaluated. This definition originally came from Walker et

al. (1979) who stated that sales performance ―is coming from a number of discrete and

specific activities which may vary greatly across different types of selling jobs and situations‖

(p. 22). From this statement, it is evident that different sales performance output is the result

of different salespersons’ activities. Based on the definition given by Walker et al. (1979),

many authors tried to define all of the possible salesperson activities. On the other hand, other

authors defined salesperson performance as a result of sales outcomes (sales quantity,

revenue, market share, new accounts…), behaviors, selling skills such as teamwork, effective

communication, and customer orientation, as well as selling activities that include making

sales calls, managing time and territory (Anderson, 2006).

Churchill et al. (1985) conceptualized performance as the sum of behavior, performance and

effectiveness. Behavior refers to the salesperson’s tasks on which he/she expends effort;

performance refers to behaviors that contribute towards the realization of their organizational

goals; and effectiveness refers indirectly to their behaviors as a function of additional factors

that are not under the control of any individual salesperson. This definition started new

disputes among researchers on the relationship between a salesperson performance and

effectiveness.

Walker et al. (1979) claimed that performance measures behaviors and is normatively

reflected in whether the behavior was ―good‖ or ―bad‖ relative to the organization’s goals and

objectives. Effectiveness, on the other hand, does not have any normative implications since it

measures outcomes. Plank and Reid (1994) provided us with various definitions of these two

constructs, claiming that: organizational and environmental variables may moderate the

relationship between sales performance and effectiveness; and that sales behaviors and

performance may mediate sales effectiveness.

One of the most dominant theories in sales performance (Plank & Reid, 1994) that

incorporates the buyer-seller relationship is Weitz's (1981) Contingency Framework. Weitz

(1981) stated that four types of sales behaviors (adapting to customers, establishing influence

bases, using influencing techniques and controlling sales interaction) directly impact sales

effectiveness, and this impact is moderated by the relationship between the salesperson and

the customer, the salesperson's resources, and the characteristics of the buying task. This

model was elaborated by Weitz, Sujan and Sujan (1986) in order to include knowledge and

motivation.

Consequently, Deeter-Schmelz and Sojka (2007) claimed that no single trait or set of traits

has emerged as a reliable predictor of sales performance. Therefore, firms should focus

attention on multiple factors that together create a performance-oriented culture. So far, many

factors have been studied as antecedents of a salesperson’s performance and effectiveness,

such as: cognitive variables (Sujan, 1994), personality variables (Saxe & Weitz, 1982),

situational variables (Weitz, 1981), communication-related variables (Johlke, 2006),

behavioral variables (Dixon, Spiro & Jamil, 2001) and customer orientation (Jaramillo, 2004).

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Churchill et al. (1985) identified factors affecting performance that were ranked as follows:

personal factors, skills, role variables, aptitude, motivation and organizational/environmental

factors. Deeter-Schemelz and Sojka (2007) identified the need for cognition and self-

monitoring as sales performance predictors.

Schwepker (2003) directly connected sales performance with salesperson orientation. Saxe

and Weitz (1982) mentioned that customer orientation is positively related to salesperson

performance and is its antecedent. On the other hand, Singh and Koshy (2011) expressed their

concern that much needs to be learned about the relationship between salesperson orientation

and salesperson performance.

It is evident that salesperson performance is central to organizational success due to its impact

on organizational survival and growth (Levy & Weitz, 2003). Up to now, little variance has

been explained by any of the abovementioned groups of determinants of salesperson

performance (Jaramillo et al., 2007).

3.2. Salesperson Orientation

Salesperson orientation is a construct that should be considered through two sub-constructs:

selling orientation (SO) and customer orientation (CO). This comes from the fact that during

sales encounters salespersons are often deployed in one of two distinctive selling situations:

the selling orientation or the customer orientation (Saxe & Weitz, 1982).

The selling orientation (SO) occurs when salespersons are primarily directed toward selling

activities (Shultze & Good, 2000). Under the selling concept, the salesperson seeks to

stimulate demand for the services or products being sold rather than selling services or

products in response to customer needs (Saxe & Weitz, 1982). In this orientation, some long-

term benefits may accrue, but with at least two types of costs: short-term returns for long-term

dividends and additional efforts that are required in order to reach a profit (Huang, 2008).

