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The role of humor usage on creativity, trust and performance in business relationships: An analysis of the salesperson-customer dyad
Abstract
Using humor wisely is known to have many benefits in a work-related setting. Despite these potential benefits, there is limited research on this phenomenon in a business-to-business selling context. In light of this absence, the authors introduce a theoretical model explaining the role of humor usage in a salesperson-customer encounter. Specifically, the purpose of this paper is to examine the simultaneous influence of salesperson humor usage on creativity and customer trust, which in turn affect objective sales performance. Using 149 salesperson-customer dyads from a cross-industry survey, the results indicate that (1) salesperson humor usage positively influences salesperson creativity and customer trust, (2) which in turn mediates the influence of humor on objective sales performance. In addition, (3) customer trust also influences word-of-mouth propensity and expectation of relationship continuity. The article's broader contribution is that humor usage may be a fundamental human ability that is central for enhancing creativity and developing strong relationships in a business-to-business setting.
... Humor refers to the actions or words of a person that are meant to be funny and result in laughter from the audience (Martin & Ford, 2018). Although numerous studies have highlighted the positive impact of humor on an organization and its customers, such as enhanced customer trust and sales performance, shortened psychological distance, and increased influence (Bompar et al., 2018;Lussier et al., 2017), the effects of humor on the actor have been understudied. Moreover, the current research on the outcomes of humor mainly focuses on workplace behavior, such as organizational citizenship behavior (OCB; Cooper et al., 2018), service creativity (Peng et al., 2020), deviate behavior (Yam et al., 2018), and employee incivility (Huang et al., 2022). ...
... Positive humor is often thought to shorten psychological distance and increase influence, whereas negative humor is associated with negative emotions and lower relationship quality (Bompar et al., 2018;Miron-Spektor et al., 2022). Salespeople frequently use humor to attract customers' attention, improve relationships, and facilitate transactions in sales interactions (Lussier et al., 2017). Thus, we define humor as an intentional interpersonal behavior (Cooper et al., 2018), and salesperson humor usage (SPHU) refers to the extent to which a salesperson uses humor with each customer. ...
... Thus, we define humor as an intentional interpersonal behavior (Cooper et al., 2018), and salesperson humor usage (SPHU) refers to the extent to which a salesperson uses humor with each customer. Lussier et al. (2017) revealed multiple values of SPHU, which not only improves their creativity and sales performance but also promotes customers' trust, word-of-mouth, and expectation of continuity. Miron-Spektor et al. (2022) revealed that using humor in TED talks can increase the speaker's influence, including the number of views, the inspiration of the talk, and the perceived leadership qualities of the speaker. ...
Salesperson humor usage (SPHU) is often linked with positive outcomes, but little is known about its potential negative effects on salespeople. This study uses ego depletion theory to investigate the negative spillover effect of daily SPHU on work–family conflict via experience sampling method, using data from 109 salespeople over 10 workdays. Results show that daily SPHU is positively associated with daily work–family conflict through increased daily ego depletion. Moreover, the study examines daily supervisor developmental feedback as a context‐relevant moderator that can alleviate the relationship between daily SPHU and ego depletion. By detailing the mediating and moderating mechanisms of daily SPHU spill‐over in a sales interaction context, this study not only supports the perspective of ego depletion in understanding the dark sides of daily SPHU but also offers insights for organizations to inhibit its negative effects.
... This research further intends to investigate the underlying mechanism between the humorous content produced by travel SMIs and viewers' visit intention guided by the trust transfer theory (Stewart, 2003). Previous studies demonstrated that humour enables to increase in trust in different contexts, such as increasing customers' trust in the business context (Lussier et al., 2017) and increasing employees' trust in the human resources management context (Zheng et al., 2022). Hence, this research proposes that the humorous material shared by travel SMIs is likely to boost the viewers' trust in the influencer. ...
... Previous research demonstrated that individuals with humorous characteristics are more inclined to gain trust from other people in different research fields (Daumiller et al., 2020;Lussier et al., 2017;Zheng et al., 2022). For example, Lussier et al. (2017) demonstrated that salespeople who are humorous are more inclined to increase customers' trust in the business field. ...
... Previous research demonstrated that individuals with humorous characteristics are more inclined to gain trust from other people in different research fields (Daumiller et al., 2020;Lussier et al., 2017;Zheng et al., 2022). For example, Lussier et al. (2017) demonstrated that salespeople who are humorous are more inclined to increase customers' trust in the business field. Similarly, Daumiller et al. (2020) indicated that teachers' humour enables to strengthen students' trust in the university teaching context. ...
... Such devotions of resources and time can be seen as important manifestations of perceived relationship investment for tourists. Furthermore, TGH signals tour guides' concern for tourists and represents their sense of caring (Lussier et al., 2017). From a perspective of social exchange (Homans, 1958), TGH directly reflects the cognitive and emotional resource investments that tour guides make to enhance relationships with tourists in the exchange process. ...
... The correct use of humor reflects the capacity of tour guides to adjust to new circumstances (Martin et al., 2003) and is a direct manifestation of tour guides' professionalism (Li et al., 2022). Besides, TGH provides tourists with a reassuring signal that tour guides are in control and have sufficient self-confidence in amusing tourists (Lussier et al., 2017). Therefore, TGH is believed to positively influence trust in tour guides based on Mayer et al.'s (1995) framework. ...
... In line with Chang (2014), TGH is deemed to positively predict tourists' trust in tour guides. Furthermore, rooted in SET, when tourists realize that tour guides spend social resources, such as time and attention, to prepare humor, they may develop trust toward tour guides as returned social resources, given that trust represents a valuable social resource (Lussier et al., 2017). On the aforementioned grounds, this study hypothesizes the following: ...
Purpose
Tour guides often use humor to entertain tourists, but the process of tour guide humor (TGH) affecting tourists’ positive word of mouth (PWOM) remains unclear. To fill the gap, this study aims to investigate how TGH enhances tourists’ PWOM through perceived relationship investment, perceived wellness value and trust in tour guides.
Design/methodology/approach
A comprehensive mediation model was proposed based on social exchange theory (SET). Data were obtained from 335 tour group tourists and analyzed using structural equation modeling.
Findings
Results present that TGH positively predicts tourists’ PWOM. Perceived relationship investment, perceived wellness value and trust in tour guides not only play mediating roles between TGH and tourists’ PWOM, respectively, but also jointly provide two sequential mediation paths (TGH → perceived relationship investment → trust in tour guides → tourists’ PWOM and TGH → perceived wellness value → trust in tour guides → tourists’ PWOM).
Research limitations/implications
The findings have practical value for tour guides and travel agencies to use TGH to improve tourists’ PWOM.
Originality/value
The major contribution is that a reciprocity-based framework rooted in SET was proposed to parse the complex process of TGH promoting tourists’ PWOM. Furthermore, this study enriches current knowledge by confirming that perceived wellness value is not only available in wellness tourism but can be experienced from TGH in mass tourism.
... The primary goal of the current studies is to test the hypothesis that individuals who are exposed to humorous cartoons perform more creatively than those who are not exposed to humor. This expectation is grounded in previously demonstrated causal links between humor and creativity (Lang & Lee, 2010;Lussier et al., 2017;Ziv, 1976Ziv, , 1983. Additionally, theoretical frameworks on incongruity suggest that humor can enhance creative generation (Ferris, 1972;Murdock & Ganim, 1993;Wicker, 1985). ...
... Specifically, participants exposed to humorous cartoons generated more ideas compared to those who were not exposed to humor (Hypothesis 1). This observed increase in ideation among participants exposed to humorous cartoons is consistent with a growing body of literature (Lang & Lee, 2010;Lussier et al., 2017;Ziv, 1976Ziv, , 1983, positioning our study as a significant empirical addition. Intersecting our results with existing theories, particularly incongruity theories, elucidates the nuanced dynamics of humor's role in creative thinking. ...
While humor has been a subject of fascination for people since ancient times, research examining the effect of humor on creative behavior has been relatively scarce in recent decades, despite the reciprocal relationship between these variables. Moreover, it is not apparent whether the effect of humor on creativity significantly varies based on various personality traits or differences in humor usage. Thus, we presented two studies aiming to investigate these issues, with a particular focus on the manipulation of humor styles, namely self-enhancing humor and self-defeating humor, along with a control condition. Study 1 focused on the effect of humor and personality traits on creativity. Humor was manipulated using cartoons, and participants were asked to generate alternative uses for an ordinary object in a creativity task. Study 2 was a continuation of the first study, where the state of extraversion in participants was manipulated. The findings revealed that the participants who did read humorous cartoons generated more ideas than those who did not read cartoons. Moreover, personality traits moderated the effect of self-defeating humor on creative behavior. These findings underscore the important role of personality traits in the relationship between humor and creativity and provide valuable insights for future studies on the experimental manipulation of humor styles.
... Prior studies tend to rely more on buyers than sellers, and a small group (n = 29.14%) is devoted to the dyadic relationship (Lussier et al., 2017;Mir et al., 2017;Narayandas and Rangan, 2004). Therefore, we recommend more studies designed to capture the B2B relationship instead of focusing on a single partner or both independently. ...
... The latter deals with the type of market, the firm and product characteristics and the competitive intensity (Bode et al., 2011;Brown et al., 2011). Some control variables somehow overlap with the moderators, for instance, the characteristics of the firm (firm size, age, type and power), relationship length and duration, market uncertainty or even the product characteristics (size, complexity and type) Lussier et al., 2017). However, control variables also consider the country of origin (Reardon et al., 2017) or employee socio-demographics (Kemp et al., 2020). ...
Purpose-The purpose of this paper is to offer a comprehensive overview of current research on customer behavior in the business-to-business (B2B) context and propose a research agenda for future studies. Despite being a relatively recent area of interest for academics and practitioners, a literature review that synthesizes existing knowledge into coherent topics and outlines a research agenda for future research is still lacking. Design/methodology/approach-Drawing on a systematic literature review of 219 papers and using a text-mining approach based on the Latent Dirichlet Allocation algorithm, this paper enhances the existing knowledge of B2B customer behavior and provides a descriptive analysis of the literature. Findings-From this review, ten major research topics are found and analyzed. These topics were analyzed through the lens of the Theory, Context, Characteristics and Method framework, providing a summary of key findings from prior studies. Additionally, an integrative framework was developed, offering insights into future research directions. Originality/value-This study presents a novel contribution to the field of B2B by providing a systematic review of the topic of customer behavior, filling a gap in the literature and offering a valuable resource for scholars and managers seeking to advance the field.
... Prior studies tend to rely more on buyers than sellers, and a small group (n = 29.14%) is devoted to the dyadic relationship (Lussier et al., 2017;Mir et al., 2017;Narayandas and Rangan, 2004). Therefore, we recommend more studies designed to capture the B2B relationship instead of focusing on a single partner or both independently. ...
