Salesperson Performance: Exploring the Roles of Role Ambiguity, Autonomy and Self-Efficacy

VARIABLES OF INTEREST AND HYPOTHESES Self-Efficacy One factor seemingly related to the salesperson's performance and behavior is the salesperson's perception of his/her ability to perform. SE refers to the confidence an individual has in his/her ability to perform well in a specific task domain (Bandura, 1997). In a selling context, SE involves a comprehensive summary or judgment of one's perceived capability for performing specific selling tasks. SE has been associated with work-related performance. For example, a meta-analysis involving 114 studies reported a corrected weighted average correlation of 0.38 between SE and work-related performance (Stajkovick and Luthans, 1998). Some SE studies have focused on specifically on salesperson performance. For example, Barling and Beattie (1983) found SE to be associated with the performance of life insurance salespersons. In a study involving real-estate salespersons and cell phone message service salespersons, Krishan, Netemeyer and Boles (2002) found SE to be indirectly related to performance through effort, suggesting salesperson confidence alone is insufficient to guarantee success. Brown, Cron and Slocum (1998) conducted research which indicated SE was related to both self-set goal levels and performance. In a literature review on customer-oriented selling, Schwepker (2003) called for research exploring the relationship between CO and SE. Schwepker (2003) argued that because SE has been shown to be related to salespersons' perceptions of quota difficulty (Schwepker and Good, 1999), there may be an inverse relationship between salesperson SE and perceived quota difficulty. This would suggest that low SE salespersons would be more likely to resort to a selling orientation, rather than a CO. Hypothesis l(a-c) was based on literature and the logical perception that one's confidence in his/her ability to complete assigned tasks would be positively related to that individual's CO, performance, and CS levels. A salesperson's feelings that he/she can adequately perform tasks and assignments (high SE) would provide that person with the impetus to engage in challenging tasks, armed with the belief that they possess the necessary skills to complete these tasks. This belief should translate into, not only performance, but also perceptions of higher levels of CO and CS. H1a. SE will be positively related to CO. H1b. SE will be positively related to performance. H1c. SE will be positively related to CS. Autonomy Job autonomy refers to the felt ability to determine the nature of a sales task or problem and to arrive at a course of action (Wang and Netemeyer, 2002). Outside salespersons typically work while physically separated from their managers, contributing to the salesperson's perception of job autonomy (Behrman and Perreault, 1984). Greater levels of job autonomy would likely be perceived by salespersons as facilitating considerable leeway in their manner of customer interaction. According to Jamieson and Zanna (1989), highly restricted salespeople lack sufficient flexibility to make customer-oriented decisions. Moreover, such restricted salespersons would be less able to offer customer-oriented solutions, as only a range of standard solutions are available, with little or no leeway allowed for extraordinary decision making. Such extraordinary decisions are likely commonplace in the selling profession due to the unpredictable nature of salesperson/customer interactions. Dubinsky and Skinner (1984) found that retail salespersons performed at a higher level when their perceived autonomy is higher. The research, and intuitive thought, suggests that as a salesperson feels that he/she has more freedom to perform his/herjob in personally desired ways, he/she will perform at higher levels, be more customer-oriented, and provide higher levels of CS. On the other hand, if managerial dictates, rules, and procedures constrain the manner in which a salesperson performs his/her sales role, his/her performance will be reduced as he/she may be unable to provide the levels of CO and CS desired. …