The pull-to-stay effect: influence of sales managers' leadership worthiness on salesperson turnover intentions

Given that salesperson turnover is a significant problem for sales organizations, sales researchers have devoted a lot of attention toward explicating various drivers and mitigators of salesperson turnover intentions. Within this domain, consistent with the popular sentiment "employees don't quit their jobs, they quit their bosses," scholars have explored sales manager-related triggers such as leadership style, salesperson - sales manager relational exchange, and several managerial characteristics. We extend this stream of research by developing and testing a framework of salespersons' perceptions of their manager'sleadership worthiness- a higher-order construct comprising of competence, charisma, and behavioral integrity - and its subsequent impact on salesperson turnover intentions. Our framework illustrates that salespersons' inferences, judgments, and attributions regarding their manager exert a pull-to-stay effect by lowering turnover intentions. Specifically, we find that leadership worthiness mitigates turnover intentions directly and indirectly via personal identification with and trust in the manager. We also find support for the moderating effects of salesperson gratitude on the relationships between leadership worthiness and both salesperson turnover intentions as well as identification with the manager. We conclude by discussing theoretical and practical implications of our findings as well as directions for future research.