IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jbrese/v154y2023ics0148296322008098.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Exploring the synergistic role of ethical leadership and sales control systems on salesperson social media use and sales performance

Author

Listed:
  • Kalra, Ashish
  • Briggs, Elten
  • Schrock, Wyatt

Abstract

Research suggests that ethical leadership can motivate favorable employee behaviors. In the current study, we explore the influence of ethical leadership on salesperson social media use for work and its downstream effects on empathy and salesperson performance. Leveraging self-determination theory, analysis confirms the positive relationship between ethical leadership and salesperson social media use and tests the hypothesized moderating influence of activity, outcome, and capability control systems. Results also reveal that the positive association between ethical leadership and social media use is stronger when activity or outcome controls are in place, and weaker when capability controls are in place. Furthermore, the tests support positive relationships between salesperson social media use, empathetic behavior, and sales performance. An indirect effect of social media use on salesperson performance through empathetic behaviors was also uncovered.

Suggested Citation

  • Kalra, Ashish & Briggs, Elten & Schrock, Wyatt, 2023. "Exploring the synergistic role of ethical leadership and sales control systems on salesperson social media use and sales performance," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:154:y:2023:i:c:s0148296322008098
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2022.113344
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0148296322008098
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jbusres.2022.113344?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ma, Chao & Lin, Xiaoshuang & Chen, (George) Zhen Xiong & Wei, Wu, 2020. "Linking perceived overqualification with task performance and proactivity? An examination from self-concept-based perspective," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 199-209.
    2. Kanfer, Ruth & Chen, Gilad, 2016. "Motivation in organizational behavior: History, advances and prospects," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 6-19.
    3. Ozgur Demirtas, 2015. "Ethical Leadership Influence at Organizations: Evidence from the Field," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 126(2), pages 273-284, January.
    4. Fang, Eric & Evans, Kenneth R. & Zou, Shaoming, 2005. "The moderating effect of goal-setting characteristics on the sales control systems-job performance relationship," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 58(9), pages 1214-1222, September.
    5. Amanda Christensen-Salem & Fred O. Walumbwa & Mayowa T. Babalola & Liang Guo & Everlyne Misati, 2021. "A Multilevel Analysis of the Relationship Between Ethical Leadership and Ostracism: The Roles of Relational Climate, Employee Mindfulness, and Work Unit Structure," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 171(3), pages 619-638, July.
    6. Jie Feng & Yucheng Zhang & Xinmei Liu & Long Zhang & Xiao Han, 2018. "Just the Right Amount of Ethics Inspires Creativity: A Cross-Level Investigation of Ethical Leadership, Intrinsic Motivation, and Employee Creativity," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 153(3), pages 645-658, December.
    7. Chenghao Men & Patrick S. W. Fong & Weiwei Huo & Jing Zhong & Ruiqian Jia & Jinlian Luo, 2020. "Ethical Leadership and Knowledge Hiding: A Moderated Mediation Model of Psychological Safety and Mastery Climate," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 166(3), pages 461-472, October.
    8. Vishag Badrinarayanan & Indu Ramachandran & Sreedhar Madhavaram, 2019. "Mirroring the Boss: Ethical Leadership, Emulation Intentions, and Salesperson Performance," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 159(3), pages 897-912, October.
    9. Sarstedt, Marko & Ringle, Christian M. & Smith, Donna & Reams, Russell & Hair, Joseph F., 2014. "Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM): A useful tool for family business researchers," Journal of Family Business Strategy, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 105-115.
    10. Homburg, Christian & Stock, Ruth, 2005. "Exploring the Conditions Under Which Salesperson Work Satisfaction Can Lead to Customer Satisfaction," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 35543, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).
    11. Challagalla, Goutam N. & Shervani, Tasadduq A., 1997. "A measurement model of the dimensions and types of output and behavior control: An empirical test in a salesforce context," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 159-172, July.
    12. DeConinck, James B., 2015. "Outcomes of ethical leadership among salespeople," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(5), pages 1086-1093.
    13. Christian Resick & Gillian Martin & Mary Keating & Marcus Dickson & Ho Kwan & Chunyan Peng, 2011. "What Ethical Leadership Means to Me: Asian, American, and European Perspectives," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 101(3), pages 435-457, July.
    14. Hunter, Gary K., 2019. "On conceptualizing, measuring, and managing augmented technology use in business-to-business sales contexts," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 201-213.