Evidently, many organizations, even today, operate in a selling-oriented environment, yet

Periatt, LeMay and Chakrabarty (2004) confirmed that the literature is deficient in research on

selling orientation, whether using portions of the SOCO scale or other scales.

On the other hand, support for the practice of CO selling has existed for a number of years.

However, prior to 1980, few published studies presented empirical data linking sales activities

to a CO perspective. Today, most of the published sales literature that deals with this topic

states that CO selling is mandatory for the professional salesperson (Keillor, Parker &

Pettijohn, 2000). CO selling can be viewed as a practice of the marketing concept at the level

of an individual salesperson (Saxe & Weitz, 1982, p.343). Thus CO became a key construct in

marketing literature (Homburg, Muller & Klarman, 2011) that has been included under the

concept of the marketing orientation of companies (Narver & Slater, 1990; Rindfleisch &

Moorman, 2003) as well as the customer orientation of individual employees, especially

salespersons (Baldauf & Cravens, 1999; Boles Barry, Thomas & Cbarles, 2001; Licata,

Mowen, Harris & Brown, 2003).

―Customer-oriented selling involves salespeople practicing the marketing concept by trying to

help their customers make purchase decisions that will satisfy customer needs‖ (Saxe &

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Weitz, 1982, p. 344). Based on their empirical research, Saxe and Weitz (1982) characterized

customer-oriented selling through six dimensions as follows:

1. The desire to help customers make satisfactory purchase decisions;

2. Helping customers assess their needs:

3. Offering products that will satisfy those needs;

4. Describing products accurately;

5. Avoiding deceptive or manipulative influence tactics;

6. Avoiding the use of high pressure.

Based on the literature review it is obvious that those constructs’ dimensions have never been

confirmed or denied through empirical research. Only Brown et al. (2002) argued that CO in

services is made up of two dimensions: needs and enjoyment. The needs dimension assesses

employees' beliefs about their capability to satisfy customer needs, while enjoyment assesses

the degree to which interacting with and servicing customers is inherently enjoyable for an

employee. Recently, Homburg, Muller and Klarman (2011, p. 56) define salesperson

customer orientation ―as the degree to which a salesperson identifies and meets customer

needs and interests in the different stages of a sales encounter.‖

By using CO, sales professionals try to satisfy customers’ internal and external needs (Shultze

& Good, 2000). A customer orientation requires that a seller understands the buyer's entire

value chain (Day & Wensley, 1988), not only as it is today but also as it will evolve over time

subject to internal and market dynamics. Keillor, Parker and Pettijohn (2000) argued that a

salesperson who is customer oriented will share the ability and willingness to adapt to a

variety of customers and selling situations by using adaptive selling techniques. Organizations

can use customer orientation and adaptive selling to predict whether a salesperson is a top or a

bottom performer (Jaramillo & Grisaffe, 2009).

In studies conducted in the past, the core meaning of CO remained relatively consistent but

conceptualizations varied considerably. It has been conceptualized as a selling method (Weitz

et al., 1986), a selling behavior (Sharma et al., 2000), a salesperson characteristic (Baldau f&

Cravens, 1999), communication (Gillis, Pitt, Robson & Berthon, 1998), an antecedent of job

attitudes (Keillor et al., 2000), an antecedent of performance (Boles et al., 2001), a dimension

of customer trust (Swan, Trawick & Silva, 1985), an antecedent of customer relationship

development (Schultz & Good, 2000), and a measure of performance (Brown, Widing &

Coulter, 1991).

Researchers have confirmed a positive relationship between customer/sales orientation and

job performance in both business-to-consumer (B2C) (Jaramillo 2004; Bass Hebert &

Tomkiewicz, 2003; Boles et al., 2001) and B2B settings (Keillor et al., 2000; Siguaw &

Honeycutt, 1995). Hsieh (1999) confirmed that CO, in insurance companies, is positively

related to sales performance. Jaramillo et al. (2007) confirmed that the relationship between

CO and performance is significantly moderated by neither customer type (B2B / B2C) nor the

type of performance measurement (subjective or objective measure). Homburg, Muller and

Klarmann (2011) tried to analyze the relationship of the salesperson’s CO with sales

performance and customer attitudes. They found that the optimal level of CO (with regards to

performance) is higher for custom-made products with a premium price strategy, and in

markets with a high degree of competitive intensity (Homburg et al., 2011).

