Achieving Top Performance While Building Collegiality in Sales: It All Starts with Ethics

Omar Itani, Fernando Jaramillo () and Larry Chonko ()
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Fernando Jaramillo: University of Texas at Arlington
Larry Chonko: University of Texas at Arlington

Journal of Business Ethics, 2019, vol. 156, issue 2, No 7, 417-438

Abstract: Abstract While previous literature provides evidence of the positive relationship between ethical climate and job satisfaction, the possible mechanisms of this relationship are still underexplored. This study aims to enhance scholars’ and practitioners’ understanding of the ethical climate–job satisfaction relationship by identifying and testing two of the possible mechanisms. More specifically, this study fills an existing research gap by examining social and interpersonal mechanisms, referred to in this study as workplace isolation of colleagues and salesperson’s teamwork, of the ethical climate–job satisfaction relationship. This is vital for the selling profession because job satisfaction is known to drive higher levels of salespeople’s performance. The arguments for such mechanisms are built on the foundations of social/psychological contract theory and ethical climate literature. Empirical testing using a large sample of salespeople shows higher levels of ethical climate to decrease workplace isolation and increase teamwork. Findings support hypothesized model where ethical climate positively relates to job satisfaction as partially mediated by workplace isolation and teamwork. Ethical climate is negatively related to workplace isolation and positively to teamwork. Further, findings indicate negative effect of workplace isolation on teamwork and sales performance. Job satisfaction is found to be key factor in driving performance of salespeople.

Keywords: Ethical climate; Job satisfaction; Performance; Salespeople; Social/psychological contract theory; Teamwork; Workplace isolation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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DOI: 10.1007/s10551-017-3598-z

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