SALESPERSON COUNTERPRODUCTIVE BEHAVIOR: A STUDY OF DIRECT AND INDIRECT EFFECTS OF COMPLEXITY, ORGANIZATIONAL, AND PERSONALITY-RELATED ANTECEDENTS

Abstract

Recent events suggest that counterproductive salesperson behavior—a behavior with the possibility of damaging the organization and its related partners—is a common phenomenon in the professional selling context. Considering the negative effect of counterproductive salesperson behavior on the image and performance of the selling organization and the fact that the behavior remains an under-researched topic in the domain of sales research, this study conceptualizes and explores a new perspective for the understanding the phenomenon. Drawing from Kunda’s (1990) theory of motivated reasoning and studies in the management, sales, and social psychology literature, this study proposes and explores a direct and indirect mechanism for understanding the effects of complexity, organizational, and personality-related factors in the occurrence of counterproductive behavior in the sales role. The conceptual model was tested using data gathered from 400 professional salespeople. Empirical findings revealed that counterproductive salesperson behavior is influenced not only directly by organizational factors, as has been found in prior research, but also indirectly by factors in the customer and external market environments, and by specific personality traits of the salesperson. Furthermore, findings show that transformational leadership resources made available to salespeople is effective in attenuating occurrence of counterproductive behavior specifically directed at the firm. These results indicate not only how counterproductive salesperson behavior develops, but also why salespeople engage in the behavior and how sales managers can adapt their leadership behaviors to lessen unfavorable behaviors in the sales role.