Bringing Meaning to the Salespersons’ Performance: The Effect of Salespersons’ Emotional Regulation and Salespersons’ Selling Skills

Authors

  • Faheem Ahmad Khan Assistant Professor, Department of Management Sciences, COMSATS University, Islamabad, Pakistan
  • Muhammad Umer Quddoos Assistant Professor, Department of Commerce, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, Pakistan
  • Mazhar Iqbal Lecturer, Department of Commerce, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan, Pakistan   E-M
  • Arslan Ahmad Siddiqi General Manager, Institute of Industrial and Control System, Islamabad, Pakistan

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.47067/ramss.v8i1.464

Keywords:

Satisfaction with Supervisor, Customer Orientation, Emotional Regulation, and Selling Skills

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to make a pragmatic contribution by confirming the usefulness of the suggested theoretical framework and to test a research model confined to realistic proxy variables integrated into the framework of performance. The study's goal is also to substantiate that the suggested, multi-stage structure will verify the underlying process by which salespeople can achieve higher performance in the pharmaceutical sales context. This study proposes the process-based framework of salespersons’ performance given a few certainties significant in the pharmaceutical sales performance today i.e., customer orientation of the salespeople due to increased demand of customers for a total solution, emotional regulation, and sales-related skills to meet the challenging competition. An argument is presented that proposes that there are supplementary, probable stages in the overall sales process. The research model is developed to test pieces of this process framework. Downstream salespersons’ behaviors and the outcome of these behaviors are thus the central idea of this framework. Data was collected from pharmaceutical salespeople (n = 300) from 20 pharmaceutical firms (national and international). The paper concludes with a summary of managerial and theoretical implications and research limitations as well as proposed future directions for researchers. This research offered more of a direct consequence to senior and field managers. The precise characteristics of the pharmaceutical salespersons i.e., salespersons’ customer orientation are influenced by the servant leadership style of field managers, and emotional regulation and selling skills do play an important role in boosting their performance. We also found a major variance in salespersons’ performance that was attributed to emotional regulation and selling skills. This offers concrete proof that the outcome salespersons bring in as a result strong emotional regulation and professional selling skills are significant drivers of performance. The downstream effects that result from the servant leadership style of field managers drive performance. The results show a promising configuration of relationships within the proposed model.

References

Alnakhli, H., Inyang, A. E., & Itani, O. S. (2021). The Role of Salespeople in Value Co-Creation and Its Impact on Sales Performance. Journal of Business-to-Business Marketing, 28(4), 347–367. https://doi.org/10.1080/1051712X.2021.2012079

Baber, R., Kaurav, R. P. S., & Paul, J. (2020). Impact of individual market orientation on selling and customer orientation. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 28(4), 288–303. https://doi.org/10.1080/0965254X.2018.1489880

Baron, R. M., & Kenny, D. A. (1986). The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51(6), 1173.

Behrman, D. N., & Perreault Jr, W. D. (1982). Measuring the performance of industrial salespersons. Journal of Business Research, 10(3), 355–370. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0148-2963(82)90039-X

Ben Amor, N. E. H. (2019). What Skills Make a Salesperson Effective? An Exploratory Comparative Study among Car Sales Professionals. International Business Research, 12(11), 76. https://doi.org/10.5539/ibr.v12n11p76

Bidisha Banerjee & Sudin Bag. (2022). Relationship between creativity, adaptive selling, and sales performance: The moderating role of job satisfaction. Asian Academy of Management Journal, 27(2). https://doi.org/10.21315/aamj2022.27.2.5

Cavazos-Arroyo, J., & Puente-Diaz, R. (2023). Antecedents and Consequences of Three Selling Strategies in Social Enterprises. Review of Business Management, 25(1), 2–17. https://doi.org/10.7819/rbgn.v25i1.4210

Chang, W.-P., & Wang, C.-H. (2023). Factors Related to Nurse Satisfaction with Supervisor Leadership. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 20(5), 3933. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20053933

Conde, R., Prybutok, V., & Thompson, K. (2022). Bringing theory to practice: Examining the role of pay for performance, intrinsic motivation, and culture on sales agent tenure. Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, 30(3), 374-393.

Danish Habib, M., & Attiq, S. (2020). A model and empirical examination of influencing factors of customer satisfaction and service performance through interactional quality. Business & Economic Review, 12(1), 119–138. https://doi.org/10.22547/BER/12.1.6

Dugan, R., Ubal, V. O., & Scott, M. L. (2022). Sales well-being: a salesperson-focused framework for individual, organizational, and societal well-being. Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, 1-19.

