Drawing from social identity theory, social categorization theory, and the similarity-attraction paradigm, this study examines how salespeople's dissimilarity from their coworkers in terms of customer orientation relates to their customer-directed, extra-role behaviors (hereafter, customer-directed ERBs). The model proposes that sales unit identification mediates the relationship between dissimilarity and customer-directed ERBs, with higher dissimilarity predicting reduced sales unit identification and reduced identification, in turn, predicting declines in customer-directed ERBs. The model also proposes that coworker support moderates the dissimilarity–sales unit identification relationship, with supportive coworkers attenuating the negative effect of dissimilarity on sales unit identification. Data from 50 sales units and 384 salespeople lend support to the model's hypothesized relationships. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.
Customer-oriented salespeople are undoubtedly an invaluable resource to sales organizations. In the extant marketing literature, they have been found to enhance customer satisfaction (e.g., Stock & Hoyer, 2005), customer loyalty (e.g., Jones, Busch, & Dacin, 2003), and sales performance (e.g., Brown, Mowen, Donavan, & Licata, 2002). Further, customer-oriented salespeople are crucial to the development of a market-oriented culture in sales organizations (Conduit and Mavondo, 2001 and Lam et al., 2010), making shared values and beliefs among salespeople integral to business performance (Deshpande, Farley, & Webster, 1993).
However, by definition, customer orientation is an individual difference characteristic that varies across salespeople (Brown et al., 2002). Within sales units, some salespeople will be similar to, whereas others will be dissimilar from, their coworkers in terms of their customer orientation. Recognizing the importance of such individual differences among salespeople, sales organizations regularly undergo cost-intensive needs assessments to uncover heterogeneity (Attia, Honeycutt, & Leach, 2005). Our research addresses the potential importance of these differences among salespeople's levels of customer orientation and examines two deleterious consequences that may stem from dissimilarity.
Specifically, we investigate the negative impact of customer orientation dissimilarity on a salesperson's: (1) sales unit identification and (2) customer-directed, extra-role behaviors (hereafter, customer-directed ERBs). Whereas sales unit identification is a salesperson's sense of oneness with her sales unit (Mael & Ashforth, 1992), customer-directed ERBs are discretionary behaviors that are intended to satisfy customers (Bettencourt & Brown, 1997). Customer-directed ERBs can take the form of going out of one's way to assist customers or going beyond the call of duty while handling customer complaints.
The overarching argument of this paper is that customer orientation dissimilarity reduces customer-directed ERBs through the mediating role of reduced sales unit identification. We propose in our conceptual model, and find as a result of our empirical study, that those salespeople who are dissimilar from their coworkers in terms of customer orientation perceive themselves as being members of the out-group. Out-group membership, then, reduces their sales unit identification and, ultimately, their provision of customer-directed ERBs. These deleterious outcomes of salesperson customer orientation dissimilarity make establishing boundary conditions of interest to managers. We propose and test coworker support in this role, predicting that those employees who receive support from their coworkers will not be influenced to the same degree by dissimilarity. Our results support this view, suggesting that salespeople are able to form identity with their sales unit in ways outside of their dissimilarity.