... The latter deals with the type of market, the firm and product characteristics and the competitive intensity (Bode et al., 2011;Brown et al., 2011). Some control variables somehow overlap with the moderators, for instance, the characteristics of the firm (firm size, age, type and power), relationship length and duration, market uncertainty or even the product characteristics (size, complexity and type) Lussier et al., 2017). However, control variables also consider the country of origin (Reardon et al., 2017) or employee socio-demographics (Kemp et al., 2020). ...
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to offer a comprehensive overview of current research on customer behavior in the business-to-business (B2B) context and propose a research agenda for future studies. Despite being a relatively recent area of interest for academics and practitioners, a literature review that synthesizes existing knowledge into coherent topics and outlines a research agenda for future research is still lacking.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing on a systematic literature review of 219 papers and using a text-mining approach based on the Latent Dirichlet Allocation algorithm, this paper enhances the existing knowledge of B2B customer behavior and provides a descriptive analysis of the literature.
Findings
From this review, ten major research topics are found and analyzed. These topics were analyzed through the lens of the Theory, Context, Characteristics and Method framework, providing a summary of key findings from prior studies. Additionally, an integrative framework was developed, offering insights into future research directions.
Originality/value
This study presents a novel contribution to the field of B2B by providing a systematic review of the topic of customer behavior, filling a gap in the literature and offering a valuable resource for scholars and managers seeking to advance the field.
... In this context, another author stated that similarity of life stages, cultural background, work attitude, and personality among the buyers and sellers positively impacts management of relationship and quality of relationship (K. A. M. Ali et al., 2008). Further, the communication abilities of salespeople, the strength of their relationships, and their trust are the primary aspects that affect their sales performance (Drollinger & Comer, 2013;Lussier et al., 2017). Thus, efficient buyer-seller interaction can influence an organization's sales performance. ...
... S.Wang, 2018), (Y. S.Wang, 2018),(Drollinger & Comer, 2013) )( Lussier et al., 2017) ...
... In this research, we elected to focus on affiliative humor for three key reasons. First, abundant research in marketing (e.g., Bompar, Lunardo, and Saintives 2018;Lussier, Grégoire, and Vachon 2017) and meta-analyses in psychology (Mesmer-Magnus, Glew, and Viswesvaran 2012; Plessen et al. 2020;Schneider, Voracek, and Tran 2018) find that affiliative humor is associated with more favorable outcomes (e.g., amusement, wellbeing, life satisfaction, etc.) than other forms of humor. Second, in a social media context, research reports that observers' responses are especially positive when companies use affiliative humor (Béal and Grégoire, 2022;Shin and Larson, 2020). ...
... In this research, we demonstrate that incivility represents a special context for the use of humor as a recovery tactic targeting observers. The benefits of humor in marketing are well documented (e.g., Bompar, Lunardo, and Saintives 2018;Lussier, Grégoire, and Vachon 2017), and the use of humor on social media has received growing attention (Batista et al. 2022;Liao, Li, and Filieri 2022), especially when firms respond to online complaints (Béal and Grégoire 2022;Shin and Larson 2020). Accordingly, the current research extends prior work on humor by examining its effects in the context of incivility on social media. ...
This research investigates whether companies’ use of humor is an effective strategy to address complainers’ incivility on social media. Using three main experiments, the authors examine observers’ evaluation of companies’ humorous responses on social media in relation to the degree of incivility of the complaints. The authors find, first, that observers develop greater purchase intentions toward companies that use humor to respond to uncivil complaints. Drawing on benign violation theory, they explain that observers are less committed to uncivil complainers, which makes the use of humor more benign and thus more amusing. Second, they compare the effectiveness of humor with an accommodative recovery (e.g., apologies). When the complaint is civil, an accommodative recovery is a more effective strategy than affiliative humor. However, when the complaint is uncivil, affiliative humor is more interesting than an accommodative recovery because of greater engagement with the post (i.e., likes and shares) and similar purchase intentions. Theoretical and managerial implications of these results are then discussed.
... All this reinforces the positive relationship between creativity and customer satisfaction (Strutton et al., 2009) and consolidates the significant role of creative selling in building strong, long-term relationships with customers (Bradford et al., 2010;Pullins et al., 2012). It is therefore unsurprising that salesperson creativity is often identified as a key driver of sales performance and is even more significant than establishing trusting customer relationships (Lassk & Shepherd, 2013;Lussier et al., 2017). Hence, it is important to examine in depth the factors that determine creativity in sales, especially taking into consideration that creativity is considered an under-researched area in the sales domain (Evans et al., 2012). ...
... The idea that positive emotions can broaden salespeople's thinking, making them more creative and thus improving their performance, can be found in recent sales research such as that of Lin et al. (2016) and Lussier et al. (2017). On the other hand, Fredrickson's (2001) theory of positive emotions that considers that individuals differ in their ability to evaluate and regulate their emotions, with differences in their capacity to process emotional information, constitutes an adequate framework in the marketing and sales literature (i.e., Kidwell et al., 2007). ...
Research on salesperson creativity remains as one of the most under‐researched topics in the sales literature despite the evidence that encouraging creativity in the sales domain is a source of competitive advantage. This paper aims to fill this research gap by exploring the influence of perceived ethical climate on salesperson creative performance, paying special attention to the role that emotions play in this process. Data provided by 176 supervisor–salesperson dyads confirm that the trust/responsibility dimension of an ethical climate is positively related to salesperson creative selling by increasing salespeople's organizational pride. Similarly, the perception of unethical selling practices negatively affects salesperson organizational pride, reducing the expression of creative behaviors. Moreover, the negative effect of unethical selling practices on creative performance is stronger (more negative) when salespeople's identification with an organization increases. Managerial implications and future research directions are also addressed.
... Similarly, Lussiera et al. (11) found that affiliative humor was positively related to creativity, and Kocak (17) identified affiliative humor was positively related to academics' creativity. Moreover, Yue and Hui (18) found affiliative humor was positively correlated with creative personality traits, whereas Chang et al. (12) found affiliative humor was not related to creative potential but positively related to divergent feelings, flexibility, creative attitude. ...
... Therefore, it can be said that affiliative humor successfully increased convergent thinking. This finding is in line with correlational research Lussiera et al. (11) . Our result also showed that aggressive humor also increased convergent thinking instead of decreasing. ...
Previous correlational studies suggest that negative humor style such as aggressive humor style is negatively and positive humor style such as affiliative humor style is positively correlated with creativity. However, it is not yet to experimentally demonstrate the effect of aggressive and affiliative humor on creativity. Therefore, this experimental study was designed to investigate the effect of affiliative humor (AF) and aggressive humor (AG) on creative thinking. The researcher included 60 (38 male, 22 female) participants and randomly assigned 20 in each of AF, AG, and control conditions. To induce humor, theyused12 jokes in each condition. They used Remote Association Task (RAT) for convergent thinking and Alternative Use of task (AUT) for divergent thinking to measure individual creativity. The author expected that (i) people who engage in affiliative humor would perform better at convergent thinking tasks than the control group and the aggressive humor group, (ii) people who engage in affiliative humor would perform better at divergent thinking tasks than the control group and aggressive humor group. Results showed that the affiliative humor successfully induced convergent thinking better than the control group and aggressive humor in the RAT score. Similarly, AF humor successfully induced better creativity than the control group and AG humor group in three components of divergent thinking; fluency, flexibility, and elaboration. However, the mean score of AF humor was better than the AG humor group but not significant. In addition, aggressive humor, likewise affiliative humor, also induced creative thinking in the RAT task and AUT. Thus, the results partially supported all the hypotheses and indicated that in real life, humor induces individual creative thinking whether the humor is positive or negative, it doesn't matter. Both types of humor increase creative thinking.
... As Bill, Feurer, and Klarmann (2020) argue, one of the main benefits of social media for B2B salespeople is the ability to build effective relationships and improve customers' loyalty. That is, by actively engaging with others and sharing valuable content, B2B salespeople can establish themselves as experts while building customer trust and, ultimately, improve their sales (Franck and Damperat 2023;Lussier, Grégoire, and Vachon 2017). Like CRM tools, social media can also be used to gather intelligence on potential customers (Itani, Agnihotri, and Dingus 2017) and increase customer relationship performance (Ogilvie et al. 2018). ...
... Creativity is a multifaceted concept and is commonly defined as a behavior or outcome that is both novel and appropriate (Plucker et al., 2004). A large number of studies have shown that creativity is beneficial for human development and performance such as lowering the perception of task difficulty (e.g., Richard et al., 2018) and increasing resilience (Metzl, 2009), happiness , well-being (Acar et al., 2021;Tan et al., 2021), and sales performance (Lussier et al., 2017), just to name a few. Researchers from different disciplines are thus keen to discover ways to enhance creativity. ...
... This scale encompasses four dimensions of EI. Creativity questions were adapted from the study by Lussier et al. (2017). Innovativeness questions were adapted from Hurt et al. (1977) and Pallister & Foxall, (1998). ...
Employers must cultivate a conducive environment for employee innovation and productivity. This study focused on the impact of emotional intelligence (EI) on creativity and innovation among multi-generational employees in Kuala Lumpur's financial sector. 132 employees participated, with results analyzed using SPSS and SmartPls version 4. Findings reveal that only the Use of Emotions (UOE) dimension significantly boosts creativity, while age moderates the link between creativity and innovation. This study offers insights valuable for recruitment, training, and organizational management. It contributes fresh perspectives to existing knowledge, marking the first of its kind in this context.
... In e-commerce, incorporating humor into website design can enhance customer service satisfaction, intention to revisit the website, and willingness to recommend (van Dolen et al., 2008). In interpersonal service, the integration of humor within employee-customer interactions assumes a pivotal role in fostering rapport-building behaviors while concurrently augmenting trust, service quality, satisfaction, purchase intentions, and word-of-mouth intentions (Lussier et al., 2017;Shin and Larson, 2020). ...
... Likewise, institutional settings of self-related humour types have the opposite relationship with individual creativity in an organizational environment. Lussiera et al. (2017) found that self-enhancing humour positively influenced creativity in a salesperson. Deog-Rolee (2015) identified leaders' self-enhancing humour was positively related to subordinates' individual creativity. ...
