IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jouret/v95y2019i2p130-143.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Driving In-Role and Extra-Role Brand Performance among Retail Frontline Salespeople: Antecedents and the Moderating Role of Customer Orientation

Author

Listed:
  • Hughes, Douglas E.
  • Richards, Keith A.
  • Calantone, Roger
  • Baldus, Brian
  • Spreng, Richard A.

Abstract

The organizational frontline in retail represents the frontline for an entire supply chain. This channel structure distances the branded supplier from the end consumer and makes the supplier dependent on a retail frontline salesperson that (1) it does not control and (2) also represents competing brands. This study reveals mechanisms that the supplier may use to influence retail frontline salespeople. We demonstrate the importance of consumer marketing programs and supplier representatives in building brand identification between the manufacturer’s brand and the retail frontline employee that translates into increased brand sales, while also revealing the role of rewards programs in stimulating brand-specific extra-role behaviors. Interestingly, retail frontline customer orientation, built by the retailer, diminishes the effect of brand extra-role behaviors toward the focal brand on the focal brand’s sales, providing an informal control mechanism for retailers to protect its objectives. The results of this study have powerful ramifications for both retailers and suppliers in achieving both their mutual, and sometimes differing, objectives related to the retail frontline.

Suggested Citation

  • Hughes, Douglas E. & Richards, Keith A. & Calantone, Roger & Baldus, Brian & Spreng, Richard A., 2019. "Driving In-Role and Extra-Role Brand Performance among Retail Frontline Salespeople: Antecedents and the Moderating Role of Customer Orientation," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 95(2), pages 130-143.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jouret:v:95:y:2019:i:2:p:130-143
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jretai.2019.03.003
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022435919300181
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jretai.2019.03.003?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. Marc Mazodier & Dwight Merunka, 2012. "Achieving brand loyalty through sponsorship: the role of fit and self-congruity," Post-Print hal-01822308, HAL.
    2. Cornwell, T. Bettina & Coote, Leonard V., 2005. "Corporate sponsorship of a cause: the role of identification in purchase intent," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 58(3), pages 268-276, March.
    3. Dunlap, B. J. & Dotson, Michael J. & Chambers, Terry M., 1988. "Perceptions of real-estate brokers and buyers: A sales-orientation, customer-orientation approach," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 175-187, September.
    4. Buil, Isabel & de Chernatony, Leslie & Martínez, Eva, 2013. "Examining the role of advertising and sales promotions in brand equity creation," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 66(1), pages 115-122.
    5. L. Zarantonello & B.H. Schmitt, 2013. "The impact of event marketing on brand equity:The mediating roles of brand experience and brand attitude," Post-Print hal-00847423, HAL.
    6. Puccinelli, Nancy M. & Goodstein, Ronald C. & Grewal, Dhruv & Price, Robert & Raghubir, Priya & Stewart, David, 2009. "Customer Experience Management in Retailing: Understanding the Buying Process," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 85(1), pages 15-30.
    7. Erin Adamson Gillespie & Stephanie M. Noble & Son K. Lam, 2016. "Extrinsic versus intrinsic approaches to managing a multi-brand salesforce: when and how do they work?," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 44(6), pages 707-725, November.
    8. Kadic-Maglajlic, Selma & Micevski, Milena & Arslanagic-Kalajdzic, Maja & Lee, Nick, 2017. "Customer and selling orientations of retail salespeople and the sales manager's ability-to-perceive-emotions: A multi-level approach," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 53-62.
    9. Melea Press & Eric J. Arnould, 2011. "How Does Organizational Identification Form? A Consumer Behavior Perspective," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 38(4), pages 650-666.
    10. Petty, Richard E & Cacioppo, John T & Schumann, David, 1983. "Central and Peripheral Routes to Advertising Effectiveness: The Moderating Role of Involvement," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 10(2), pages 135-146, September.
    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. Good, Megan C. & Schwepker, Charles H., 2022. "Business-to-business salespeople and political skill: Relationship building, deviance, and performance," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 32-43.
    2. Meyer, Jan-Hinrich & González, Eva M. & Lopez-Lomelí, Miguel A., 2022. "Better support for supportive jobs. How to improve brand performance through better compensation and training for in-store merchandisers," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    3. Boukis, Achilleas & Punjaisri, Khanyapuss & Balmer, John M.T. & Kaminakis, Kostas & Papastathopoulos, Avraam, 2021. "Unveiling front-line employees’ brand construal types during corporate brand promise delivery: A multi-study analysis," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 673-685.
    4. Ruan, Yanya & Mezei, József, 2022. "When do AI chatbots lead to higher customer satisfaction than human frontline employees in online shopping assistance? Considering product attribute type," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    5. Sok, Keo Mony & Danaher, Tracey S. & Sok, Phyra, 2023. "Multiple psychological climates and employee self-regulatory focus: Implications for frontline employee work behavior and service performance," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 99(2), pages 228-246.
    6. Dhruv Grewal & Stephanie M. Noble & Anne L. Roggeveen & Jens Nordfalt, 2020. "The future of in-store technology," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Springer, vol. 48(1), pages 96-113, January.
    7. Lee, Na Young & Zablah, Alex R. & Noble, Stephanie M., 2023. "A meta-analytic investigation of the organizational identification – Job performance relationship in the frontlines," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 99(3), pages 370-384.
    8. Shams, Riad & Chatterjee, Sheshadri & Chaudhuri, Ranjan, 2024. "Developing brand identity and sales strategy in the digital era: Moderating role of consumer belief in brand," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    9. Mullins, Ryan & Swain, Scott & Friend, Scott B., 2023. "How and should firms motivate salesperson effort across a Multi-Brand Portfolio?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).

