Salesperson-Sales Manager Social Interaction And Communication Quality: The Impact On Salesperson Cooperation

Abstract

To get the highest level of performance out of salespeople, companies are searching internally to identify factors that lead to salesperson cooperation. Sales managers create a normative culture that engages the salesperson, which is demonstrated through communication and social interaction. A salesperson who feels connected to the organization is more likely to exert additional effort, such as cooperating with the manager to meet sales objections. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of the salesperson’s social interaction and communication quality with their sales manager on their willingness to cooperate with the manager. The results show that when salespeople interact with their manager in a social setting and discuss non-work related information, salespeople become more willing to cooperate with their manager. Sales manager’s communication quality was not found to have a significant relationship between the salesperson’s willingness to cooperate with the sales manager. Instead, we find that sales manager’s communication quality with the salesperson significantly moderates the relationship between salesperson’s social interaction with the sales manager and salesperson’s willingness to cooperate with the sales manager.