Exploring the Impacts of Convergence and Divergence of felt Responsibility on Seller Performance

Abstract

The role of the seller encompasses commitments and behaviors that cannot always be operationalized without conflicts. Both the organization and customer are audiences that create expectations related to the responsibility felt by the seller. At the same time that the salesperson is under pressure to meet the organization's needs (demonstrating responsibility towards the organization – OSR), the salesperson is required to satisfy the customer's demands (demonstrating responsibility towards the customer – CSR). Seeking to understand how the salesperson behaves in a conflict situation, in which he needs to decide between meeting the demands of the organization or customers, converging or diverging from your felt responsibility for key marketing results, such as commitment to the organization's strategy, value-based selling behavior, and sales performance. Data collection was carried out with 117 salespeople from companies in the B2B market to achieve this objective. This research identified, using polynomial regression analysis with a response surface, that value-based selling behavior is better when there is a convergence between OSR and CSR. However, commitment to the strategy only increases in situations of divergence, in which OSR is greater than CSR. Finally, the results show that commitment to the strategy and value-based selling increase sales performance. The results of this research allow us to advance role theory applied to the sales context by highlighting the positive and negative consequences of the conflict between the seller's felt responsibility for his role towards the organization and customers.