Humour enhances creativity, but the question is whether different types of humour have a similar effect on improving individual creativity. It is evident that negative humour style is negatively related to creativity, while positive humour style is positively related to it. However, no evidence has been found that self-related humour (self-enhancing and self-defeating humour) directly affects creative thinking in the experimental setting. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the effect of self-related humour on convergent and divergent creative thinking. We included 60 (38 male, 22 female) participants and randomly assigned 20 in each condition to conduct this experiment. To evoke humour, we used 12 stimuli (12 self-enhancing jokes, 12 self-defeating jokes, and 12 non-humorous statements) in each condition. Remote Association Task (RAT) was used to measure convergent thinking, and Alternative Uses Task (AUT) was used to measure divergent thinking. We expected that i) people who engage in self-enhancing humour would perform better at convergent thinking tasks than the control group and the self-defeating humour group and ii) people who engage in self-enhancing humour would perform better at divergent thinking tasks than the control group and the self-defeating humour group. Our results supported our hypotheses and suggested that self-enhancing humour induced individual creativity both in convergent or divergent thinking (originality, fluency, flexibility). In contrast, self-defeating humour failed to affect either convergent or divergent thinking.
... Front-line employees and consumers use humor in the service environment to communicate and provoke laughter to delight the target while regulating their emotions [18]. The research found that employees' humor in service effectively increases consumer trust, consumer satisfaction, repurchase intention, and word of mouth [58]. The positive effect of humor still holds when service failures. ...
Prior research has shown that humor can positively impact service recovery in face-to-face interactions. However, the efficacy of using humor in virtual environments for chatbots to address service failures remains unclear. Through three experiments in different populations, this paper found that using humorous emojis by chatbots can help increase consumers' willingness to continue using chatbots after service failures (i.e., reuse intention) and the underlying mechanism; that is, the level of consumers perceiving the degree of the chatbot's intelligence (i.e., perceived intelligence) partially mediates the relationship between humorous emojis use and consumers' reuse intention. Further, how people form impressions about others based on limited information (i.e., implicit personality) significantly moderates the influence path from humorous emojis use to perceived intelligence, and perceived intelligence is more likely to mediate for people who see challenging situations as opportunities (i.e., incremental theorists). In conclusion, this paper provides empirical evidence supporting the potential benefits of using humorous emojis in chatbot service recovery, and offers guidance to online retailers to leverage digital technology for effective consumer engagement.
... Employee creativity is defined as any idea and act that extends beyond the existing work standards or procedures in order to provide better service production or delivery [14]. As a powerful form of coping technique, humor is intended to be amusing in social communication [39], enhancing workplace outcomes, such as subordinate organization citizenship behaviors and leader-member exchange [11], performance, and creativity [40], and relieving potential work stress [11]. This multisource research has examined the importance of humor to employees, leaders, and organizations. ...
Based on the relief theory and similarity attraction theory, this study investigates the influence of leader humor on employee creativity through the mediate impact of employees’ perceived workload, occupational coping self-efficacy, and employee similarity perception with a leader as a potential moderator. The data were collected through an online survey that included matched questionnaire data from 351 employees and their direct leaders in China. This study used SPSS 26 software and Mplus 7.0 software to analyze the data and found that (1) leader humor has a significant positive impact on employees’ creativity; (2) employees’ perceived workload and occupational coping self-efficacy mediated the positive relationship between leader humor and employee creativity; (3) similarity perception negatively moderated the influence of leader humor on perceived workload, and it also positively moderated the influence of leader humor on occupational coping self-efficacy. In addition to corroborating and expanding on previous findings regarding the relationship between leader humor and employee creativity during the COVID-19 period, the aforementioned conclusions also derive management implications for fostering employee creativity and reducing employee workload from the perspective of leader humor.
... Trust is a belief in the virtue and credibility of the salesperson (Lussier, Grégoire, & Vachon, 2017). ...
The development of a business model requires SMEs to develop and strive to make their business run smoothly and develop for the better. Therefore, to catch up with big business competitors, it requires business cooperation. This study aims to determine the effect of partner capabilities and economic benefits on the decision to continue a business partnership that mediated by trust. To analyze the model, this study used 80 SMEs that partnered with Lamongan Mart. We used the partial least square (PLS) method to test the hypothesis. The results show that there is a significant effect of partner capability on trust. Economic benefits have a significant effect on trust. The decision to continue the partnership is significantly influenced by the partner's capabilities and economic benefits. Trust has a significant effect on the decision to continue the partnership. In conclusion, trust can mediate partner capabilities and economic benefits to the decision to continue the partnership.
... Supporting research suggests firms that encourage and reinforce service creativity among their frontline employees are likely to reap the benefits in performance growth (Tsai & Huang, 2019). Given this, it is not surprising that salesperson creativity has been strongly linked to performance, particularly in the presence of customer-directed extra role behaviors (Wang & Miao, 2015;Lussier, Grégoire, & Vachon, 2017). As such, one may expect from what precedes that creative selling will be positively related to job performance: ...
The present research examines how customer and selling orientations impact salesperson predisposition to engage in unconventional workplace behaviors. A theoretical model, routed in creativity theory (Amabile 1983), proposes customer-oriented salespeople as more likely to engage in positive workplace behaviors (e.g., creative selling) and to avoid negative workplace behaviors (e.g., passive deviance). Conversely, the theory predicts the opposite for salespeople with relatively high selling orientation. A sample of business-to-business salespeople provides data for testing the model. Results suggest that relatively high customer orientation encourages greater creative selling and, in turn, higher job performance. Conversely, high selling orientation is associated with increased levels of passive deviance, which in turn, promotes higher turnover intentions both directly and indirectly through job performance. Finally, the research explores the moderating role of salesperson experience on the hypothesized model. The moderation results suggest that for those with less sales experience, customer orientation does relatively less in mitigating, while selling orientation does more in promoting, passive deviance.
... The sample size we obtained from one company compares favorably with the sample sizes per company offered in other studies with dyadic relationships (e.g., van Dolen et al., 2002). The sample size per industry also compares favorably with other crosssectional studies (e.g., Homburg & Stock, 2004;Lussier et al., 2017). ...
A salesperson's commitment and effort toward an innovation can determine whether the customer agrees to buy it, such that customers’ perceptions of such commitment and effort are critical. But these perceptions also might differ fundamentally from the salesperson's self- perceptions of commitment and effort. Therefore, this article presents a theoretical framework of the relation between salesperson-perceived and customer-perceived commitment and effort, as exhibited by the salesperson while selling an innovation, which represents salesperson adoption.
In the framework, job satisfaction factors also exert contingent, moderating effects. The authors gather unique, dyadic data from surveys of salespeople and their (potential) business customers during visits to sell a conventional, incremental innovation, complemented by objective purchase data gathered from company records.
Three key insights emerge from this study. First, salespeople’s own perceptions of their commitment and effort have only moderate influences on customers’ perceptions of salespeople’s commitment and effort. Second, customers seem to recognize salesperson effort more readily than salesperson commitment although salesperson commitment has a higher sales performance impact than salesperson effort. Thus, sales managers should seek to encourage and support both the commitment of salespeople and also perceptions of that commitment among customers. Third, while a higher organizational support or job autonomy strengthen customers’ perceptions of salesperson adoption a higher pay satisfaction diminishes it. Thus, firms might need to find ways to increase the support for the salespeople and their autonomy and to reduce salespeople’s satisfaction with their (direct) payments. In total, these findings suggest significant scientific and managerial implications.
... These behaviours are a display of individuals' relational capabilities, including personal qualities, communication skills, behavioural skills (e.g., team working) and broader management skills. To achieve this, these individuals need certain relational capabilities such as being frank, honest, available, adaptable, likeable, fair, proactive, tolerant, compassionate, benevolent, [77][78][79][80][81][82] and "ecocentric"someone who cares about the needs of a collaborative ecosystem, not solely one aspect [52]. ...
The development of medical technologies that effectively meet clinical and patient needs increasingly relies upon collaborative working between clinicians, businesses and universities. While this "open" innovation process may provide access to additional resources, knowledge, and expertise the process is not frictionless. At the personal level, individuals may have different ways of working and incentives and at the organisational level, partners may have their own cultures and processes. Thus, interorganisational collaboration is not necessarily a panacea, but has advantages and disadvantages. The challenges are somewhat heightened in the MedTech sector where collaborative working cuts across established professional boundaries, brings together diverse knowledge from an array of disciplines, and often disrupts existing medical practice. Given these factors, this article presents a review of the extant management literature examining the complexities within multi-party collaboration and ways to drive these partnerships forwards. The article emphasises the critical value of interpersonal relationships within collaborations and offers means of strengthening them.
... Some such research has focused exclusively on the human-agent dyad, ignoring the environment [13]; or merely acknowledged the environment as a factor [14]. This dyadic construct persists regardless of the two agents comprising the dyad, where trust has been framed in terms of manager-subordinate, salesperson-customer, or supplier-buyer [15][16][17]. ...
There is a considerable body of research on trust in Artificial Intelligence (AI). Trust has been viewed almost exclusively as a dyadic construct, where it is a function of various factors between the user and the agent, mediated by the context of the environment. A recent study has found several cases of supradyadic trust interactions, where a user’s trust in the AI is affected by how other people interact with the agent, above and beyond endorsements or reputation. An analysis of these surpradyadic interactions is presented, along with a discussion of practical considerations for AI developers, and an argument for more complex representations of trust in AI.
... Salespeople play a significant role in shopper conversion. Positive interactions with salespeople are among the significant predictors for shopper conversion, and even good humor from a salesperson can substantially improve customer loyalty [21]. Predictably, virtual sales avatars can contribute to satisfying the social need of shoppers and subsequently improve the shopping experiences. ...
Virtual reality (VR) shopping can be a new turning point for shopping. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many consumers to shop online and there has been an increasing demand for an interactive and entertaining online shopping platform. This article proposes a UX design model for virtual shopping, which can be an alternative to in-store retails during and after the pandemic. Our UX design model for virtual shopping focuses on two aspects that make shopping entertaining rather than laborious: psychological stimulation and social shopping. Even after many states eased lockdown measures in August, retail sales recovery has been slow at 0.6%. Some might expect revenues will recover after the pandemic eases, however, the impact of the pandemic on consumption is likely to be long-lasting. The time to act is now. Managers might implement solutions to innovate digital sales platforms and improve shopping-buying conversions in eCommerce.
While previous work suggested that presenters may benefit from the use of humor, others argue that the use of humor can be risky. Therefore, there is a need to examine the potential moderators and mediators of this process. The study aims to experimentally explore the appropriate use of humor during a professional investment presentation. The sample included 400 participants. After being randomly assigned to 2 × 2 between-subjects conditions (man /woman presenter × with/without a humorous message), the participants watched a video of an investment presentation. Participants who were asked to invest virtual money in the firm after the video. Using a moderated mediation analysis, the results show that humor was related to higher investment amounts and that the presenters’ perceived organizational status mediated this indirect relationship. The novelty of the study lies in its experimental design, focusing on audience behavioral tendencies and its unexplored mixed-gender effect: women tended to invest less when a male presenter used humor, while men tended to invest more when a female presenter used humor. The perceived status of the presenter mediated these associations. Theoretically, the study expands the understanding of the Benign Violation Theory (BVT) regarding the need to address contextual factors while examining the appropriate use of humor. Moreover, to maximize the benefits of humor, one must consider the humor’s relevance to the audience and acknowledge that humor needs to be appropriately used. This is particularly important for people working in investment settings.
