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The effect of trust in management on salespeople’s selling orientation

Marketing Letters volume 33, pages 381–397 (2022)Cite this article

Abstract

In the following study, a sales rep hard-selling orientation is much more influenced by the hard-selling orientation they perceive senior management want them to adopt when (1) they trust senior management and (2) when their sales manager is perceived to take a similar position as senior management. Thus, a strong in-sync ethical signal is sent, either low or high. Trust plays no moderating role in senior management or sales managers’ influence on a salesperson’s level of customer orientation. This is because pursuing a customer orientation does not increase risk and vulnerability the way that pursuing a hard-selling orientation does, and trust is only an influential construct when there exists risk and vulnerability. In addition, no strong in-sync ethical signal effect was observed on sales rep customer orientation.

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Notes

  1. We also expected the social sanctioning of hard-selling as a vulnerability. This suggested subjects will be under the influence of a social desirability bias when they answer questions about hard-selling because dishonest hard-selling is socailly undesirable. We tested this and found it to be true.

  2. We acknowledge a possible vulnerability in pursuing a customer orientation encouraged by senior management. It can happen when the result is an unmet sales quota, even though customers are very happy with the sales rep’s service. The sales rep’s vulnerability is, however, much greater when upset customers conclude they have been subject to hard-selling exploitation.

  3. To increase the power of testing, we’ve removed variance explained by various demographics, from the error term but in reanalyzing the raw data (i.e., without removing the variances explained by control variables) the results remained unchanged.

  4. Older salespeople possessed a greater self-presentation bias, they scored significantly higher on the self-report self-presentation scale (8.9 vs. 7.9, F(4,456) = 8.080, p < 0.05) and salespeople working in the computer hardware and software industries scored significantly lower than salespeople in all other industries (8.0 vs. 8.8, F(6,454) = 6.345, p < 0.05). We accounted for this effect and the high-tech salespeople still scored highest on HSO.

  5. Because MgrHSOrsp approached significance in Eq. 5 and MgrHSOrsp*Trust did not, the former was used in testing the in-sync interaction term.

  6. Our hypothesized independent variables were assumed to be in a monotonic and linear relationship with our dependent variable and we had no theoretical reason to believe there should be any non-linear effects in the relationships we tested. For example, we had no theoretical reason to predict that moderate levels of Senior or Sales Manager CO, HSO, interacting with trust would have a peak or valley effect compared to the extremes—i.e., low and high levels—when predicting salesperson CO and HSO (an inverted quadratic relationship). To test the robustness of our linear assumption we undertook a polynomial regression analysis (available from authors) and it revealed that the simple linear model provided the most parsimonious explanation of our effects. Higher order polynomial terms did not improve fit or explanation.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Business, Florida International University, Miami, FL, USA

    Peter Dickson & Jaclyn L. Tanenbaum

  2. Kelley School of Business, Indiana University Bloomington, Bloomington, IN, USA

    Erick M. Mas

  3. College of Business, Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, IN, USA

    Michelle Van Solt

  4. College of Business Administration, University of Missouri - St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA

    Tessa Garcia-Collart

Authors
  1. Peter Dickson
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  2. Erick M. Mas
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  3. Michelle Van Solt
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  4. Tessa Garcia-Collart
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  5. Jaclyn L. Tanenbaum
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Correspondence to Peter Dickson.

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Appendix

Appendix

Survey Instrument Measures Used in Study

Start of survey

  1. 1.

    Which of the following economic sectors do you mostly work in?

    Healthcare

    Education

    Financial and professional services

    Information systems, software and other high tech

    Manufacturing and distribution

    Primary production, agriculture, construction, mining, energy

    Other

  2. 2.

    Please indicate your gender? female male

  3. 3.

    What is your age? _____

  4. 4.

    Think about the typical customer in your database. For how long (how many years) have you been selling to that customer? ____ years

In the following questions you are asked how much you agree or disagree with the statement about your work in sales: (7-point disagree-agree scale).

CO (α = 0.89).

  1. 1.

    I try to figure out what my customers’ needs are.

  2. 2.

    I try to bring a customer with a problem together with a service/product that helps solve the problem.

  3. 3.

    A good employee has to have the customer’s best interest in mind.

  4. 4.

    I offer the service/product that is best suited to the customer’s problem (specific needs).

  5. 5.

    I try to find out what kind of service/products will be most helpful to a customer.

HSO (α = 0.95; Thomas et al., 2001).

  1. 1.

    I try to sell as much as I can rather than to satisfy a customer.

  2. 2.

    Sometimes it is necessary to stretch the truth in describing a product to a customer.

  3. 3.

    I try to sell a customer all I can convince them to buy, even if I think it is more than a wise customer would buy.

  4. 4.

    I paint too rosy a picture of my services/products to make them sound as good as possible.

  5. 5.

    I decide what service/product to offer on the basis of what I can convince customers to accept, not on the basis of what will satisfy them in the long run.

MgrCO (r = 0.71).

  1. 1.

    My sales manager wants me to bring together a customer with a problem and a company service/product that helps solve the problem.

  2. 2.

    My sales manager wants me to try to find out what kind of service/product will be most helpful to my customers in meeting their needs.

MgrSO (α = 0.94).

  1. 1.

    My sales manager wants me to sell as much as I can rather than to satisfy my customers.

  2. 2.

    My sales manager wants me to try to sell a customer all I can convince them to buy, even if I think it is more than a wise customer would buy.

  3. 3.

    My sales manager wants me to paint too rosy a picture of the products/ services we sell to make them sound as good as possible.

MgrTrust

  1. 1.

    I trust my sales manager.

SMCO (r = 0.78).

  1. 1.

    Senior management wants me to bring together a customer with a company service/product that helps solve the problem.

  2. 2.

    Senior management wants me to try to find out what kind of service/product will be most helpful to my customers in meeting their needs.

SMSO (α = 0.95).

  1. 1.

    Senior management wants me to sell as much as I can rather than to satisfy my customers.

  2. 2.

    Senior Management wants me to try to sell a customer all I can convince them to buy, even if I think it is more than a wise customer would buy.

  3. 3.

    Senior management wants me to paint too rosy a picture of the products/ services we sell to make them sound as good as possible.

SMtrust

  1. 1.

    I trust senior management.

Empathy concern scale (α = 0.74; Adapted from Davis, 1983).

  1. 1.

    When I see another person in pain/ discomfort I feel sympathy.

  2. 2.

    I am usually a compassionate when I hear another’s problems.

  3. 3.

    I am happy when others around me are happy.

  4. 4.

    I am sad when others around me are sad.

Self-presentation bias scale (Adapted from Ray, 1984).

  1. 1.

    Have you sometimes taken unfair advantage of another person? Yes/No

  2. 2.

    I am quick to admit making a mistake? Yes/No

  3. 3.

    Do you sometimes try to get even rather than forgive and forget? Yes/No

  4. 4.

    I am always courteous, even to people who are disagreeable? Yes/No

  5. 5.

    I am always a good listener, no matter who I am talking to? Yes/No

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Dickson, P., Mas, E.M., Van Solt, M. et al. The effect of trust in management on salespeople’s selling orientation. Mark Lett 33, 381–397 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11002-021-09612-5

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