The Beneficial Effect of Salesperson's Resilience in a Mediated Role Ambiguity-Sales Performance Relationship and the Conditional Effect of Proactivity

摘要

Occupational burdens such as inconclusive expectations, insufficient information or unclear goals are inherent in the sales job and oftentimes cause ambiguity-based role stress. Across existing sales studies, this kind of role stress is one of the most important drivers of sales performance and exhibits significant negative effects. Nevertheless, sales research focuses on the investigation of the consequences of role ambiguity but neglects to identify personal resources that enable salespersons to deal effectively with role ambiguity. While findings of stress research demonstrate that especially psychological resources determine a person's perception of and reaction to stress, little is known about these resources in the sales context.