Many brands periodically respond humorously to the content that other brands and celebrities post on social media. Drawing on three scenario-based experiments and a content analysis of humorous tweets based on their likes and retweets, the authors use the benign violation theory to understand whether using humor constitutes a benign (i.e., translating into amusement) or malign (i.e., translating into ulterior motives) violation. The success of a humorous brand-to-brand interaction (i.e., brand attitudes and purchase intentions) depends on its ability to generate amusement without causing customers to suspect ulterior motives. Study 1’s results reveal that customers respond more favorably when brands use affiliative humor rather than aggressive humor. Affiliative humor constitutes a benign violation that generates amusement, while aggressive humor constitutes a malign violation that leads customers to infer that brands have ulterior motives. Study 2 shows that aggressive humor partially compensates for its weaknesses over affiliative humor when brands target competing brands. Studies 3A and 3B reveal a reversed effect depending on brand positioning (top dogs versus underdogs). While underdog brands should always use affiliative humor, top dog brands could perform better by favoring aggressive humor (i.e., such brands could receive more likes and retweets without lowering customers’ purchase intentions).
L’objectif de cette recherche est d’identifier les déterminants de la crédibilité des publications des médecins sur les réseaux sociaux. Une étude qualitative menée auprès d’un échantillon de 25 répondants qui suivent des médecins sur les réseaux sociaux nous a permis, en référence au modèle ELM, d’identifier des déterminants liés à la route centrale à savoir le type et le contenu de la publication et des déterminants liés à la route périphérique à savoir l’attrait physique, la personnalité et la notoriété. Tous ces éléments permettent aux répondants d’évaluer la crédibilité de la publication médicale qui à son tour induit des intentions aussi bien attitudinales que comportementales.
Humanoid store staff is increasingly common. Many retailers rely on automation to address the mounting pressure for cost savings. Meanwhile, humanoid store staff can influence customer experience negatively. People feel stressed and eerie about interacting with humanoids. In this article, I investigate one way to improve people’s attitudes toward humanoids. People’s negative attitudes towards humanoids, such as fear or a sense of eeriness, can be substantially mitigated when they are in a crowded environment. People in a crowded environment do not fear robots or find robots uncanny while people in a relatively uncrowded environment do. I refer to this phenomenon as the “crowd effect.” Being in a crowded environment substantially changes how people evaluate and respond to humanoids. The effect is mediated by risk aversion tendency.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize the notion of thin crossing points from a social network perspective and to outline the concrete networking strategies that enable salespeople to foster mutually valuable resource exchange (i.e. to thin crossing points) across a selling ecosystem.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors integrate extant theoretical perspectives to advance a conceptual framework of sales-related networking across three key actors in a selling ecosystem: intraorganizational selling actors and actors in customers and external partner organizations.
Findings
Thin crossing points are defined as figurative transaction points at the boundary between organizations or organizational subunits at which actors engage in mutually valuable resource exchange in the process of value cocreation. To thin crossing points with key ecosystem actors, salespeople must adapt networking strategies considering the time and trust constraints inherent in a network relationship. Such constraints inform the most advantageous network centralities (degree, eigenvector and betweenness) and actions to impact key network properties (tie strength, contact diversity) that enable salespeople to efficiently develop social capital and thus to optimally thin crossing points across a selling ecosystem.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first social network-based exploration of salespeople’s role in thinning crossing points with key ecosystem actors. It advances a novel conceptual framework of sales-related networking strategies that foster social capital development and optimally thin crossing points across a selling ecosystem.
The sales management literature suggests that control-based management systems drive sales effectiveness. However, despite prior research on salesforce management systems, inquiry from an experimental perspective is lacking. Previous studies examining salesforce control and capability control have been primarily conducted utilizing cross-sectional data and methodologies that limit assessment of causality. Thus, the objective of our research is to establish causal links of control-based management systems. Specifically, our first study utilizes video-based scenarios to experimentally manipulate the use of an outcome versus activity control system and the use versus non-use of a capability control approach. Four-hundred and ten business-to-business salespeople provide responses for our experiment that demonstrates 1) outcome control systems enhance salesperson selling orientation, 2) activity-based control systems enhance salesperson customer orientation, as well as perceived organizational and supervisor support, and 3) capability control systems enhance adaptive selling and salesperson creativity. To support our experimental findings, a follow-up qualitative study of fourteen sales managers highlights the crucial importance of sales managers as a part of control system effectiveness. Overall, our research contributes by establishing causal links between control-based management systems and salesperson intentions to utilize selling behaviors that improve sales performance.
Depression is an important and prevalent issue often overlooked in the sales literature. Although prior research provides evidence that depression negatively impacts a variety of job-related outcomes, little is known about the factors that can mitigate such relationships—particularly that between depression and salesperson performance over time. To remedy this, we draw on Job Demands-Resources theory and propose a unique framework that examines job resources (i.e., work adaptability, family work support, and supervisor support) that may mitigate the negative effects of depression. Using salesperson surveys matched with objective sales performance data during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic (i.e., January, February, and March 2020), we show that depression is negatively related to salesperson performance over time, work adaptability and family work support both mitigate the negative effects of depression, and contrary to expectations, supervisor support aggravates the relationship between depression and performance for a time but helps boost performance at the end of the observation window. The article's broader contribution is that depression is a crucial issue to consider and that sales managers should pay special attention to job resources that may mitigate the negative relationship between depression and salesperson performance over time.
Despite a vast increase in electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM) research over the past two decades, insights into e-WOM in the Business-to-Business (B2B) context have been limited, resulting in an incomplete understanding of its meaning and the market implications. The existing conceptualizations of e-WOM are deeply entrenched in the characteristics of a particular context—Business-to-Customers (B2C)— and, consequently, focus exclusively on end customers. The diversity of B2B stakeholders and the complexity of their relationships in the online communicative space demand a clearer understanding of the e-WOM concept in this specific context. This paper synthesizes the key studies in this area and proposes an organizing framework for online B2B communicative networks based on a stakeholder approach. It differentiates between seven forms of e-WOM, illustrating its complexity in B2B contexts and allowing a fine-grained understanding of the phenomenon. Informed by the literature reviewed, this paper offers a more nuanced conceptualization of e-WOM, emphasizing its ability to cover a range of contexts. It enables firms to fully understand the concept and manage their relationships with different e-WOM actors/stakeholders in the online environment. A future research agenda is provided for the field, allowing researchers to direct and craft B2B e-WOM theory and practice.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the distinct effects of aggressive and constructive humor on perceptions of Machiavellianism, relationship quality and willingness-to-switch (WTS).
Design/methodology/approach
The empirical analysis includes a first replication study with 138 business-to-business buyers and a second study with 175 business-to-business buyers that aims to test the theoretical model. The Process macro is used to test the study’s hypotheses.
Findings
Results indicate that aggressive and constructive humor types have distinct effects on relationship quality and subsequent buyers’ WTS. Specifically, and contrary to constructive humor, aggressive humor from sellers increases buyers’ perceptions of Machiavellianism, which reveals detrimental to relationship quality and subsequently increases buyers’ WTS.
Research limitations/implications
Although the results about the effects of humor on relationship quality were obtained from actual buyers and consistent across the two studies, they were obtained from two cross-sectional designs, which limits the causality of the effects being observed.
Practical implications
Sellers may benefit from getting deep understanding of how usage humor may impact their relationship with buyers. In particular, this research makes clear for sellers that as long as the type of humor that they use when dealing with a buyer is constructive, no negative outcome might emerge. However, if the humor is aggressive, then the stereotype of Machiavellianism might emerge, leading to lower relationship quality and an increase in WTS from the buyer.
Originality/value
While research on humor as a communication technique for sellers has increased lately, to the best of the authors’ knowledge this research is the first to examine the effects of the distinct types of aggressive and constructive humor and to provide empirical evidence for the different effects of these two types of humor. This research also contributes to the literature on stereotypes associated with sellers, by presenting insights into how the negative stereotype of Machiavellianism is prompted by the use of aggressive humor.
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to review and analyze the status of word-of-mouth (WOM) research in the business-to-business (B2B) context and discuss and identify new possible future directions.
Design/methodology/approach
A systematic review was conducted and 36 articles on B2B WOM were collected to evaluate the current state of the literature and clarify possible future research directions.
Findings
This thematic analysis categorize these articles into three themes: WOM generation, WOM usage and reference marketing. Under each theme, the authors reveal research findings unique to B2B research and different from business-to-consumer (B2C) WOM research. This study identifies several research questions that should be addressed by future research.
Originality/value
Both academic researchers and business practitioners recognize that WOM plays an essential role in B2B marketing. However, no review paper focuses on WOM in the B2B context. Findings in the B2C WOM literature suggest that WOM substantially influences firms’ performance, but that managers cannot simply attempt to extrapolate B2C findings to the B2B arena. By synthesizing and assessing prior research on WOM in the B2B context, this study contributes to a better understanding of the B2B WOM phenomenon and facilitates future research on this topic.
