Salesperson grit: reducing unethical behavior and job stress

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships between grit, unethical behavior and job stress among business-to-business salespeople. Design/methodology/approach The empirical analysis includes 240 business-to-business salespeople. Structural equation modeling is used to test the study’s hypotheses. Findings Results suggest grit is directly related to less frequent unethical behavior and customer-directed deviance. Neutralization techniques positively moderate the relationship between salesperson grit and both unethical behavior and customer-directed deviance. Grit is indirectly related to job stress through the positive relationship between unethical behavior and job stress. Research limitations/implications Given research on grit in sales is relatively new several opportunities to pursue additional research in this area are presented. Practical implications Sales leaders may benefit from administering the salesperson grit scale as part of the screening process and developing grit among salespeople through training and coaching. Sales leaders should emphasize the negative impact of adopting neutralization techniques (excuses) in condoning unethical behaviors. The indirect effect of grit in reducing job stress through ethical behaviors underscores potential ways to mitigate costly and detrimental sales outcome losses. Originality/value This study develops a novel framework to explore the relationships between grit and unethical behaviors as moderated by neutralization techniques (excuses); examines an additional component of grit not previously considered in some studies of salespeople; and investigates whether these relationships increase a previously unexplored outcome – job stress.