The Interplay of Emotion Regulation and Sales Experience in Salesperson Conflicts: Evidence from an Emerging Economy

ABSTRACT

It is human nature that personal interactions are often charged with emotions and laden with conflicts. Workplace encounters are not immune from this reality. Despite this, few studies have examined ways to reduce interpersonal conflict in the workplace. This study examines the interpersonal impact of emotion regulation on salesperson relationships with stakeholders. Using structural equation modeling, results of the analysis showed that salesperson's regulation of emotions was negatively related to interpersonal conflict with co-workers as well as with customers; and positively impacted customer-oriented sales behaviors. The results also support the moderating role of selling experience in the relationship between emotion regulation and interpersonal conflict with customers. That is, the negative relationship between regulation and conflict with customers is stronger for salespeople with lower sales experience. These findings put forward important managerial implications with regard to the recruitment and training of sales professionals.     

Customer orientation,engagement, and developing positive emotional labor

Frontline employees must deal on a daily basis with emotionally demanding customer interactions. Such interactions, when coupled with organizational directives to focus upon exemplary customer service, can prompt employees to express feelings and emotions that are not genuine. Such ‘surface acting' has been found to create stress in frontline personnel, but an understanding of how this negative aspect of emotional labor may be minimized is lacking in the services literature. How a frontline employee's individual attributes might interact with a service work context to build deep, as opposed to surface, acting is the current focus. Applying job demands–resources theory, this study investigates how a frontline employee's customer orientation helps to develop positive work engagement, even in the face of contextual demands. Engagement is then linked positively to the beneficial behavior of deep acting which, in contrast to surface acting, has been identified as a less stressful form of emotional labor.     

The Emergence of Contemporary Chinese Enterprise: The Heterogeneity of National Culture,Corporate Controls and Integration Approaches in M&As

This article aims to explore the emergence of the three main types of contemporary Chinese enterprises (CCEs),¹ the heterogeneity of their underlying cultures beyond Confucianism, their adopted corporate controls and their implications for mergers and acquisitions (M&As). An interdisciplinary literature review is provided to investigate the interrelated concepts between ancient Chinese wisdom, traditional Chinese culture as embedded in its national culture, and dissimilar developments in the corporate culture of CCEs. The implications for corporate controls in relation to postmerger integration approaches are also examined. Theoretical analyses and propositions are then made regarding the reinforcing cultures, adopted corporate controls and the integration approaches among the three main types of CCEs in their M&A initiatives. Through a multiple‐case study of three proposed clusters of CCEs with distinct ownership structures, this article reveals the characteristics of these respective clusters as they seek growth and development through regional and international M&As. The heterogeneity among the clusters is reflected in their variations in human capital, corporate governance, and controls, as well as the efficacy of their M&A activities. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Increasing the Informational Content of Reach and Frequency Estimates

This article discusses the limitations of present methods of analyzing the coverage of advertising schedules and presents a technique for obtaining additional information from traditional measures of schedule coverage. This technique models entire patters of audience exposure to commercials by means of a compound Bernoulli distribution that can be estimated from reach and frequency data. Knowledge of the complete pattern of audience exposure to advertising schedules assists the media analyst in selecting optimally effective advertising schedules and consequently enhances the probability of conducting a successful advertising campaign.     

The Impact of Buying Environment Characteristics of Retail Websites

This article identifies the extent to which buying environment characteristics, which are not directly related to price or product information, are currently available on online apparel websites and whether e-tail stores which use high levels of buying environment characteristics on their websites have a beneficial association with financial performance. A content analysis of 96 online apparel websites was employed. The overall extent to which current online websites provide buying environment characteristics appears to be low and providing more information in relation to the five characteristics was positively related to company profitability.     

Investitionsvolumen und Herausforderungen eines nationalen Glasfaserausbaus in Deutschland

Der fl?chendeckende Glasfaserausbau in Deutschland ist mit hohen Kosten verbunden. Insbesondere die Anschlüsse in dünn besiedelten Gebieten lassen die Kosten steigen. Die Autoren berechnen verschiedene M?glichkeiten der Kostenaufteilung.     

How do bankruptcy laws affect entrepreneurship development around the world?

How do bankruptcy laws as formal institutions affect entrepreneurship development around the world? Do entrepreneur-friendly bankruptcy laws encourage more entrepreneurship development at a societal level? We posit that if bankrupt entrepreneurs are excessively punished for failure, they may give up potentially high-return but inherently high-risk opportunities to start new businesses. Amassing a cross-country database from 29 countries spanning 19 years (1990-2008), we find that lenient, entrepreneur-friendly bankruptcy laws are significantly correlated with the level of entrepreneurship development as measured by the rate of new firm entry.     

Toward a direct contribution-reinforcement pay system

To make a pay system a source of reinforcement for contribution and give people an opportunity to participate in a reward program each year without the stigma of becoming “too expensive,” firms might consider making less than 100% of the total amount increase distributed to an individual a permanent part of his base salary. A part of the raise could be in effect for, say, a year.