From the above literature review, it is obvious that the orientation and job performance of a

salesperson are closely related.

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3.3. Adaptive Selling

In order to improve personal sales performance, marketing scholars have searched for optimal

personal sales strategies and tactics. The basic concept is that there is no single best way to

sell, and therefore a good salesperson will be adaptive enough to select and implement a sales

strategy based on the buyer’s personality (Roman & Iacobucci, 2010). This suggests that

adaptive selling should work better than any other medium of communication because sales

professionals should be able to develop a unique message for each customer. Therefore, in

order to be successful, a salesperson must behave adaptively and be able to adapt selling

strategies to the needs of each customer.

Adaptive selling behavior as a determinant of sales performance became a topic of interest in

the late 1970's through Weitz and his associates (Weitz, 1978, 1979, 1981; Saxe & Weitz

1982; Weitz at al., 1986) when they, for the first time, incorporated adaptive selling into a

conceptual model of salesperson performance. Weitz, Sujan and Sujan (1986, p. 175) defined

adaptive selling as the ―altering of sales behaviors during a customer interaction or across

customer interactions based on perceived information about the nature of the selling

situation.‖ Giacobbe, Jackson, Crosby and Bridges (2006) point out that adaptive selling is

useful when the sales offer is complex, when the seller has many alternatives to offer, the

customers’ needs are considerably diverse, and the sales relationship is expected to produce

future profit opportunities. The extent to which salespeople use adaptive selling behavior is

reflected in five facets (Spiro & Weitz, 1990):

1. Recognition that different customers need different sales approaches;

2. Confidence in using a number of approaches;

3. Confidence in changing approaches during a selling interaction;

4. Collection of information to facilitate selling adaptation;

5. Actual use of different selling approaches.

Therefore, salespersons with a strong ability to perceive situational differences and who are

capable of adjusting their approach based on the requirements of different selling situations

will achieve greater performance (Plouffeet al., 2009). This means that those who are

customer oriented will be able to use adaptive selling during contact with the customer and

therefore will perform better. Consequently, adaptive selling behaviors reflect the variety of

sales tactics available to salespersons while interacting with customers (Chakrabarty, Brown

& Widing, 2010).

Since effectiveness is not part of the definition, adaptive selling can be done in an effective or

an ineffective way. McFarland, Challagalla and Shervani (2006) supposed that effective

salespeople are those who match their selling (influence) tactics to suit the characteristics of

buyers. A widely accepted concept in sales literature is that influence tactics are the

mechanism through which salespersons persuade buyers in interactions (Spiro & Perreault,

1979). By definition, adaptive selling does not specify whether salespersons are acting with

the best interests of the customer in mind (Chakrabarty et al., 2010) or not, so we can

differentiate between ―open‖ and ―closed‖ selling tactics.

An open selling tactic can be considered any selling tactic without hidden objectives (Spiro &

Perreault, 1979), while a closed influence tactic involves the use of deception and hidden

purposes (Weitz, 1981). Using this taxonomy, salespeople who use closed influence tactics to

manipulate their customers are smugglers of influencers. Knowing that sales professionals are

expected to use ingratiatory behaviors to manage their impressions with customers (Spiro &

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Perreault, 1979), a dilemma exists whether these closed influence tactics help or hurt the

productivity of adaptive selling efforts.

A significant number of studies over the past 30 years have investigated the role of adaptive

selling in a number of personal selling variables, including salesperson characteristics and

abilities, situational variables, and multiple measures of sales performance (Giacobbeet al.,

2006; Robinson, Marshall, Lassk & Moncrief, 2002; Roman & Iacobucci, 2010).

Notarantonio and Cohen (1990) argued that an adaptive behavior should be a necessary

condition for sales performance and even effective managerial performance. The most

frequently investigated direct relationships are between adaptive selling and sales

performance and selling experience (Spiro & Weitz, 1990; Anglin, Stoltman & Gentry, 1990;

Siguaw, 1993; Blackshear & Plank, 1994; Sujan, Weitz, & Kumar, 1994; Predmore &

Bonnice, 1994; Boorom, Goolsby, & Ramsey, 1998; Keillor, Parker & Pettijohn, 2000; Park

& Holloway, 2003; Porter, Wiener & Frankwick, 2003; Verbeke, Belschak & Bagozzi 2004;

Chakrabarty et al., 2004; Giacobbe et al., 2006).

