Salesperson's spirituality: impact on customer orientation and adaptability. Issue 3 (2nd May 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Chawla, Vaibhav; Guda, Sridhar
• Is Part Of: Marketing intelligence & planning. Volume 35:Issue 3(2017)
• Page Start: 408
• Page End: 424
• Publication Date: 2017-05-02
• Subjects: Spirituality -- Customer orientation -- Adaptive selling -- Meaningful work -- Quiet ego; 658.83
• DOI: 10.1108/MIP-06-2016-0087
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0263-4503

Abstract

Abstract : Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to use the perspective of ego to investigate the spirituality of a salesperson and its influence on customer orientation and adaptive selling behavior. Meaningful work is proposed as a mediator. Design/methodology/approach: Cross-sectional data were collected from 218 insurance salespeople in India. Bootstrap with SEM was used to test mediation. Findings: The paper finds that there is full mediation through meaningful work on both the outcome behaviors. Research limitations/implications: The findings will encourage researchers to link various salesperson outcomes such as ethical sales behavior, salesperson service behavior, and so on to spirituality. Practical implications: The findings can provide some relevant inputs for sales leadership actions aimed at facilitating employees' spiritual experiences. Originality/value: This is among the first few studies, as what the authors believe, in the sales literature to find out that spirituality and sales job not only can co-exist, but they do complement each other.