متا آنالیز رابطه بین تعهد سازمانی و عملکرد شغلی فروشنده : 25 سال تحقیق

This article presents a meta-analysis that includes studies conducted over the past 25 years across 14 countries and a mix of selling and nonselling situations. Findings indicate that the relationship between organizational commitment and job performance is positive and stronger for sales employees than for nonsales employees. Stronger correlations between organizational commitment and job performance are found for collectivist compared to individualistic cultures. The results are discussed in terms of implications for future sales force performance research

In today's dynamic and competitive markets, the most important challenge sales managers face is designing strategies to improve the performance of the sales force. Sales force functions and activities not only typically constitute the largest portion of a firm's marketing budget but also are a primary source of revenue and are key to organizational success Cravens et al., 1993 and MacKenzie et al., 1998. In view of this, sales organizations have long been interested in identifying variables that influence job performance (e.g., Churchill et al., 1985 and Johnston and Marshall, 2003). Research indicates that one such variable is organizational commitment (Vinchur et al., 1998). The primary objective of this study is to synthesize the empirical research investigating the relationship between organizational commitment and salesperson job performance. Mixed findings exist as to the relationship between organizational commitment and job performance—seemingly more so for nonsales jobs than sales jobs (Meyer, 1997). Researchers have found a positive correlation between performance and organizational commitment in studies of industrial salespeople (e.g., Bashaw and Grant, 1994 and Benkhoff, 1997). This relationship has been found to be negative or nonsignificant in the retail and insurance sector (e.g., Leong et al., 1994). Moreover, the relationship between organizational commitment and performance was found to be weak (Mathieu and Zajac, 1990) and mixed (Meyer et al., 2002) in previous meta-analyses conducted in the psychology literature with samples consisting of a variety of sales and nonsales occupations. Such mixed prior results within a phenomenon that is seemingly straightforward warrant further study. Due to the nature of the salesperson's job and the visible impact of their activities and behaviors on organizational performance, one would typically expect a positive and stronger correlation between organizational commitment and performance for salespeople as compared to nonsales personnel. Their boundary-spanning activities, high level of autonomy in dealing with parties inside and outside the organization, and physical location that is often outside the organizational setting would seemingly require higher commitment than other workers. The above characterization of sales jobs, coupled with the mixed prior results as to the organizational commitment and job performance relationship suggest that the strength of this relationship is likely impacted by moderators. Among the likely moderators are job type (i.e., sales, nonsales) and cultural differences among the countries where studies were conducted (such as individualism vs. collectivism) (e.g., Mowday et al., 1979 and Meyer et al., 1993). Identification of factors that impact salesperson performance is a cornerstone within the field of sales force management research (Rich et al., 1999). Our aim is to synthesize the existing research findings concerning organizational commitment and performance within a sales environment, especially in terms of the relevant moderators identified above. To achieve our research objective, a meta-analysis was conducted of 51 empirical studies including 61 effect sizes with an overall sample size of 14,169 from 14 countries. The next section provides the context for our study by explicating three associated research questions.

The literature search generated 128 manuscripts. Through the coding and recoding process, 77 manuscripts not meeting the eligibility criteria were not included in the study. As previously indicated, only studies for which an effect size can be computed were included in this meta-analysis. Recall that eligibility was restricted to studies reporting a statistic between organizational commitment and job performance, such as a Pearson's correlation coefficient (r), F value, t value, P value, chi-square (χ2), or coefficient of determination in linear regression (R2). The remaining 51 studies rendered 61 effect sizes (see Table 1), a sum of all samples of 14,169, a study sample size mean of 232.3, and a standard deviation of 186.6. The sample originates from 14 countries, including Australia, Canada, China, Germany, India, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and the United States, and comes from a balanced distribution of manufacturing (34.4%), service industries (49.2%) and mixed industries (16.4%), as well as sales (45.9%), nonsales (45.9%), and mixed jobs (8.2%) employees. Table 1 contains some descriptive information about the sample.The attenuated effect size displays a normal distribution with a mean of .18, a standard deviation of .16, and a range of −.16 to .62. All effect sizes were within three standard deviations from the mean; thus, no outliers were detected.Fifty-four out of the 61 effect sizes included in this meta-analysis reported the reliability index (Cronbach's α). The weighted average reliabilities for the Porter et al. (1974) and Meyer et al. (1993) scales were .84 and .80, respectively, with all studies reporting reliabilities above .66, demonstrating an adequate reliability across studies (Nunnally and Bernstein, 1994). The weighted average reliabilities were used to disattenuate the effect size for studies not reporting reliability indices (Table 1).Thirty-six out of the 61 effect sizes included in this meta-analysis reported the reliability index (Cronbach's α). The weighted average reliability for the job performance scales was .86, with all studies reporting reliabilities above .74, further demonstrating satisfactory reliability across studies (Nunnally and Bernstein, 1994). Again, the weighted average reliability was used to disattenuate the effect size for studies not reporting reliability indices.Using a random effects model (Lipsey and Wilson, 2001), our meta-analysis found that the disattenuated weighted mean size (Pearson's correlation coefficient) of the relationship between organizational commitment and job performance was .21 for the overall sample, with a 95% confidence interval of .20 to .23. Hence, a positive relationship exists between organizational commitment and job performance at α=.05. This positive relationship holds true when attenuated effect sizes are used to calculate the mean effect size (r=.18, CI95% .16 to .20). Also, at α=.05, more than 500 unpublished studies or studies not included in this meta-analysis (i.e., file drawer effect) would be needed to make the relationship nonsignificant.The results for research question one establish that the relationship between organizational commitment and job performance is positive for both sales and nonsales employees. Further analysis reveals that this relationship is stronger for sales employees (r=.25, CI95% .22 to .27) as compared to nonsales employees (r=.18, CI95% .15 to .20). This relationship holds true when attenuated effect sizes are used to calculate the mean effect size for sales (r=.21, CI95% .18 to .24) and nonsales (r=.15, CI95% .13 to .17) employees.Following the procedures prescribed by Lipsey and Wilson (2001) to investigate the moderating effects of continuous variables, a weighted least square regression model was estimated with disattenuated effect size as the dependent variable and the IDV as the independent variable. View the MathML source The model was significant at α=.01, suggesting that the IDV moderates the relationship between organizational commitment and job performance. The model had an R2 of .12, and the β coefficient of IDV was negative. This finding indicates that the organizational commitment and job performance relationship is stronger for collectivist as compared to individualist cultures. The result is consistent with Meyer et al. (1989) who claim that the organizational commitment and job performance relationship is stronger for employees who are affectively and morally committed with the organization. Also, this description is in line with Hofstede's (1997) depiction of low individualistic cultures as cultures in which employees have an emotional dependence and a moral involvement with the organization.