3.4. Personal Ethics

Based on his empirical research, Marchetti (1997) reported that 49% of sales managers are

familiar with the fact that their sales representatives have lied on a sales call. This confirms

why it is not strange that the ethics of salespeople have always been called into question. This

is even more disturbing when we know that research was done not so long ago in a time of

glaringly marketing-oriented organizations and win-win relationships. This is why the ethics

of salespersons should be an important topic of research in the fields of marketing and

business ethics (Donoho, Herche & Swenson, 2003). Lee, Beatson, Garrett, Lings and Zhang

(2009) pointed out that there are not many studies that deal with ethics in personal sales,

especially those that have been conducted in environments outside the USA (Marta,

Singhapakdi, Attia & Vitell, 2004; in Lee et al., 2009). It is extremely essential to examine

ethical behavior in cultures outside the USA because today’s sales activities are global, within

cross-cultural variations in ethical behavior (Wood, 1995).

Moral judgment is to be considered as an antecedent of ethical behavior (Wotruba, 1990) and

ethical decision making. Some of the most important models of ethical decision-making

(Rest, 1986; Ferrell, Gresham & Fraedrich, 1989; Wotruba, 1990) state that a moral judgment

is enacted prior to engaging in ethical behavior through one’s internal reasoning or thought

processes. Previous studies suggest that individuals with higher moral judgment should make

more ethical decisions (Jones, 1991). This was supported by Dubinsky et al. (2004) by

indicating that a salesperson’s moral judgment affects his/her intentions to act ethically or

unethically. This leads to the conclusion that moral judgment serves as a basis for ethical

decision making (Hosmer, 1985). Individuals use more than one rationale in making ethical

judgments and the importance of those rationales is a function of the problematic situation

faced by the individual (Reidenbach & Robin, 1990). This means that ethical judgment as an

antecedent of ethical decision-making should be seen and measured as a multidimensional

construct (Henthorne, Robin & Reidenbach 1990).

Ethics describes external behavior or a moral action taken (Barry, 1986). The Cambridge

Dictionary of Philosophy defines ―ethics‖ as ―the philosophical study of morality‖ (1995, p.

244).

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There is a general consensus that ethical selling activity is desirable (Cadogan & Lee, 2009)

because of the impact of ethical/unethical behavior on performance (Wotruba, 1990).

Therefore, more ethical salespeople are more successful (Roman & Munuera, 2005) and prior

empirical findings support this notion (Schwepker & Ingram, 1996).

On the other hand, considering that customer-oriented selling involves salespersons practicing

the marketing concept at the salesperson–buyer interface, Schwepker and Good (2011) argued

that those salespersons will have high moral judgment. This was explained with the thesis that

highly customer-oriented salespeople have high concern for others and themselves, while

salespersons with low customer orientation show high concern for themselves and low

concern for others (Schwepker & Good, 2011). The positive relationship between salesperson

having a customer orientation and ethics was confirmed by Honeycutt, Glassman, Zugelder

and Karande (2001) and Howe, Hoffman and Hardigree (1994).

It has been empirically confirmed that salespersons’ ethical behavior is positively associated

with customer trust in salespersons, customer satisfaction with their exchanges and

satisfaction with salespersons (Cadogan & Lee, 2009), customers’ commitment to

salespersons (Roman & Ruiz, 2005), and salesperson job satisfaction (Roman & Munuera,

2005). However, the relationship between adaptive selling behavior and salespersons’ ethical

behavior is not clear.

3.5. Emotional Intelligence

Salespersons must acquire skills that will allow them to secure and maintain buyer-seller

relationships (Churchill et al., 1985; Weitz, Sujan, & Sujan, 1986). Emotional intelligence has

been suggested as a critical factor in effective selling (Weitz, Castleberry & Tanner, 2001).

This and similar claims have been made in the sales literature over the past decade about the

contribution of emotional intelligence to sales performance.