Case studies for teaching and training
งานวิจัยนี้มีวัตถุประสงค์ คือ (1) เพื่อศึกษาปัจจัยที่มีอิทธิพลต่อความไว้เนื้อเชื่อใจ อันได้แก่ คุณค่าที่รับรู้ด้านราคา ผลการปฏิบัติงานส่งมอบสินค้า และคุณภาพการให้บริการของผู้ใช้บริการขนส่งสินค้า บริษัท รวมถาวรขนส่ง จำกัด (2) เพื่อศึกษาปัจจัยที่มีอิทธิพลต่อความพึงพอใจของผู้ใช้บริการ อันได้แก่ คุณค่าที่รับรู้ด้านราคา ผลการปฏิบัติงานส่งมอบสินค้า คุณภาพการให้บริการและความไว้เนื้อเชื่อใจของผู้ใช้บริการขนส่งสินค้า บริษัท รวมถาวรขนส่ง จำกัด (3) เพื่อศึกษาปัจจัยที่มีอิทธิพลต่อการบอกต่อในทางบวก อันได้แก่ ความไว้เนื้อเชื่อใจ และความพึงพอใจของผู้ใช้บริการขนส่งสินค้า บริษัท รวมถาวรขนส่ง จำกัด (4) เพื่อศึกษาปัจจัยที่มีอิทธิพลต่อความตั้งใจใช้บริการต่อเนื่อง อันได้แก่ ความไว้เนื้อเชื่อใจ และความพึงพอใจของผู้ใช้บริการขนส่งสินค้า บริษัท รวมถาวรขนส่ง จำกัด และ (5) เพื่อตรวจสอบความสอดคล้องของโมเดลความสัมพันธ์เชิงสาเหตุอิทธิพลของคุณค่าที่รับรู้ด้านราคา ผลการปฏิบัติงานส่งมอบสินค้า และคุณภาพการให้บริการต่อความไว้เนื้อเชื่อใจ ความพึงพอใจของผู้ใช้บริการ การบอกต่อในทางบวก และความตั้งใจใช้บริการต่อเนื่องของผู้ใช้บริการขนส่งสินค้า บริษัท รวมถาวรขนส่ง จำกัด กับข้อมูลเชิงประจักษ์ผู้วิจัยดำเนินการวิจัยเชิงปริมาณ โดยทำวิจัยเชิงประจักษ์ ใช้แบบสอบถามเป็นเครื่องมือในการเก็บรวบรวมข้อมูลจากผู้ใช้บริการขนส่งสินค้าที่อยู่ในประเทศไทยที่ได้รับบริการจาก บริษัท รวมถาวรขนส่ง จำกัด จำนวนทั้งสิ้น 442 คน ใช้วิธีสุ่มตัวอย่างแบบง่ายสถิติที่ใช้ในการวิเคราะห์ข้อมูล ได้แก่ การแจกแจงความถี่ การหาค่าร้อยละ การหาค่าเฉลี่ย การหาค่าส่วนเบี่ยงเบนมาตรฐาน และการวิเคราะห์โมเดลสมการโครงสร้าง ผลการวิเคราะห์โมเดลสมการโครงสร้างพบว่า โมเดลสอดคล้องกับข้อมูลเชิงประจักษ์อยู่ในเกณฑ์ดี ค่าสถิติไค-สแควร์ (χ2) มีค่าเท่ากับ 585.016 องศาอิสระ (df) มีค่าเท่ากับ 586 ค่าไค-สแควร์สัมพัทธ์ (χ2/df) มีค่าเท่ากับ 0.998 ค่าความน่าจะเป็น (p-value) มีค่าเท่ากับ 0.504 ค่าความสอดคล้องของดัชนีวัดระดับความกลมกลืน (GFI) มีค่าเท่ากับ 0.942 ค่าดัชนีวัดระดับความกลมกลืนที่ปรับแก้ (AGFI) มีค่าเท่ากับ 0.906 และค่าดัชนีค่าความคลาดเคลื่อนในการประมาณค่าพารามิเตอร์ (RMSEA) มีค่าเท่ากับ 0.000 นอกจากนี้ ผลการวิจัยยังพบว่า (1) คุณค่าที่รับรู้ด้าน ราคามีอิทธิพลทางบวกต่อความไว้เนื้อเชื่อใจ (2) ผลการปฏิบัติงานส่งมอบสินค้ามีอิทธิพลทางบวกต่อความไว้เนื้อเชื่อใจ (3) คุณภาพการให้บริการมีอิทธิพลทางบวกต่อความไว้เนื้อเชื่อใจ (4) คุณค่าที่รับรู้ด้านราคามีอิทธิพลทางบวกต่อความพึงพอใจของผู้ใช้บริการ (5) ผลการปฏิบัติงานส่งมอบสินค้ามีอิทธิพลทางบวกต่อความพึงพอใจของผู้ใช้บริการ (6) คุณภาพการให้บริการมีอิทธิพลทางบวกต่อความพึงพอใจของผู้ใช้บริการ (7) ความไว้เนื้อเชื่อใจมีอิทธิพลทางบวกต่อความพึงพอใจของผู้ใช้บริการ (8) ความไว้เนื้อเชื่อใจมีอิทธิพลทางบวกต่อการบอกต่อในทางบวก (9) ความพึงพอใจของผู้ใช้บริการมีอิทธิพลทางบวกต่อการบอกต่อในทางบวก (10) ความไว้เนื้อ เชื่อใจมีอิทธิพลทางบวกต่อความตั้งใจใช้บริการต่อเนื่อง และ (11) ความพึงพอใจของผู้ใช้บริการมีอิทธิพลทางบวกต่อความตั้งใจใช้บริการต่อเนื่อง
This study discusses the influence of altruism leadership on service innovation and the mediating role of affiliate humor at Aulia Hospital. The population of this study were nurses, totaling 70 people. The research data was taken using a questionnaire, with a Likert scale of 1 to 7. The method of data analysis in this study was descriptive quantitative using WarpPLS for testing a hypothesis and testing the validity and reliability of the research instrument. The results showed that altruistic leadership is directly related to service innovation in hospitals with a significant p-value. while the mediating role of affiliation between the effects of altruistic leadership and service innovation is not significant
With the ongoing changes in the way buyer and seller communicate, organizations are concentrating on continuously improving their sales strategies. This study revolves around the basic concept of trust between buyer and seller. Much research is available on how the buyer-seller interaction can be improved but less research is available on how the past experiences of buyers or propensity to trust salespeople effect such relationship. Thus, this research mostly concentrates on these variables. The data for this research was collected in the form of questionnaires from both customers and salespeople. The data was tested through a Multi-Level Model in SPSS. The results from this research specify that the past experiences of customers and their propensity to trust salespeople has an extensive impact on the formation of trust between the buyer and seller. Furthermore, this study concludes that certain salespersons characteristics impact the relationship between the buyer and seller.
Workplace humour is particularly prevalent in the hotel industry. However, the effect of workplace humour on outcome variables remains unclear. To fill this research gap, this study investigated the association between workplace humour and work engagement and analyzed the mediating role of workplace fun. Accordingly, data from 305 full-time hotel employees showed that affiliative humour has a positive influence on workplace fun. Furthermore, aggressive humour has a negative influence on customer interactions. Fun activities, manager support for fun, and customer interaction mediate the affiliative humour-work engagement relationship. Only customer interaction mediates the aggressive humour-work engagement relationship. Moreover, we discussed the theoretical and practical implications of the study findings.
This study examines the influence of affiliative and aggressive humor climate levels and variability of humor climates on customer purchase, and the mediating effect of customer perceptions of service quality on such relationships. Sixty-seven store managers assessed 615 employees’ use of humor, while 3533 customers were surveyed to assess the quality of service received and their purchase behavior. Results show that a high affiliative humor climate was associated with a decrease in customer perceptions of service quality when variability in this humor usage was low in stores. Furthermore, high usage of aggressive humor was associated with a decrease in customer purchase.
With the growing prevalence of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in the tourism and hospitality industry, the phenomenon of AI service failure emerges, which merits empirical attention. Via six scenario-based experiments, this study verifies why and how humorous responses from AI agents affect customers' tolerance of AI service failure. Findings confirm the positive impact of humorous response on customer tolerance. Results further reveal the mediating effects of perceived warmth and perceived competence along with boundaries (customer inoculation and time pressure) of the humor effect. These findings enhance knowledge of AI service failure and recovery by delineating the recovery effect of AI agents' humorous responses. This research also offers tourism companies a new tool, humorous response, for resolving AI service failures.
Lone wolf salespeople prefer to work independently, prioritize their own interests, and are prone to focus on outcomes rather than on processes. While conventional wisdom would suggest that salesperson lone wolf tendency and ethical behaviors are negatively related, this relationship has hitherto not been examined in the academic literature—nor have any factors that may impact this important linkage. To address this gap, we draw from both ethical decision-making theory and social cognitive theory to propose a novel conceptual framework and study hypotheses. We empirically tested our ideas using a survey-based dataset consisting of 135 business-to-business salespeople. Specifically, the relationship between salesperson lone wolf tendency and ethical behaviors is examined as well as two social cognitive aspects (i.e., perceived supervisor support and salesperson self-efficacy) that potentially act as important boundary conditions that distinctively alter the salesperson lone wolf tendency-ethical behaviors negative relationship. Results reveal that, whereas higher levels of perceived supervisor support weaken the negative relationship between salesperson lone wolf tendency and ethical behaviors, higher levels of salesperson self-efficacy strengthen the salesperson lone wolf tendency-ethical behaviors negative relationship. Implications of our research for scholars and managers are also discussed.
This dissertation studies the formation of prices on the art market and the auction mechanisms by using a unique hand-collected database. First, we examine different determinants of artworks’ prices but also of artworks’ probability of sale at auction. We bring to the literature a missing set of vertical differentiation determinants by focusing on the comic art market where the traded goods have a noteworthy hybrid nature. Also, we show that shared aesthetic judgments on liking and emotional responses to art from ordinary people (outsiders) and collectors (insiders) both have an impact on prices, by means of a questionnaire we created and of a consensus index we constructed. Then, we analyse oral outcry ascending auction mechanisms and we demonstrate that human auctioneers and auction houses are not neutral intermediary agents but that their behaviors and marketing efforts systematically influence the outcome of the sale, prices and the realized price-estimated price ratio. Finally, we explore whether and how the bid dynamics influence final prices and we show that aggressiveness of bids and the pace at various phases of the auction impact the price.
Our understanding of the factors that motivate business-to-business (B2B) buyers' negative word-of-mouth (NWOM) intentions in response to a suspected salesperson transgression and subsequent recovery effort is limited. This is surprising given the frequency with which salesperson transgressions occur and the ease with which buyers can disseminate their resulting dissatisfaction through NWOM. We address this shortcoming across two studies. In the first study, we examine buyers' NWOM intentions in response to a supplier transgression and recovery attempt. Consistent with suspicion theory and the idea that buyers have limited information when confronting these situations, we find that buyers' NWOM intentions are higher following the commission of a suspected transgression by a selling-oriented as opposed to customer-oriented salesperson. However, we also find that while salesperson-led recovery efforts result in no difference in NWOM intentions across the two types of salespeople, manager-led recovery efforts result in significantly greater NWOM intentions for selling-oriented salespeople. In the second study, we replicate these findings while also demonstrating that buyers' interactional justice perceptions mediate this process. We discuss the theoretical and managerial implications arising from these findings, while also presenting avenues for future research in the area.
Successful termination of business negotiations is the primary goal of every negotiator. Effective communication and humorous elements lead to an increase in negotiation performance during the sales process and even to occasional laughter, leading to positive feelings towards the salesperson and the sales process. In this context, the study examines the relationship between salespeople's personal humor tendencies and, accordingly, their communication skills and their negotiation performance. The analysis results reveal a positive relationship between communication ability, personal humor orientation, and negotiation performance, as expected. In addition,
it was determined that negotiation communication played a mediating role in the effect of the personal sense of humor of salespeople on sales performance during the sales process. Theoretical and practical suggestions are presented based on the analysis results.
