The role of emotional exhaustion in sales force attitude and behavior relationships

Emotional exhaustion is a potentially important construct in examining sales force behavior and attitude relationships. A conceptual model and hypotheses are developed to study the antecedents and consequences of the emotional exhaustion construct. The hypotheses are tested using LISREL 7 to analyze data from a sample of field salespeople from a large international services organization. The empirical results offer strong support for relationships involving role ambiguity and conflict antecedents and organizational commitment, job satisfaction, performance, and intention-to-leave consequences of emotional exhaustion. Emin Babakus (Ph.D. University of Alabama, 1985) is a professor of marketing and associate dean for faculty at the Fogelman College of Business & Economics, University of Memphis. His research interests are in the areas of measurement, sales management, services, and international marketing. His research has been published in a number of journals, including theJournal of Marketing Research, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, International Journal of Research in Marketing, Journal of Retailing, andJournal of Advertising Research. David W. Cravens holds the West Chair of American Enterprise Studies at Texas Christian University. He is a former editor of theJournal of the Academy of Marketing Science and serves on the editorial boards of several journals. He is the author ofStrategic Marketing (Irwin/McGraw-Hill). Mark Johnston is a professor of marketing at the Roy E. Crummer Graduate School of Business, Rollins College. He earned his Ph.D. in marketing in 1986 from Texas A&M University. Prior to receiving his doctorate, he worked in industry as a sales representative for a leading distributor of photographic equipment. Dr. Johnston's research interests focus on sales force management issues that include analyzing the affect of role stress on salesperson attitudes and behavior, reducing unwanted turnover, and improving performance. In addition, he conducts research on a wide range of other topics, including international marketing management, ethics, and promotional strategy. His research has been published in a number of professional journals such as theJournal of Marketing Research, Journal of Applied Psychology, International Journal of Management, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Business Research, and theJournal of Personal Selling and Sales Management. William C. Moncrief is a professor of marketing at Texas Christian University and former chair of the Marketing Department. He has published extensively in the sales and sales management areas. He is coauthor ofSales Management (Addison-Wesley).