The concept of emotional intelligence was defined at the beginning of the 1990s (Salovey &

Mayer, 1990) but interest in the interaction of emotions and intelligence started much earlier

(Thorndike, 1920; Piaget, 1954; Izard,1985; Lazarus, 1982; Gardner, 1983).

Salovey and Mayer’s (1990) construct of emotional intelligence included the ability to deal

with one’s own and others’ emotions and to use this information to assist individuals in

problem solving and decision making. Ten years later, Mayer, Salovey, & Caruso (2000)

agreed that this first definition (from 1990) was unclear and moved their focus to highlight

reasoning about or understanding of emotional processes in emotional intelligence, and

connected this to emotional effectiveness. According to some theorists, emotional intelligence

refers to a "long list of attributes or abilities that appear drawn from a number of aspects of

personality" (Mayer, Salovey & Caruso, 2000, p. 101). Goleman (2005, p. 317) defined

emotional intelligence as the ―capacity for recognizing our own feelings and those of others,

for motivating ourselves, and for managing emotions well in ourselves and in our

relationships."

The dimensions of emotional intelligence include self-confidence, self-control, emotional

awareness, and empathy (Mayer & Salovey, 1995). While there are similarities between

Salovey and Mayer’s (1990; 1993; 1994, 1995) earlier research and the work of other authors

on emotional intelligence (Bar-On, 2004; Goleman, 1995), there are some important

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differences. For example, Goleman’s (1998) construct of emotional intelligence includes

motivation and empathy. Mayer, Salovey and Caruso (2000) consider those factors beyond

the boundaries of emotional intelligence. Bar-On (1996) includes factors such as

assertiveness, self-esteem and independence in the emotional intelligence construct, while the

scope of Mayer and Salovey’s definition of emotional intelligence is defiantly beyond those.

Emotionally intelligent individuals may be more aware of their own feelings as well as the

feelings of others, better able to identify them, and better able to communicate them when

appropriate (Mayer & Salovey, 1995). It may be argued that many of the components of

emotional intelligence (i.e., empathy, long-term orientation, caring for other peoples’

feelings), are related to the customer orientation definition (Ingram, 1996; Pilling & Eroglu,

1994). Salespersons with greater emotional intelligence are more capable of selecting the

optimal course of action (Rozell, Pettijohn & Parker, 2004). Knowing that the basis of

adaptive selling is to understand the character of selling situations (Spiro & Weitz, 1990), to

select a proper sales strategy according to the selling situation, and to make appropriate

corrections during the course of interaction with customers (Baldauf & Cravens, 2002), it can

be concluded that only an emotionally intelligent salesperson will be able to exercise adaptive

selling.

Emotional intelligence studies in the sales context are limited (Davies, Stankov, & Roberts,

1998; Deeter-Schmelz & Sojka, 2003). Recently, Deeter-Schmelz and Sojka (2003, p. 217)

suggested, based on their qualitative research, that emotional intelligence might be an

important characteristic for sales success. Rozelli, Pettijohn & Parker (2004) proved that

higher emotional intelligence is positively associated with higher levels of customer

orientation. Kim (2010) confirmed that greater emotional intelligence on the part of the

salesperson results in better adaptive selling and positive emotional expression.

Researchers have struggled to measure the concept of emotional intelligence (Mayer, Caruso,

& Salovey, 2000). Salovey, Brackett and Meyer's (2007) explained this through the notion

that emotional intelligence ―has been introduced to a broader psychological audience just 13

years ago, and reliable and valid measures of the construct have only been used in scientific

investigations for about 5 years.‖

4. PURPOSE, AIM AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS

While the sales literature is in agreement on the basic theoretical constructs which facilitate

buyer-seller relationships (Spiro & Weitz, 1990; Berry & Gresham, 1986; Saxe & Weitz,

1982) as well as the actual nature of the relationship process (Dwyer et al., 1987), no clear

understanding exists of the impact of the individual relational constructs on a given

salesperson's performance (Keillor, Parker & Pettijohn, 2000). The purpose of this

dissertation is to deepen the existing knowledge on salesperson performance and its

antecedents, as well as to investigate the effect of relationally based characteristics of

individual salespersons on their performance by using two widely accepted relational

characteristics (i.e., salesperson orientation and adaptability). The conceptual framework

developed in this dissertation could help both practitioners and academics to gain new

knowledge about emotional intelligence and the personal ethics that shape seller behavior as

an antecedent of performance.