In today’s highly competitive and rapidly changing business environment, organizations must take full advantage of their work force’s creative potential to prosper or even survive. The need to enhance creative performance for long-term success is perhaps especially true in the sales profession, where individual and organizational success depends on supplying innovative and useful solutions for customers. Emerging research has shown that a leader’s emotional intelligence positively supports workers’ creative performance. Employing a sample of 460 field members, this study extends this research by exploring how a sales representative’s emotional intelligence influences his or her creativity and key work outcomes. The findings are discussed in terms of theoretical and managerial implications. Limitations and suggestions for future research are offered. © 2013 PSE National Educational Foundation. All rights reserved.
The authors assess the effects of trait competitiveness and competitive psychological climate on self-set goal levels and sales performance. The results indicate an interaction between trait competitiveness and competitive psychological climate, such that (1) salespeople who are high in trait competitiveness set higher goals when they perceive the organizational climate as competitive and (2) salespeople who are low in trait competitiveness set relatively low goals, regardless of their perceptions of competition in the organizational climate. Results also indicate that a self-set goal level is related strongly to performance and that self-efficacy has strong direct and indirect effects on sales performance. The authors also discuss implications for theory and practice.
A plethora of research has investigated the impact of the frontline employee on the customer, with the consensus that employees can have a tremendous impact on the customer. What remains to be discovered is the extent to which this relationship exists in the reverse. Utilizing broaden-and-build and emotional contagion theories, this study suggests that employee perceptions of a specific customer emotion (delight) have an impact on the frontline employee. Specifically, results from a structural equations model reveal that employee perceptions of customer delight lead to employee positive affect, which in turn positively influences commitment and job satisfaction as well as creates stronger external representation behaviors, internal influence behaviors, and service delivery behaviors from the employee. These findings contribute new evidence to the debate of the viability of providing customer delight and extend our knowledge beyond emotional contagion in explaining how positive customer emotions manifest in employees.
Research on humor in organizations has rarely considered the social context in which humor occurs. One such social setting that most of us experience on a daily basis concerns the team context. Building on recent theorizing about the humor-performance link in teams, this study seeks to increase our understanding of the function and effects of humor in team interaction settings. We examined behavioral patterns of humor and laughter in real teams by videotaping and coding humor and laughter during 54 regular organizational team meetings. Performance ratings were obtained immediately following the team meetings as well as at a later time point from the teams' supervisors. At the behavioral unit level within the team interaction process, lag sequential analysis identified humor and laughter patterns occurring above chance (e.g., a joke followed by laughter, followed by another joke). Moreover, humor patterns triggered positive socioemotional communication, procedural structure, and new solutions. At the team level, humor patterns (but not humor or laughter alone) positively related to team performance, both immediately and 2 years later. Team-level job insecurity climate was identified as a boundary condition: In low job insecurity climate conditions, humor patterns were positively related to performance, whereas in high job insecurity climate conditions, humor patterns did not relate to team performance. The role of job insecurity as a boundary condition persisted at both time points. These findings underscore the importance of studying team interactions for understanding the role of humor in organizations and considering team-level boundary conditions over time. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).
Marketing academics and practitioners frequently employ cross-sectional surveys. In recent years, editors, reviewers, and authors have expressed increasing concern about the validity of this approach. These validity concerns center on reducing common method variance bias and enhancing causal inferences. Longitudinal data collection is commonly offered as a solution to these problems. In this article, the authors conceptually examine the role of longitudinal surveys in addressing these validity concerns. Then, they provide an illustrative comparison of the validity of cross-sectional versus longitudinal surveys using two data sets and a Monte Carlo simulation. The conceptualization and findings suggest that under certain conditions, the results from cross-sectional data exhibit validity comparable to the results obtained from longitudinal data. This article concludes by offering a set of guidelines to assist researchers in deciding whether to employ a longitudinal survey approach.
Several theories of relationship marketing propose that customers vary in their relationships with a firm on a continuum from transactional to highly relational bonds. Few empirical studies have segmented the customer base of an organization into low and high relational groups to assess how evaluations vary for these groups. Using structural equation analysis, the authors analyze the relationships of satisfaction, trust, and commitment to component satisfaction attitudes and future intentions for the customers of a New York off-Broadway repertory theater company. For the low relational customers (individual ticket buyers and occasional subscribers), overall satisfaction is the primary mediating construct between the component attitudes and future intentions. For the high relational customers (consistent subscribers), trust and commitment, rather than satisfaction, are the mediators between component attitudes and future intentions.
The importance of developing and maintaining enduring relationships with customers of service businesses is generally accepted in the marketing literature. A key challenge for researchers is to identify and understand how managerially controlled antecedent variables influence important relationship marketing outcomes (e.g., customer loyalty and word-of-mouth communication). Relational benefits, which have a focus on the benefits consumers receive apart from the core service, and relationship quality, which focuses on the overall nature of the relationship, represent two approaches to understanding customer loyalty and word of mouth. This article integrates these two concepts by positioning customer satisfaction and commitment as relationship quality dimensions that partially mediate the relationship between three relational benefits (confidence benefits, social benefits, and special treatment benefits) and the two outcome variables. The results provide support for the model and indicate that the concepts of customer satisfaction, commitment, confidence benefits, and social benefits serve to significantly contribute to relationship marketing outcomes in services.
The authors develop a framework for understanding the behaviors and practices of service providers that build or deplete consumer trust and the mechanisms that convert consumer trust into value and loyalty in relational exchanges. The proposed framework (1) uses a multidimension al conceptualization for the trustworthiness con- struct; (2) incorporates two distinct facets of consumer trust, namely, frontline employees and management poli- cies and practices: and (3) specifies value as a key mediator of the trust-loyalty reiationship. The authors test the proposed modei using data from two sennce contexts—retail clothing (N = 264) and nonbusiness airline travel (N = 113). The results support a tripartite view of tmstworthiness evaluations along operational competence, operational benevolence, and problem-solving orientation dimensions. Moreover, the authors find evidence of contingent asymmetric reiationships between trustworthiness dimensions and consumer trust. For frontline employees, benev- olent behaviors demonstrate a dominant "negativity" effect (i.e., a unit negative perfomnance has a stronger effect than a unit positive performance), whereas problem-solving orientation has a dominant "positivity" effect (i.e., a unit positive perfonnance has a stronger effect than a unit negative perfonnance). Value compieteiy mediates the effect of frontline employee trust on loyalty in the retaiiing context and partially mediates the effect of management poji- cies and practices tmst on loyalty in the airlines context. The role of frontline employees is more critical in the retaii- ing context, whereas management practices and policies play the dominant roie in the airlines context. Overaii, the proposed framework successfully models trust and loyalty mechanisms across the two industries examined in the study, while remaining sensitive to essential contextuai differences.
Relationship marketing (RM) has emerged as one of the dominant mantras in business strategy circles, though RM investigations often yield mixed results. To help managers and researchers improve the effectiveness of their efforts, the authors synthesize RM empirical research in a meta-analytic framework. Although the fundamental premise that RM positively affects performance is well supported, many of the authors' findings have significant implications for research and practice. Relationship investment has a large, direct effect on seller objective performance, which implies that additional meditated pathways may explain the impact of RM on performance. Objective performance is influenced most by relationship quality (a composite measure of relationship strength) and least by commitment. The results also suggest that RM is more effective when relationships are more critical to customers (e.g., service offerings, channel exchanges, business markets) and when relationships are built with an individual person rather than a selling firm (which partially explains the mixed effects between RM and performance reported in previous studies).
Four theoretical perspectives currently dominate attempts to understand the drivers of successful interorganizational relationship performance: (1) commitment–trust, (2) dependence, (3) transaction cost economics, and (4) relational norms. Each perspective specifies a different set and distinct causal ordering of focal constructs as the most critical for understanding performance. Using four years of longitudinal data (N = 396), the authors compare the relative efficacy of these four perspectives for driving exchange performance and provide empirical insights into the causal ordering among key interorganizational constructs. The results demonstrate the parallel and equally important roles of commitment–trust and relationship-specific investments as immediate precursors to and key drivers of exchange performance. Building on the insights gleaned from tests of the four frameworks, the authors parsimoniously integrate these perspectives within a single model of interfirm relationship performance consistent with a resource-based view of an exchange. Managers may be able to increase performance by shifting resources from "relationship building" to specific investments targeted toward increasing the efficacy or effectiveness of the relationship itself to improve the relationship's ability to create value. Moderation analysis indicates that managers may find it productive to allocate more relationship marketing efforts and investments to exchanges in markets with higher levels of uncertainty.
Teams represent a dominant approach to getting work done in a business environment. Creativity enables teams to solve problems and leverage opportunities through the integration of divergent thoughts and perspectives. Prior research indicates that a collaborative culture, which affects how team members interact and work together, is a critical antecedent of team creativity. This study explores other antecedents of team creativity, namely, team emotional intelligence and team trust, and investigates the relationships among these precursors to creative effort. Using a survey of 82 student teams at a large university in the northeast United States, our findings suggest that team emotional intelligence promotes team trust. Trust, in turn, fosters a collaborative culture which enhances the creativity of the team. Cognitive trust also moderates the relationship between collaborative culture and team creativity. Implications of these results for managers and academics are discussed.
Baron and Kenny's procedure for determining if an independent variable affects a dependent variable through some mediator is so well known that it is used by authors and requested by reviewers almost reflexively. Many research projects have been terminated early in a research program or later in the review process because the data did not conform to Baron and Kenny's criteria, impeding theoretical development. While the technical literature has disputed some of Baron and Kenny's tests, this literature has not diffused to practicing researchers. We present a nontechnical summary of the flaws in the Baron and Kenny logic, some of which have not been previously noted. We provide a decision tree and a step-by-step procedure for testing mediation, classifying its type, and interpreting the implications of findings for theory building and future research. (c) 2010 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..
Relationship marketing research and practice operate according to the paradigm that firms should invest in relationship marketing
to build better relationships, which will generate improved financial performance. However, findings that relationship marketing
efforts vary in their effectiveness across customers and may even be detrimental to performance challenge this belief. This
article, therefore, offers a theoretical model that addresses three key issues: 1) what factors determine a customer’s need
for relational governance (relationship orientation); 2) what mediating mechanism captures the negative effects of relationship
marketing on performance (exchange inefficiency); and 3) how does a customer’s relationship orientation determine the effectiveness
of relationship marketing, thus allowing for effective segmentation. The authors demonstrate in an empirical study that the
trust in the salesperson and exchange inefficiency both mediate the effect of relationship marketing on seller financial outcomes.
