An investigation of sales managers’ aggressiveness in B2B sales leadership: The sequential mediation model of emotional exhaustion and adaptive selling

Abstract

The aim of this research is to investigate the influence of sales managers’ aggressiveness on ethical sales leadership and salesperson performance in B2B context, taking into consideration the sequential mediation of emotional labor and adaptive selling behavior. Sales managers spend most of their time in solving salesforce-related issues, while empirical studies have largely neglected such factors that can have negative consequences on salesforce-related tasks. In order to overcome this gap in the literature, we draw from conservation of resources (COR) theory to introduce and establish an advanced theoretical paradigm. The authors tested the model through 336 responses from B2B salesperson-manager dyads. The findings of the study reveal that sales managers’ aggressiveness has a negative association with ethical sales leadership. Also, sales managers’ aggressiveness is positively related to emotional exhaustion and negatively related to salesperson performance. Consequently, we found significant serial mediation of ethical sales leadership and adaptive selling behavior between the relationship of sales managers’ aggressiveness and salesperson performance. In last, manager decisiveness is playing as a significant moderator in the study. Theoretical contributions and practical implications are also discussed.