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The main research question this dissertation will address is the nature of the relationship

between personal ethics and emotional intelligence with salesperson behavior (salesperson

orientation and adaptive selling) on the one hand, and salesperson behavior and performance

on the other. Thesis should confirm that sales performance could be explained by salesperson

behavior and predetermined personal characteristics.

Keillor, Parker and Pettijohn (2000) confirmed that it would seem imperative to conduct

empirical research that examines relationship issues regarding salesperson orientation,

adaptive sales tactics and salesperson performance.

The research questions addressed in this dissertation are as follows:

1. To what extent is the most dominant salesperson orientation in the Balkan region a

function of

the ethics of the salesperson?

the emotional intelligence of the salesperson?

2. To what extent is the exercise of adaptive selling in the Balkan region a function of

the ethics of the salesperson?

the emotional intelligence of the salesperson?

3. What is the nature of the relationship between salesperson orientation and adaptive

selling?

4. What is the nature of the relationship between salesperson orientation and sales

performance?

5. What is the nature of the relationship between adaptive selling and sales performance?

The main aim of the dissertation is to develop a tool that will allow companies to profile

higher performing sellers (based on their emotional intelligence and ethics). Therefore, the

model will examine sales performance as a function of sales behavior which is conditioned by

one’s emotional intelligence and personal ethics.

5. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

5.1. Research model

Theoretical research on the thesis started with a literature review aiming to establish a

theoretical framework and to give an overview of previous studies. This includes the analysis

of journal articles, scientific books and relevant web sources. Methods such as description,

compilation, deduction and induction will be used.

Empirical research will start with qualitative methods by using partly structured in-depth

interviews with sales experts. Five representatives will take part in the research with the aim

of helping gain a better understanding of the each constructs, relationships between them and

practical implications for industrial sales. This phase will also be conducted in order to help

us better structure the questionnaire.

Quantitative research will follow and will be conducted in three countries (Bosnia and

Herzegovina, Croatia and Slovenia) within a non-probability (judgment) sample of

salespersons. Industrial salespersons from the three target countries will be invited to

participate in the research.

11

Quantitative research will test hypotheses based on theory and prior empirical evidence. The

data will be analyzed using univariate, bivariate and multivariate statistical analysis.

Structural equation modelling using LISREL will be applied. The structural equation

modeling was chosen because of its ability to examine the whole conceptual model and not

only the relationship between separate variables (Hu & Bentler, 1995).

Figure 1: Proposed research model

Based on the theoretical background, the only dependent research construct in this model is

salesperson performance, while independent constructs are personal ethics and emotional

intelligence. The relationship between dependent and independent constructs is moderated by

the mediating factors of salesperson orientation and adaptive selling. All proposed constructs

will be pre-tested through a pilot study. This will allow redefinition of the measurement

instrument and its proper usage in the main research.

5.2. Research instrument

It is expected that research instrument will consist of multi-item scales adopted from the

literature. The highly structured questionnaire will be used in a self-administered Internet-

based survey. Questionnaire will be posted online in the native languages of all the countries

included. In order to do that, procedure for doing international marketing cross-cultural

research will be observed (Craig & Douglas, 2001; Steenkamp et al., 2010). Similar to the

research done by Vida, Dmitrovic and Obadia (2008) it will be particularly important to pay

attention to linguistic issues of the research instrument, because Bosnian and Croatian

languages differ in various nuances only, that serve as ethnical, religious, social and political

differentiation.

The research questionnaire will consist of five parts. The first part of the questionnaire is

intended to measure the individual moral values of the salesperson. This multidimensional

ethics scale, originally designed by Reidenbach (1988) and redesigned by Reidenbach et al.

(1990, 1992) will be used to determine salesperson moral judgment in a way that respondents

should react to three scenarios by responding to eight, five-point, semantic differential

statements anchored by bipolar adjectives (e.g., fair/unfair; morally right/not morally right)

after reading each scenario. The second part of the questionnaire should measure emotional

12

intelligence through Self Report Emotional Intelligence Test (SSEIT) developed by Schutte et

al. (1998). The instrument measures emotional intelligence through factors: emotional-

awareness, emotional/other control, external emotion control.