In addition, customers’ relationship orientation moderates the impact of relationship marketing on both trust and exchange
inefficiency.
Personal selling is thought to be a very effective marketing vehicle. The notion of adaptive selling suggests that it should
work better than any other means of communication because salespeople are able to develop a unique message for each customer.
This research proposes a model of key antecedents and consequences of adaptive selling. In particular, we distinguish, measure,
and model the attitudinal and behavioral aspects of adaptive selling, something that is encouraged but not thoroughly examined
in the literature. Hypotheses are tested using data from 210 salesperson-customer dyads. The results indicate that a salesperson’s
perception of the firm’s customer orientation has an effect on adaptive selling behavior through the salesperson’s adaptive
selling confidence, role ambiguity, intrinsic motivation and customer-qualification skills. Adaptive selling behavior increases
salesperson’s outcome performance, customers’ evaluations of satisfaction with the product and with the salesperson, which
enhance customers’ anticipation of future interactions with the salesperson. The implications for management and theory are
discussed.
KeywordsAdaptive selling behavior-Adaptive selling confidence-Salesperson’s outcome performance-Firm’s customer orientation-Salesperson’s skills-Intrinsic motivation-Role ambiguity-Customer satisfaction-Customer retention-Dyadic data
Humor is a common element of human interaction and therefore has an impact on work groups and organizations. Despite this observation, managers often fail to take humor seriously or realize its numerous benefits. Humor is more than just funny concepts; it represents a multifunctional management tool that can be used to achieve many objectives. This article describes how managers can use humor to reduce stress and enhance leadership, group cohesiveness, communication, creativity, and organizational culture. Specifically, we suggest humor styles that are best suited to realize these outcomes. Additionally, the effect of humor on organizational outcomes is moderated by individual differences such as ethnicity and gender. Much like selecting the proper tool from a toolkit, managers can select the appropriate humor style suitable for the desired organizational outcome, adjust for individual differences, and achieve positive organizational outcomes.
Purpose
This paper examines whether, when, and how humor can increase individuals’ persistence.
Design/Methodology/Approach
Two laboratory studies were conducted using 124 students from a large Australian university to examine the causal impact of humor exposure on persistence.
Findings
The results show that exposure to humor increases individuals’ persistence in two different tasks and that this effect is mediated by the discrete emotion of amusement (Study 1). Moreover, the positive effect of humor on persistence is stronger for individuals with higher levels of self-enhancing humor style (Study 2).
Implications
Humor is not only entertaining but also replenishing. Individuals engaging in activities that require persistence may benefit from exposure to humor. Therefore, organizations that require their employees to persist may consider creating a playful culture that encourages the use of humor to increase employees’ persistence.
Originality/Value
Our study is the first to systematically examine the influence of humor on persistence. Going beyond anecdotal and correlational evidence, we document the causal impact of humor exposure on persistence using an experimental design. The findings contribute to the psychology of persistence by showing that humor can be used to increase persistence behavior. In addition, ours is the first study to show that the discrete emotion of amusement mediates the relationship between humor and persistence, and that the effect of humor on persistence is greater for individuals who are high in self-enhancing humor style.
Purpose
The purpose of this study was to develop and test a broaden-and-build model relating LMX to employees’ change-oriented behaviors (creative performance and taking charge) through the mediators of positive affect and psychological capital.
Design/Methodology/Approach
Time-lagged, two-source data were collected from 248 participants and 40 direct leaders, which composed a heterogeneous sample of professional jobs from a three-wave data collection strategy. Mplus was employed to test the proposed hypotheses.
Findings
We found that LMX predicts employees’ change-oriented behaviors through two sequential paths: (a) the positive affect mediates the relationship between LMX and employee psychological capital, and (b) psychological capital mediates the relationship between positive affect and employees’ creative performance and taking charge. Our results provide a logical explanation of the ‘broadening’ and ‘building’ mechanisms through which LMX enhances employees’ change-oriented behaviors.
Implications
This study specifically suggests affective and psychological mechanisms by promoting the broadening and building phases that facilitate the transformation of individual perceptions of LMX, positive affect, and psychological capital in explaining employees’ creative performance and taking charge.
Originality/Value
This study develops a broaden-and-build model of change-oriented behaviors and contributes to research on proactive behaviors in the context of leader-member relationships.
In this study, we examined the links between leadership style, the use of humor, and two measures of performance. Results indicated that leadership style was moderated by the use of humor in its relationship with individual and unit-level performance. Implications for further research on the use of humor by leaders are discussed.
Previous research on ingratiation in organizations has identified various categories of ingratiatory behaviors. However, these studies have failed to mention or investigate the ingratiatory power of humor. I integrate past research on ingratiation with research on humor in organizations to propose humor as a type of ingratiatory behavior in the workplace. I describe how humor affects targets, including determinants of humor's effectiveness as an ingratiation strategy, and various outcomes of humor as an ingratiation tactic.
In this article, the author describes a new theoretical perspective on positive emotions and situates this new perspective within the emerging field of positive psychology. The broaden-and-build theory posits that experiences of positive emotions broaden people's momentary thought-action repertoires, which in turn serves to build their enduring personal resources, ranging from physical and intellectual resources to social and psychological resources. Preliminary empirical evidence supporting the broaden-and-build theory is reviewed, and open empirical questions that remain to be tested are identified. The theory and findings suggest that the capacity to experience positive emotions may be a fundamental human strength central to the study of human flourishing.
This study focused on the conditions under which job dissatisfaction will lead to creativity as an expression of voice. We theorized that useful feedback from coworkers, coworker helping and support, and perceived organizational support for creativity would each interact with job dissatisfaction and continuance commitment (commitment motivated by necessity) to result in creativity. In a sample of 149 employees, as hypothesized, employees with high job dissatisfaction exhibited the highest creativity when continuance commitment was high and when (1) useful feedback from coworkers, or (2) coworker helping and support, or (3) perceived organizational support for creativity was high.
What personal characteristics and performance dimensions are important in determining who is promoted to first-line sales management positions? This question concerns those who aspire to sales management positions, as well as managers who are involved in the first-line sales management process. Despite the significance of the topic, virtually no published research has examined this issue. This paper reports the results of a nationwide survey of senior-level sales executives that focused on criteria that are important in the selection of first-line managers.
A national random sample of industrial salespeople was surveyed to examine the relationships among selling behaviors, trust, conflict, and sales outcomes, such as performance and anticipation of future interaction. Results indicate that trust mediates the effects of selling behaviors on sales outcomes, and conflict moderates this mediating effect. While salespeople could use customer-oriented selling as an antidote for the ill effects of dysfunctional conflict on trust, adaptive selling only serves to enhance salesperson trust in customers. Thus, the results of the study distinguish between the roles of customeroriented selling and adaptive selling in relationship marketing. Furthermore, when salespeople perceive that their sales managers are highly customer oriented and highly adaptive, they themselves become more customer oriented and more adaptive. Thus, as role models, supervisory selling behaviors contribute to salespeople’s ability to leverage their trust in customers. Based on these results, the managerial implications for selling organizations are discussed.
The authors combine findings from 155 samples of more than 31,000 salespeople to test alternative models of antecedents and consequences of adaptive selling behavior (ASB) and customer orientation (CO). A random-effects meta-analysis yields average values for 28 different correlations ranging from -.16 to .35, 19 of which are significant. Controlling for salesperson gender and selling experience, structural equation modeling indicates that ASB increases self-rated, manager-rated, and objective measures of performance, whereas CO increases only self-rated performance. Both ASB and CO increase job satisfaction. Tests of reciprocal relationships indicate that ASB increases CO and job satisfaction increases performance rather than vice versa. Selling experience increases performance but not job satisfaction, and saleswomen rate their performance and satisfaction slightly higher than salesmen do. The magnitudes of the relationships indicate that ASB and selling experience have greater effects than CO and gender on salesperson performance.
The authors use meta-analysis techniques to investigate the evidence that has been gathered on the determinants of salespeople's performance. A search of the published and unpublished literature uncovered 116 articles (the list of which is available upon request) that yielded 1653 reported associations between performance and determinants of that performance. The results indicate the determinants can be ordered in the following way in terms of the average size of their association with performance: (1) role variables, (2) skill, (3) motivation, (4) personal factors, (5) aptitude, and (6) organizational/environmental factors. When ordered according to the amount of the observed variation in correlations across studies that is real variation (i.e., not attributable to sampling error), the determinants rank as follows: (1) personal factors, (2) skill, (3) role variables, (4) aptitude, (5) motivation, and (6) organizational/environmental factors. To investigate whether the associations between each of the categories of predictors and performance could be partially accounted for by the presence of moderator variables, the results were broken out by customer type, product type, and type of dependent measure used. The results indicate that the strength of the relationship between the major determinants and salespeople's performance is affected by the type of products salespeople sell. The authors discuss the implications of these findings for sales managers and researchers.
Salespeople involved in the marketing of complex services often perform the role of "relationship manager." It is, in part, the quality of the relationship between the salesperson and the customer that determines the probability of continued interchange between those parties in the future. A relationship quality model is advanced and tested that examines the nature, consequences, and antecedents of relationship quality, as perceived by the customer. The findings suggest that future sales opportunities depend mostly on relationship quality (i. e., trust and satisfaction), whereas the ability to convert those opportunities into sales hinges more on conventional source characteristics of similarity and expertise. Relational selling behaviors such as cooperative intentions, mutual disclosure, and intensive followup contact generally produce a strong buyer-seller bond.
Associations among sense of humor, emotional intelligence (EI), and social competence were examined in 111 undergraduate students using measures of humor styles, trait cheerfulness, social competence, and an ability test of EI. Emotional management ability was positively correlated with self-enhancing humor and trait cheerfulness, and negatively correlated with trait bad mood. Ability to accurately perceive emotions was negatively related to aggressive and self-defeating humor. Positive humor styles and trait cheerfulness were positively correlated with various domains of social competence, whereas negative humor styles and trait bad mood were negatively correlated with social competence. Finally, the emotional management facet of EI was positively correlated with several social competence domains.
Purpose
The benefits of humor for general well‐being have long been touted. Past empirical research has suggested that some of these benefits also exist in the work domain. However, there is little shared understanding as to the role of humor in the workplace. The purpose of this paper is to address two main gaps in the humor literature. First, the authors summarize several challenges researchers face in defining and operationalizing humor, and offer an integrative conceptualization which may be used to consolidate and interpret seemingly disparate research streams. Second, meta‐analysis is used to explore the possibility that positive humor is associated with: employee health (e.g. burnout, health) and work‐related outcomes (e.g. performance, job satisfaction, withdrawal); with perceived supervisor/leader effectiveness (e.g. perceived leader performance, follower approval); and may mitigate the deleterious effects of workplace stress on employee burnout.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors examine the results of prior research using meta‐analysis ( k =49, n =8,532) in order to explore humor's potential role in organizational and employee effectiveness.