    15. Hansen, Jared M. & Levin, Michael A., 2016. "The effect of apathetic motivation on employees' intentions to use social media for businesses," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(12), pages 6058-6066.
    16. Nguyen, Tuyet-Mai & Viet Ngo, Liem & Paramita, Widya, 2022. "Turning lurkers into innovation agents: An interactionist perspective of self-determinant theory," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 822-835.
    17. Tiwary, Nishant Kumar & Kumar, Rishi Kant & Sarraf, Shagun & Kumar, Prashant & Rana, Nripendra P., 2021. "Impact assessment of social media usage in B2B marketing: A review of the literature and a way forward," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 121-139.
    18. Tuan, Luu Trong & Ngan, Vu Thanh, 2021. "Leading ethically to shape service-oriented organizational citizenship behavior among tourism salespersons: Dual mediation paths and moderating role of service role identity," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    19. Tu Yidong & Lu Xinxin, 2013. "How Ethical Leadership Influence Employees’ Innovative Work Behavior: A Perspective of Intrinsic Motivation," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 116(2), pages 441-455, August.
    20. Brown, Michael E. & Trevino, Linda K. & Harrison, David A., 2005. "Ethical leadership: A social learning perspective for construct development and testing," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 117-134, July.
    21. Akanksha Bedi & Can M. Alpaslan & Sandy Green, 2016. "A Meta-analytic Review of Ethical Leadership Outcomes and Moderators," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 139(3), pages 517-536, December.
    22. Miao, C. Fred & Evans, Kenneth R., 2014. "Motivating industrial salesforce with sales control systems: An interactive perspective," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(6), pages 1233-1242.
    23. Fangfang Li & Jorma Larimo & Leonidas C. Leonidou, 2021. "Social media marketing strategy: definition, conceptualization, taxonomy, validation, and future agenda," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 49(1), pages 51-70, January.
    24. Fuller, Christie M. & Simmering, Marcia J. & Atinc, Guclu & Atinc, Yasemin & Babin, Barry J., 2016. "Common methods variance detection in business research," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(8), pages 3192-3198.
    25. Toby Joplin & Rebecca L. Greenbaum & J. Craig Wallace & Bryan D. Edwards, 2021. "Employee Entitlement, Engagement, and Performance: The Moderating Effect of Ethical Leadership," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 168(4), pages 813-826, February.
    26. Charles H. Schwepker, 2019. "Strengthening Customer Value Development and Ethical Intent in the Salesforce: The Influence of Ethical Values Person–Organization Fit and Trust in Manager," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 159(3), pages 913-925, October.
    27. Chen, Xi & Wong, Tse Chiu, 2021. "Application of social media data in supply chain management : A systematic review," Chapters from the Proceedings of the Hamburg International Conference of Logistics (HICL), in: Kersten, Wolfgang & Ringle, Christian M. & Blecker, Thorsten (ed.), Adapting to the Future: How Digitalization Shapes Sustainable Logistics and Resilient Supply Chain Management. Proceedings of the Hamburg Internationa, volume 31, pages 499-523, Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH), Institute of Business Logistics and General Management.
    28. Valerie Good & Douglas E. Hughes & Alexander C. LaBrecque, 2021. "Understanding and motivating salesperson resilience," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 32(1), pages 33-45, March.
    29. Fabian Bill & Sven Feurer & Martin Klarmann, 2020. "Salesperson social media use in business-to-business relationships: An empirical test of an integrative framework linking antecedents and consequences," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 48(4), pages 734-752, July.
    30. Walumbwa, Fred O. & Mayer, David M. & Wang, Peng & Wang, Hui & Workman, Kristina & Christensen, Amanda L., 2011. "Linking ethical leadership to employee performance: The roles of leader-member exchange, self-efficacy, and organizational identification," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 115(2), pages 204-213, July.
    31. Homburg, Christian & Stock, Ruth, 2005. "Exploring the Conditions Under Which Salesperson Work Satisfaction Can Lead to Customer Satisfaction," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 60481, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Al Halbusi, Hussam & Ruiz-Palomino, Pablo & Williams, Kent A., 2023. "Ethical leadership, subordinates’ moral identity and self-control: Two- and three-way interaction effect on subordinates’ ethical behavior," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 165(C).
    2. Xiaoyan Wang & Guocai Wang & Yanhui Zhao & Wyatt A. Schrock, 2024. "The Intellectual Structure of Sales Ethics Research: A Multi-method Bibliometric Analysis," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 193(1), pages 133-157, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Muel Kaptein, 2019. "The Moral Entrepreneur: A New Component of Ethical Leadership," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 156(4), pages 1135-1150, June.