Good, V., Hughes, D. E., Kirca, A. H., & McGrath, S. (2022). A self-determination theory-based meta-analysis on the differential effects of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation on salesperson performance. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 50(3), 586-614.

Grant, K., Nasution, H., & Pickett, B. (2020). Customer Orientation’s Vital Importance to Achieve Sales Effectiveness: Proceedings of the International Conference on Business and Management Research (ICBMR 2020). The International Conference on Business and Management Research (ICBMR 2020), Depok, West Java, Indonesia. https://doi.org/10.2991/aebmr.k.201222.010

Hamzah, N., Maelah, R., & Saleh, O. M. (2022). The Moderating Effect of Human Capital on the Relationship between Enterprise Risk Management and Organization Performance. International Journal of Business and Society, 23(1), 614-632.

Hamzah, M. I., Othman, A. K., & Hassan, F. (2016). Moderating Role of Customer Orientation on the Link between Market Oriented Behaviors and Proactive Service Performance among Relationship Managers in the Business Banking Industry. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 224, 109–116. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2016.05.412

Hermawan, A. A., Bachtiar, E., Wicaksono, P. T., & Sari, N. P. (2021). Levers of Control and Managerial Performance: The Importance of Belief Systems. Gadjah Mada International Journal of Business, 23(3), 237. https://doi.org/10.22146/gamaijb.62612

Høgevold, N., Rodriguez, R., Svensson, G., & Otero-Neira, C. (2023). Salespeople’s sales performance skills in B2B of services firms – a cross-industrial study. European Business Review. https://doi.org/10.1108/EBR-03-2023-0089

Hu, M., Khan, F. A., Quddoos, M. U., Wu, X., & Rafique, A. (2024). The interplay between behavior-based salesforce control systems and salesperson’s creative performance: A closer look at salesperson’s work engagement. Current Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-023-05591-0

Kerr, P. D., & Marcos-Cuevas, J. (2022). The interplay between objective and subjective measures of salesperson performance: Towards an integrated approach. Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, 42(3), 225–242. https://doi.org/10.1080/08853134.2022.2044344

Khan, F. A., Ahmad, M., & Saeed, T. (2023). A new perspective on behavior-based sales control system and salespersons’ job outcomes: An outbound pharmaceutical sales perspective. International Journal of Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Marketing, 17(4), 450–475. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPHM-08-2022-0084

Khan, F. A., Quddoos, M. U., Baloch, N. I., Adeel, M., Siddiqi, A. A., & Amin, M. S. (2024). Does Field Managers’ Interactional Monitoring Style Asphyxiate or Stimulate Salespersons’ Performance? An Explanation Through Dual Mediation Process. Journal of the Knowledge Economy, 1-28.

Kidwell, B., Hasford, J., Turner, B., Hardesty, D. M., & Zablah, A. R. (2021). Emotional Calibration and Salesperson Performance. Journal of Marketing, 85(6), 141-161. doi:10.1177/0022242921999603

Leonidou, L. C., Aykol, B., Fotiadis, T. A., Zeriti, A., & Christodoulides, P. (2019). The Role of Exporters’ Emotional Intelligence in Building Foreign Customer Relationships. Journal of International Marketing, 27(4), 58–80. https://doi.org/10.1177/1069031X19876642

Limbu, Y. B., & Huhmann, B. A. (2022). Ethical Issues in Pharmaceutical Marketing: A Systematic Review and Future Research Agenda. Journal of Global Marketing, 35(1), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/08911762.2021.1949084

Mallin, M. L., Hancock, T. D., Pullins, E. B., & Gammoh, B. S. (2022). Salesperson’s perceived personal identification with supervisor and the relationship with turnover intention and performance: a mediated motivation model. Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, 1-22.

Malek, S. L., Sarin, S., & Jaworski, B. J. (2022). A measurement model of the dimensions and types of informal organizational control: An empirical test in a B2B sales context. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 39(2), 415-442.