Findings
Results suggest employee humor is associated with enhanced work performance, satisfaction, workgroup cohesion, health, and coping effectiveness, as well as decreased burnout, stress, and work withdrawal. Supervisor use of humor is associated with enhanced subordinate work performance, satisfaction, perception of supervisor performance, satisfaction with supervisor, and workgroup cohesion, as well as reduced work withdrawal.
Research limitations/implications
Profitable avenues for future research include: clarifying the humor construct and determining how current humor scales tap this construct; exploring the role of negative forms of humor, as they likely have different workplace effects; the role of humor by coworkers; a number of potential moderators of the humor relationships, including type of humor, job level and industry type; and personality correlates of humor use and appreciation.
Practical implications
The authors recommend caution be exercised when attempting to cultivate humor in the workplace, as this may raise legal concerns (e.g. derogatory or sexist humor), but efforts aimed at encouraging self‐directed/coping humor may have the potential to innocuously buffer negative effects of workplace stress.
Originality/value
Although psychologists have long recognized the value of humor for general well‐being, organizational scholars have devoted comparatively little research to exploring benefits of workplace humor. Results underscore benefits of humor for work outcomes, encourage future research, and offer managerial insights on the value of creating a workplace context supportive of positive forms of humor.
The authors propose that adaptive selling is influenced by salespeople's knowledge of customer types and sales strategies as well as their motivation to alter the direction of their behavior. Pertinent research in psychology and personal selling is reviewed and specific propositions relating to knowledge, motivation, and adaptive behavior are advanced. On the basis of these propositions, suggestions are made for selecting, training, managing, and compensating salespeople.
The statistical tests used in the analysis of structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error are examined. A drawback of the commonly applied chi square test, in addition to the known problems related to sample size and power, is that it may indicate an increasing correspondence between the hypothesized model and the observed data as both the measurement properties and the relationship between constructs decline. Further, and contrary to common assertion, the risk of making a Type II error can be substantial even when the sample size is large. Moreover, the present testing methods are unable to assess a model's explanatory power. To overcome these problems, the authors develop and apply a testing system based on measures of shared variance within the structural model, measurement model, and overall model.
Purpose
For many years, the financial industry has been perceived as conservative, old‐fashioned, and somewhat tedious. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of humour usage by financial advisors on several sales performance outcomes.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey was completed by more than 400 buyer‐seller dyads. Structural equation modeling (SEM) analyses were conducted. An important strength of SEM is its ability to incorporate the psychometric notions of constructs and measurement errors in the same estimation procedure.
Findings
A financial advisor's good sense of humour has a positive impact on the clients' perceptions of service quality, trust, satisfaction, purchase intentions, and word‐of‐mouth propensity.
Research limitations/implications
Although only customer perceptions were used, the paper suggests many ways to use the results as a spring board by sales researchers to accrue research efforts in understanding the truly rich role of humour.
Practical implications
Many practical implications are suggested to entice organizations to emphasize salespeople's humouristic skills as a competitive advantage.
Originality/value
This is believed to be the first paper to investigate the effects of humour usage in sales encounters in the financial industry. A better understanding of humour is useful for service providers owing to its mass potential, its low cost, and its positive benefits for customers and financial advisors alike.
Reviews the research work and conceptual development of the International Marketing and Purchasing (IMP) group into the nature of buyer-seller relationships which has evolved during the past 20 years. The themes of interaction, relationships and networks encapsulate the major research thrusts of this group and underlie much of the contemporary academic research in Europe. Addresses these themes, which represent the major phases of challenging conceptual and empirical research with which the IMP group has been concerned since its inception in 1976. Aims to show the development process of the IMP research and to integrate some of its various themes and findings.
This study examined the independent and joint contributions of employees' creativity-relevant personal characteristics and three characteristics of the organizational context - job complexity, supportive supervision, and controlling supervision - to three indicators of employees' creative performance: patent disclosures written, contributions to an organization suggestion program, and supervisory ratings of creativity. Participants (171 employees from two manufacturing facilities) produced the most creative work when they had appropriate creativity-relevant characteristics, worked on complex, challenging jobs, and were supervised in a supportive, noncontrolling fashion.
Workplace humor and organizational creativity are becoming topics of great interest to managers. There is a need to understand more about the role of humor in enhancing creative performance in the workplace. This study examines the relationship between the three functions of humor and organizational creativity. Results suggest that liberating humor and controlling humor relate significantly to organizational creativity, the former positively and the latter negatively, while stress relieving humor was not found to relate significantly to organizational creativity. Implications for practicing managers and research on humor and creativity are discussed.
Mood states have generated considerable activity in many diverse fields, including psychology and marketing. While this research has been extended to include a variety of applications, the uniqueness of services provides a particularly sound environment to apply mood states and their effects on persuasion. In this context, this article reviews current applications of moods, and addresses how they can be strategically used to facilitate persuasion by service marketers who have contact with clients.
Humor is an oft used promotional tool in advertising, and the question naturally arises as to whether humor can also be designed to accomplish specific goals in the industrial selling process. In this article, principles of humor are applied to the buyer/seller process, with particular reference to the steps of the sale. The judicious use of humor by the industrial salesperson can enhance the sales presentation and favorably influence the overall buyer/seller relationship, provided the salesperson has adequate knowledge of the capabilities and limitations of humor.
This research studies the relationship between six dimensions of leaders' emotional intelligence and two dimensions of employee creativity. A sample of 138 managers from 66 organizations reported on their own emotional intelligence and the creativity of their teams. Our results point out two main findings: (a) leaders' emotional intelligence explains significant variance of both creativity dimensions; (b) emotional intelligence dimensions with higher predictive power are self-control against criticism and empathy. The findings suggest that emotionally intelligent leaders behave in ways that stimulate the creativity of their teams.
This study evaluated the sensitivity of maximum likelihood (ML)-, generalized least squares (GLS)-, and asymptotic distribution-free (ADF)-based fit indices to model misspecification, under conditions that varied sample size and distribution. The effect of violating assumptions of asymptotic robustness theory also was examined. Standardized root-mean-square residual (SRMR) was the most sensitive index to models with misspecified factor covariance(s), and Tucker-Lewis Index (1973; TLI), Bollen's fit index (1989; BL89), relative noncentrality index (RNI), comparative fit index (CFI), and the ML- and GLS-based gamma hat, McDonald's centrality index (1989; Mc), and root-mean-square error of approximation (RMSEA) were the most sensitive indices to models with misspecified factor loadings. With ML and GLS methods, we recommend the use of SRMR, supplemented by TLI, BL89, RNI, CFI, gamma hat, Mc, or RMSEA (TLI, Mc, and RMSEA are less preferable at small sample sizes). With the ADF method, we recommend the use of SRMR, supplemented by TLI, BL89, RNI, or CH. Finally, most of the ML-based fit indices outperformed those obtained from GLS and ADF and are preferable for evaluating model fit. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Criteria for evaluating structural equation models with latent variables are defined, critiqued, and illustrated. An overall
program for model evaluation is proposed based upon an interpretation of converging and diverging evidence. Model assessment
is considered to be a complex process mixing statistical criteria with philosophical, historical, and theoretical elements.
Inevitably the process entails some attempt at a reconcilation between so-called objective and subjective norms.
It has long been recognized that statistical power is important for structural equation models, but only recently has it become possible to estimate the power associated with the test of an entire model. This article discusses the relevance of power for structural equation models and measurement validation, then examines the question of the degree of power associated with models published in business journals. Addressing this matter is essential, because statistical power directly affects the confidence with which test results can be interpreted. The issue is particularly appropriate in light of the increased use of structural equation models in business research. Using articles from some leading business journals as examples, a survey finds that power tends to be either very low, implying that too many false models will not be rejected (Type II error), or extremely high, causing overrejection of tenable models (Type I error). The implications of this discovery are explored, and recommendations that should improve the validity and application of structural equation modeling in business research are offered.
To succeed in an era of increasing competition requires salespeople to engage in creative problem-solving activities. However, the contemporary sales literature has not explicitly examined the creative aspects of selling. Based on social psychological research on creativity and our own qualitative study, we conceptualize salesperson creative performance as the amount of new ideas generated or behaviors exhibited by the salesperson in performing his/her job activities. Following recommended steps in scale development, we develop a seven-item scale for measuring the construct that demonstrates acceptable unidimensionality, internal consistency, and construct validity. Implications and future research directions are discussed.
Creative activities are affect-laden. Laboring at perhaps the most inspiring and difficult of human endeavors, a creator frequently experiences the excitement of discovery and the anguish of failure. Engaging in creativity in organizations inevitably creates tension, conflict, and emotionally charged debates and disagreements because complex organizations need both control and predictability and creativity and change. In this paper, we describe five routes through which the innate creativity of organizational members can be awakened: identification, information gathering, idea generation, idea evaluation and modification, and idea implementation. We propose that leaders, and in particular, the emotional intelligence of leaders, plays a critical role in enabling and supporting the awakening of creativity through these five complementary routes. After describing theory and research on emotional intelligence, we develop propositions concerning how leaders' emotional intelligence can enable and promote followers' creativity in multiple ways.
Conventional wisdom suggests that a customer orientation is a vital cornerstone upon which the success of salespeople is predicated in terms of serving their customers and prospects. However, at a pragmatic level, not all salespeople practice a customer-oriented philosophy in their day-to-day selling. In fact, decades of sales research provide largely inconclusive results with respect to individual salespersons' customer orientation and performance outcomes. We argue that for customer orientation to be a predictor of sales performance, specific selling skills must be present. Furthermore, we empirically demonstrate that without these requisite selling skills, salespeople are better off utilizing a sales orientation approach, as opposed to a customer orientation approach. More provocatively, this research shows that a “missing link” in the long standing body of research on the SOCO (sales orientation/customer orientation) perspective is that specific selling skills can impact sales performance directly as well as moderate the impact that both a “sales orientation” and a “customer orientation” ultimately have on sales performance.
Hypotheses involving mediation are common in the behavioral sciences. Mediation exists when a predictor affects a dependent variable indirectly through at least one intervening variable, or mediator. Methods to assess mediation involving multiple simultaneous mediators have received little attention in the methodological literature despite a clear need. We provide an overview of simple and multiple mediation and explore three approaches that can be used to investigate indirect processes, as well as methods for contrasting two or more mediators within a single model. We present an illustrative example, assessing and contrasting potential mediators of the relationship between the helpfulness of socialization agents and job satisfaction. We also provide SAS and SPSS macros, as well as Mplus and LISREL syntax, to facilitate the use of these methods in applications.