A Study on the Association Between Salespeople’s Personality Traits and Their Long-Term Customer Relationship Orientation

• Main Authors: Chao-Shian Chen, 陳昭獻
• Other Authors: Perng-Fei Huang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2002
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/23591234895459708275

碩士 === 國立高雄第一科技大學 === 行銷與流通管理所 === 90 === ABSTRACT Nowadays one important steam in the field of marketing management concentrates on the study of relationship marketing, customer relationship management, and partnership selling. However, most researches have focued on the modeling of relationship initiation and development, the antecedents and outcomes of relationships maintenance such as relationship-specific investment, satisfaction, trust, and commitment, and the creation and application of database. Relatively less noticed areas include the study of the individual level relationships between salespeople personality traits and their long-term customer relationship orientation, and of the association between long-term orientation and sales performance. The purpose of the study is to integrate the fields of psychology, organizational behavior, sales management, and relationship marketing to examine:(1) the relationships between ten sorts of personality traits of salespeople and their long-term customer relationship orientation, and (2) the relationship between long-term orientation and sales performance. The respondents to the questionnaire survey of the study include 612 salespeople from two different types of industries: salespeople with active searching-for-customers (e.g., in insurance firms) and those with passive receiving-customers (e.g., in convenience stores and department stores). The aim of this design is to compare perceptions between two types of the salespeople, and to explore possible moderating effects of demographic variables. The study employed Pearson correlation analysis, t-test, multiple regression analysis, and multivariate analysis of variance to analyze the data and to test the hypotheses. Research results of the study revel that the relationships between five sorts of salespeople personality traits (agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, self-esteem, and self-efficacy) and their long-term customer relationship orientation were significantly and positively related, and that the relationships between two sorts of personality traits (machiavellianism and individualism/collectivism) and long-term customer relationship orientation were negatively connected. However, the relationships between salespeople three sorts of personality traits(type A/B, self-monitoring, and locus of control and long-term customer relationship orientation were not significant. In addition, the relationship between salespeople long-term customer relationship orientation and their sales performance was found to be positive. Results also indicate that different types of salespeople were characterized differently in machiavellianism, long-term customer relationship orientation, and sales performances. Although this study is simply exploratory in nature, it should have some contributions for relationship marketing research. It may offset the inadequacy of using salespeople as units of analysis in relationship measurement, and has addressed the research gap on the relationships between personality traits and long-term customer relationship orientation. The research findings can also help practitioners know what sorts of personality traits are strongly connected with long-term customer relationship orientation, which in turn may assist practitioners in selecting ”right” employees for improving their relationship marketing efforts. Finally, some directions for future research have been suggested.