    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. Kleopatra Konstantoulaki & Ioannis Rizomyliotis & Apostolos Giovanis & Vittorio Conti & Christos Kallandranis, 2017. "Sponsoring Sports Teams with Low Media Exposure: An Exploratory Investigation on Small and Medium Sized B2B Firms," International Journal of Marketing Studies, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 9(5), pages 77-94, October.
    2. Lang, Le Dang & Lim, Weng Marc & Guzmán, Francisco, 2022. "How does promotion mix affect brand equity? Insights from a mixed-methods study of low involvement products," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 175-190.
    3. Orth, Ulrich R. & Malkewitz, Keven, 2012. "The Accuracy of Design-based Judgments: A Constructivist Approach," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 88(3), pages 421-436.
    4. Parshakov, Petr & Naidenova, Iuliia & Barajas, Angel, 2020. "Spillover effect in promotion: Evidence from video game publishers and eSports tournaments," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 262-270.
    5. Massara, Francesco & Scarpi, Daniele & Melara, Robert D. & Porcheddu, Daniele, 2018. "Affect transfer from national brands to store brands in multi-brand stores," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 103-110.
    6. Peter H. Bloch & Omid Kamran-Disfani, 2018. "A framework for studying the impact of outdoor atmospherics in retailing," AMS Review, Springer;Academy of Marketing Science, vol. 8(3), pages 195-213, December.
    7. Khan, Imran & Rahman, Zillur, 2015. "Brand experience anatomy in retailing: An interpretive structural modeling approach," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 60-69.
    8. Itani, Omar S. & Goad, Emily A. & Jaramillo, Fernando, 2019. "Building customer relationships while achieving sales performance results: Is listening the holy grail of sales?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 120-130.
    9. Marius Johnen & Oliver Schnittka, 2020. "Changing consumers’ minds at the point of sale: price discounts vs. in-store advertising," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 31(1), pages 49-71, March.
    10. Allison, Lee & Flaherty, Karen E., 2020. "Investigating firm level drivers of salesperson brand identification," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 154-169.
    11. Grewal, Dhruv & Levy, Michael & Kumar, V., 2009. "Customer Experience Management in Retailing: An Organizing Framework," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 85(1), pages 1-14.
    12. Yuan‐Shuh Lii & Kuang‐Wen Wu & May‐Ching Ding, 2013. "Doing Good Does Good? Sustainable Marketing of CSR and Consumer Evaluations," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 20(1), pages 15-28, January.
    13. Xenia Raufeisen & Linda Wulf & Sören Köcher & Ulya Faupel & Hartmut H. Holzmüller, 2019. "Spillover effects in marketing: integrating core research domains," AMS Review, Springer;Academy of Marketing Science, vol. 9(3), pages 249-267, December.
    14. Dailey, Lynn C. & Ülkü, M. Ali, 2018. "Retailers beware: On denied product returns and consumer behavior," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 202-209.
    15. Lin, Hsin-Chen & Bruning, Patrick F., 2024. "Guidelines for sponsorship signaling within socially complex markets," Business Horizons, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 19-30.
    16. Dario Dunković, 2016. "The effectiveness of offering food samples to increase purchase involvement in supermarket settings," EFZG Working Papers Series 1604, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Zagreb.
    17. Muhammad Waqas & Zalfa Laili Binti Hamzah & Noor Akma Mohd Salleh, 2021. "Customer experience: a systematic literature review and consumer culture theory-based conceptualisation," Management Review Quarterly, Springer, vol. 71(1), pages 135-176, February.
    18. Troiville, Julien & Hair, Joe F. & Cliquet, Gérard, 2019. "Definition, conceptualization and measurement of consumer-based retailer brand equity," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 73-84.
    19. Lars Bergkvist & Charles R. Taylor, 2016. "Leveraged marketing communications: a framework for explaining the effects of secondary brand associations," AMS Review, Springer;Academy of Marketing Science, vol. 6(3), pages 157-175, December.
    20. Shuai Yang & Xinyu Chang & Sixing Chen & Shan Lin & William T. Ross, 2022. "Does music really work? The two-stage audiovisual cross-modal correspondence effect on consumers’ shopping behavior," Marketing Letters, Springer, vol. 33(2), pages 251-276, June.

    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:jouret:v:95:y:2019:i:2:p:130-143. 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: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-retailing .

    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.