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.

Bleeding hearts and heartless believers: How political ideology impacts consumer grit and moral consumer choices

“…For example, Arli et al (2021) suggest that the trait of grit can induce a "winning at any cost" mentality that leads individuals in the highest category of grit to be oriented towards Machiavellian factors. However, these results are seemingly conflicting with Schwepker and Good (2022) who find grit to be directly linked to less frequent unethical behavior. Thus, research is needed to better understand how both political ideology and grit influence moral consumption.…”

“…Thus, research is needed to better understand how both political ideology and grit influence moral consumption. Specifically, extant research has explored the impact of grit on ethical consumption by using the unidimensional construct of grit (e.g., Arli et al, 2021; Rundle et al, 2019; Schwepker & Good, 2022) without considering the passion and perseverance dimensions individually. We find that overall grittiness does not differ between liberals and conservatives.…”

Why Good Employees Do Bad Things: The Link between Pro-Environmental Behavior and Workplace Deviance

“…The research topic of this study covers psychological entitlement and workplace deviance, which are sensitive issues that involve respondents’ privacy. In the context of China, respondents are often wary of being surveyed by strangers, and it is difficult to guarantee the quality of questionnaire completion [ 40 ]. Given that, we adopted convenience sampling to collect survey data from employees through self-administered questionnaires [ 41 ].…”

Una revisión sistemática de la investigación de la Habilidad política con indicadores bibliométricos

“…Por ejemplo, autores han indagado en los efectos positivos que tiene la habilidad política en el manejo del estrés laboral (Haq et al, 2021) y en la disminución de los índices de salida voluntaria de colaboradores (Bande et al, 2021;Kiani et al, 2021;Good & Schwepker, 2022). Esta influencia positiva de la habilidad política también ha sido resaltada recientemente como parte de programas de fortalecimiento del clima laboral (Kaur & Kang, 2022;Liu et al, 2022) y para contribuir a desarrollar un liderazgo inclusivo capaz de moderar comportamientos que afecten la ética corporativa, promoviendo un ambiente de colaboración organizacional como sello de la administración moderna (Schwepker & Good, 2022a;Shafique et al, 2022;Takeuchi et al, 2022;Schwepker & Good, 2022b). El detalle de las últimas investigaciones en habilidad política publicadas, a la fecha de la pre-sente investigación, y relacionadas con el campo de administración y negocios se presenta en la Tabla 6.…”