The third part includes questions on salesperson orientation measured by a 10-item Selling

Orientation-Customer Orientation (SOCO) scale (Saxe & Weitz, 1982). The original SOCO

scale contained 24 items, while Thomas, Soutar and Ryan (2001) proposed a revised version

with 10 items, which is the form that will be used. The fourth part is the ADAPTS-SV scale

which measures the construct of adaptive selling. The ADAPTS scale was developed by Spiro

and Weitz (1990) and originally consisted of 16 items, while Robinson et al. (2000) redefined

it with 5 items and labeled it as ADAPTS-SV. This shorter form will be used. Items in third

and forth part will be measured on a seven-point scale ranging from "strongly disagree" (1) to

"strongly agree" (7).

The fifth part of the research questionnaire will include a scale measuring subjective self-

reported sales performance. The subjective performance scale, developed by Behrman and

Perreault (1982), redefined by Johlke et al. (2000), is largely used as a 6-item self-report

performance scale. Scale employs 7-point Likert format, where respondents rate their

performance from ―much worse than the other salespeople in this company‖ (1) to ―much

better than the other salespeople in my company‖ (7). The last part of the questionnaire will

consist of demographic data.

5. CONTRIBUTION TO THE FIELD OF KNOWLEDGE

The dissertation will contribute to the knowledge in the field of sales management in

theoretical, methodological and managerial aspects.

The thesis will offer a comprehensive and systematic overview of previous theoretical

knowledge and empirical research, by developing a conceptual model of sales performance

which will address gaps in the existing literature. Proposed theoretical approach to

salesperson performance will take into consideration seller behavior, ethics and emotional

intelligence. This new view is extremely important because past studies have often been

concerned with how sales perspectives are related to outcome variables, such as job

satisfaction and organizational commitment. Relatively few studies connected sales

perspectives to actual sales performance, despite the fact that performance is an important

variable for both managers (Stevens & Kinni, 2007) and academics (Jones et al., 2003).

Therefore, this doctoral dissertation will also introduce a theoretical framework for

salespersons’ recruitment through their ethics and emotional intelligence as antecedents of

sales behavior and sales performance.

Methodological contributions lie in the detailed review of the acquired knowledge about

constructs, brought by the empirical research. Therefore, it will test the proposed scales in

different environments and (dis)confirm their universality. Studies of this type have mostly

been conducted in US and Asia. There has been no research on this topic in selected

countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Slovenia, as well as in Europe (except

Herche, Swenson, & Verbeke, 1996, who researched CO and adaptability in Holland). The

thesis will offer new knowledge about constructs and increase awareness of the importance of

regional studies in order to enhance regional sales performance. The thesis should contribute

13

to the understanding of industrial salespersons in the context of this geographical area, and

therefore in all emerging markets.

The dissertation will have great managerial implications by assisting practitioners in building

understanding of sales performance antecedents. Based on the findings of this research,

practitioners should be able to understand who will be a prosperous seller based on his/her

individual characteristics. By testing the personal ethics and emotional intelligence of a

salesperson it should be possible to predict whether he/she will be able to use adaptive selling

and particular orientations and whether this will result with top performance. In this way, the

recruitment process could be easily incorporated into company plans.

6. STRUCTURE OF THE DOCTORAL DISSERTATION

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1. Broader scientific research area

1.2. Subject of the research

1.3. Purpose, aim and research questions

1.4. Research methodology

1.5. Contribution to the field of knowledge

1.5. Structure of the doctoral dissertation

2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

2.1. Substantive theories in the B2B literature

2.2. Personal selling definitions

2.3. Personal selling performance

2.4. Salespersons’ orientation (SO-CO)

2.5. Adaptive selling

2.6. Emotional intelligence in personal selling

2.7. Ethics in personal selling

3. EMPIRICAL RESEARCH

3.1. Conceptual model and research hypothesis

3.2. Research methodology

3.2.1. Constructs operationalization

3.2.2. Pilot research

3.2.3. Data collection process

3.2.4. Sample characteristics

3.3. Results of the empirical research

3.3.1. Hypothesis testing

3.3.2. Discussion

4. RESEARCH IMPLICATIONS

4.1. Theoretical and methodological contributions

4.2. Managerial implications

4.3. Research limitations

5. CONCLUSION

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APENDIX

14

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