Morgan, C., & Zane, D. M. (2022). Practitioner Perspectives on Key Challenges in Pharmaceutical Marketing and Future Research Opportunities. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, 41(4), 368–382. https://doi.org/10.1177/07439156221112304

Mulki, J. P., Caemmerer, B., & Heggde, G. S. (2015). Leadership style, salesperson’s work effort and job performance: the influence of power distance. Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, 35(1), 3–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/08853134.2014.958157

Oliveira Santini, F., Vieira, V. A., Ladeira, W. J., & Sampaio, C. H. (2019). Behaviour?Based and Outcome?Based Control Systems: A Meta?Analytic Study. Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences / Revue Canadienne Des Sciences de l’Administration, 36(2), 149–162. https://doi.org/10.1002/cjas.1486

Pap, Z., Vîrg?, D., & Notelaers, G. (2021). Perceptions of Customer Incivility, Job Satisfaction, Supervisor Support, and Participative Climate: A Multi-level Approach. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 713953. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.713953

Qureshi, M. A. (2017). Impact of Supervisor Support on Job Satisfaction: A Moderating Role of Fairness Perception. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 7(3).

R.M., H., Sivakumaran, B., & Jacob, J. (2019). The moderating role of sales experience in adaptive selling, customer orientation, and job satisfaction in a unionized setting. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, 34(8), 1724–1735. https://doi.org/10.1108/JBIM-08-2018-0233

Rodriguez, R., Høgevold, N.M., Otero-Neira, C. and Svensson, G. (2023), "The direct effect of B2B sellers' skills on relative and absolute sales performance: a dual measurement approach", Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol. 36 No. 1, pp. 64-85. https://doi.org/10.1108/JOCM-03-2022-0083

Salonen, A., Terho, H., Böhm, E., Virtanen, A., & Rajala, R. (2021). Engaging a product-focused sales force in solution selling: Interplay of individual- and organizational-level conditions. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 49(1), 139–163. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-020-00729-z

Sindi, Y., & Hamas, Y. (2020). SALESPERSON SKILLS IN BEAUTY STORES FROM CONSUMERS’ PERCEPTION.

Singh, R., & Venugopal, P. (2015).The impact of salesperson customer orientation on sales performance via mediating mechanism.Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, 30(5), 594–607. https://doi.org/10.1108/JBIM-08-2012-0141

Tevfik, U., & Guven, O. (2017). The mediating role of job satisfaction on the relationship between teachers' perceptions of supervisor support and job performances. International Journal of Educational Administration and Policy Studies, 9(7), 84–90. https://doi.org/10.5897/IJEAPS2017.0519

Vieira, V. A., Jones, E., Faia, V. d., Silva, J. D., & Negreiros, L. F. (2022). The moderating role of self-efficacy in the relationship between control systems and sales performance. Journal of Personal Selling & Sales Management, 1-22.

Wierzbi?ski, B., Zaborek, P., Wosiek, M., & Surmacz, T. (2023). Knowledge management orientation as a driver of competitive performance: Evidence from Polish SMEs in the aviation industry. Entrepreneurial Business and Economics Review, 11(1), 93–112. https://doi.org/10.15678/EBER.2023.110105

Windon, S. R. (2020). The Relationship between Satisfaction with Supervisor and Demographic Variables among Extension Program Assistants. Journal of Human Sciences and Extension. https://doi.org/10.54718/XQGQ5060

Wisker, Z. L., & Poulis, A. (2014). Emotional Intelligence – Sales Performance Relationship: A Mediating Role of Adaptive Selling Behaviour. International Journal of Management and Economics, 43(1), 32–52. https://doi.org/10.1515/ijme-2015-0002

Wisker, Z. L., & Poulis, A. (2017). EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND SALES PERFORMANCE. A MYTH OR REALITY? International Journal of Business and Society, 16(2). https://doi.org/10.33736/ijbs.563.2015

Yeo, C., Hur, C., & Ji, S. (2019). The Customer Orientation of Salesperson for Performance in Korean Market Case: A Relationship between Customer Orientation and Adaptive Selling. Sustainability, 11(21), 6115. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11216115

Yoon, J.-H., Jeung, D., & Chang, S.-J. (2016). Does High Emotional Demand with Low Job Control Relate to Suicidal Ideation among Service and Sales Workers in Korea? Journal of Korean Medical Science, 31(7), 1042. https://doi.org/10.3346/jkms.2016.31.7.1042

Downloads

Published

2025-02-11

How to Cite

Khan, F. A. ., Quddoos, M. U. ., Iqbal, M. ., & Siddiqi, A. A. (2025). Bringing Meaning to the Salespersons’ Performance: The Effect of Salespersons’ Emotional Regulation and Salespersons’ Selling Skills. Review of Applied Management and Social Sciences, 8(1), 347-361. https://doi.org/10.47067/ramss.v8i1.464