    2. Tajneen Affnaan Saleh & Abdullah Sarwar & Md. Amirul Islam & Muhammad Mohiuddin & Zhan Su, 2022. "Effects of Leader Conscientiousness and Ethical Leadership on Employee Turnover Intention: The Mediating Role of Individual Ethical Climate and Emotional Exhaustion," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(15), pages 1-17, July.
    3. Junghyun Lee & Se-Hyung Oh & Sanghee Park, 2022. "Effects of Organizational Embeddedness on Unethical Pro-organizational Behavior: Roles of Perceived Status and Ethical Leadership," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 176(1), pages 111-125, February.
    4. Muhammad Asif & Miao Qing & Jinsoo Hwang & Hao Shi, 2019. "Ethical Leadership, Affective Commitment, Work Engagement, and Creativity: Testing a Multiple Mediation Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(16), pages 1-16, August.
    5. Palvi Pasricha & Bindu Singh & Pratibha Verma, 2018. "Ethical Leadership, Organic Organizational Cultures and Corporate Social Responsibility: An Empirical Study in Social Enterprises," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 151(4), pages 941-958, September.
    6. Junghyun (Jessie) Lee & Jeewon Cho & Yoonjung Baek & Rajnandini Pillai & Se Hyung Oh, 2019. "Does ethical leadership predict follower outcomes above and beyond the full-range leadership model and authentic leadership?: An organizational commitment perspective," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 36(3), pages 821-847, September.
    7. Emmanuel Osafo & Amy Paros & Robert M. Yawson, 2021. "Valence–Instrumentality–Expectancy Model of Motivation as an Alternative Model for Examining Ethical Leadership Behaviors," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(2), pages 21582440211, June.
    8. Yi Liao & Xiao-Yu Liu & Ho Kwan & Jinsong Li, 2015. "Work–Family Effects of Ethical Leadership," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 128(3), pages 535-545, May.
    9. Angela J. Xu & Raymond Loi & Hang-yue Ngo, 2016. "Ethical Leadership Behavior and Employee Justice Perceptions: The Mediating Role of Trust in Organization," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 134(3), pages 493-504, March.
    10. Sikander Hussain & Xiongying Niu, 2019. "The Relationship between Ethical Leadership and Creativity: The Mediating role of Psychological Capital," International Journal of Science and Business, IJSAB International, vol. 3(4), pages 17-27.
    11. Nathan Eva & Alexander Newman & Qing Miao & Dan Wang & Brian Cooper, 2020. "Antecedents of Duty Orientation and Follower Work Behavior: The Interactive Effects of Perceived Organizational Support and Ethical Leadership," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 161(3), pages 627-639, January.
    12. Conna Yang, 2014. "Does Ethical Leadership Lead to Happy Workers? A Study on the Impact of Ethical Leadership, Subjective Well-Being, and Life Happiness in the Chinese Culture," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 123(3), pages 513-525, September.
    13. Shirel Damti & Guy Hochman, 2022. "Personality Characteristics as Predictors of the Leader’s Ethical Leadership in Regular Times and in Times of Crisis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(16), pages 1-17, August.
    14. Omar S. Itani & Nawar N. Chaker, 2022. "Harnessing the Power Within: The Consequences of Salesperson Moral Identity and the Moderating Role of Internal Competitive Climate," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 181(4), pages 847-871, December.
    15. Tuan, Luu Trong & Ngan, Vu Thanh, 2021. "Leading ethically to shape service-oriented organizational citizenship behavior among tourism salespersons: Dual mediation paths and moderating role of service role identity," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    16. Ahmed Mohammed Sayed Mostafa & Sam Farley & Monica Zaharie, 2021. "Examining the Boundaries of Ethical Leadership: The Harmful Effect of Co-worker Social Undermining on Disengagement and Employee Attitudes," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 174(2), pages 355-368, November.
    17. Jonathan Farrar & Dawn W. Massey & Errol Osecki & Linda Thorne, 2021. "The Association Between Vertical Equity and Presidential Voting Behavior and Taxpayers’ Compliance," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 172(1), pages 101-114, August.
    18. Kubilay Gok & John J. Sumanth & William H. Bommer & Ozgur Demirtas & Aykut Arslan & Jared Eberhard & Ali Ihsan Ozdemir & Ahmet Yigit, 2017. "You May Not Reap What You Sow: How Employees’ Moral Awareness Minimizes Ethical Leadership’s Positive Impact on Workplace Deviance," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 146(2), pages 257-277, December.
    19. Hyun-ju Choi, 2021. "Effect of Chief Executive Officer’s Sustainable Leadership Styles on Organization Members’ Psychological Well-Being and Organizational Citizenship Behavior," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(24), pages 1-29, December.
    20. Yousaf, Saira & Imran Rasheed, Muhammad & Kaur, Puneet & Islam, Nazrul & Dhir, Amandeep, 2022. "The dark side of phubbing in the workplace: Investigating the role of intrinsic motivation and the use of enterprise social media (ESM) in a cross-cultural setting," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 81-93.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:154:y:2023:i:c:s0148296322008098. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jbusres .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.