1. Introduction
Salespeople of a company play an important role in communicating the company’s point of view to customers and are instrumental as a medium to provide the product and services of the company in a differentiated way from competitors. In particular, when, in a competitive market, the price per unit of a product becomes more expensive or the characteristics of a product become more complex, the salesperson is not only an agent of the company that sells the product but also a key human factor to deliver a differentiated product image to customers [
1,
2,
3,
4]. In fact, salespeople tremendously play a significant role in the fast sensing of market changes, such as the tastes and preferences of the customers during their interactions [
5,
6]. These roles of salespeople not only increase customer satisfaction with products and companies but also ultimately influence their sales performance [
7,
8].
In this regard, studies have been conducted on methods for improving salesperson performance through monetary and/or non-monetary compensation. For example, performance-based pay [
9], welfare benefits [
10], education, training, and effective communication are investigated as monetary or non-monetary determinants of sales performance. However, in the prior literature, researchers have pointed out that monetary and non-monetary compensation is not adequate to increase sales performance [
11,
12]; therefore, researchers have given attention to the behavioral characteristics of salespeople [
13]. Specifically, the behavioral characteristics of salespeople can be influenced by organizational factors as well as trait-related factors of salespeople [
14]. For example, the organizational characteristics often encompass sales orientation, values and organizational culture, and customer-oriented selling behavior. Additionally, the individual characteristics comprised of adaptive selling behavior are explored as individual characteristics [
14,
15].
Looking at related previous studies, many studies considered customer-oriented selling behavior and adaptive selling behavior as similar concepts. However, customer-oriented selling behavior and adaptive selling behavior are different in approach and have effects on salespeople’s outcomes [
7,
14,
15]. For example, customer-oriented selling behavior aims to satisfy customer needs from the customer’s point of view. Therefore, salespeople try to develop a long-term exchange relationship by maintaining a positive relationship with customers, even by neglecting short-term profits. The salespeople only pursue profits that arise from the relationships [
16] and avoid taking actions that bring disadvantages to the organization. On the other hand, adaptive selling behavior considers the importance of meeting customer needs, but it is an aggressive sales-oriented behavior to increase short-term sales performance and aims to increase individual salesperson performance [
12,
17].
Despite these important differences between customer-oriented selling behavior and adaptive selling behavior, related studies are still insufficient to explain the differential effects of these approaches on sales performance and opportunistic behaviors of salespeople. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the differential effects of customer-oriented selling behavior and adaptive selling behavior on sales performance and opportunistic sales behaviors, respectively. Previously, researchers have overlooked examining the influence of salespeople’s customer-oriented selling behavior and adaptive selling behavior and their differential effects on sales performance and opportunistic behaviors in a single framework. In addition, this study investigates the influence of value congruence and top management support on customer-oriented selling behavior and adaptive selling behavior, respectively. Based on the findings of the study, this study intends to present practical implications to appropriately utilize the behavioral characteristics of salespeople in companies such as retail and service industries and to improve their sales performance.
This study is structured as follows.
Section 2 of the study provides a comprehensive review of the literature on the key constructs of the study.
Section 3 discusses the proposed hypotheses of the study.
Section 4 explains the research methodology.
Section 5 indicates the findings of the study. Finally,
Section 6 offers a detailed discussion of the theoretical and managerial implications as well as the limitations of the study, along with future research directions.
6. Discussion
In this study, we discussed the differentiated characteristics of customer-oriented sales behavior and adaptive sales behavior on sales performance and opportunistic behavior. Customer-oriented sales behavior views the relationship with customers as a long-term-oriented relationship and focuses on continuous performance rather than short-term performance. Adaptive sales behavior focuses on short-term relationships to achieve high performance based on flexibility in sales behavior. Focusing on short-term relationships and trying to improve performance can also lead to opportunistic behavior.
Previously, some studies have argued that adaptive sales behavior has a positive effect on sales performance [
12,
73,
74,
75]. Hence, the findings of the studies are consistent with the previous studies, which showed that adaptive selling behavior contributes to sales performance positively. On the contrary, the results of this study revealed that adaptive selling behavior leads to opportunistic behavior. These findings are new to the literature on opportunism in the context of sales. As previously discussed, the researchers have mainly investigated opportunism in the context of distribution channels.
Similarly, customer-oriented selling behavior has a positive effect on sales performance which is consistent with the previous studies [
66]. However, the results of the study showed that customer-oriented selling behavior is negatively related to opportunistic behavior which are new findings of the study.
6.1. Theoretical Implications
The theoretical implications of this study can be summarized as follows. First, in this study, the behavioral characteristics, such as customer-oriented selling behavior and adaptive selling behavior of salespeople, are examined in relation to the sales performance and opportunistic behavior of salespeople. Unlike the previous studies, the antecedent factors affecting the behavioral characteristics of salespeople were comprehensively examined without distinction of the behavioral characteristics specifically the customer-oriented selling behavior and adaptive selling behavior [
13,
14]. Moreover, although there are many studies on the behavioral characteristics of salespeople that affect outcome factors, studies on the common or differential effects of variables are insufficient. Therefore, this study suggests the theoretical implications of identifying the common or differential effects of the salesperson’s behavioral characteristics on the salesperson’s behavioral outcomes and sales performance that can appear at the point of contact providing services.
Second, looking at the existing studies, most of the studies show that adaptive selling behavior has a positive effect on organizational performance [
14]. In this study, adaptive selling behavior was also found to have a positive effect on the sales performance of a company as a representative variable of sales orientation, but it was also found to have a positive effect on the opportunistic behavior of salespeople. This has great significance in that it revealed that there were also negative effects, unlike previous studies that identified positive effects on adaptive selling behavior. The opportunistic behavior of salespeople shown in this study has great implications for many companies that present sales performance as an evaluation index. In the short term, improving the sales performance of the organization brings great benefits to the organization, but the salesperson’s adaptive selling behavior to improve the short-term sales performance can cause great damage to the organization in the long term. Therefore, it suggests that the organization needs to analyze the effect of sales-oriented factors on the organization from more diverse aspects.
6.2. Managerial Implications
This study provides the following practical implications. First, customer-oriented selling behavior is a characteristic of salespeople that reflects the organizational culture that most effectively and efficiently identifies the needs and desires of customers to create value for customers. Before doing so, it is necessary to form an organizational culture that puts customer value first by providing a variety of education. Recently, it can be seen that many companies are implementing CS (customer satisfaction) education for their salespeople. However, after the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus, education related to customer orientation is also changing because of social distancing. This is because, as the number of industries that sell products non-face-to-face and start online consultations, customer-oriented activities that create customer value are also being conducted online. Therefore, it is suggested that companies need to better understand the needs and desires of customers at the time of online sales and introduce a training course that can improve customer satisfaction.
Second, value congruence can be used as a way to manage salespeople, which is one of the important channels of a company. Salespeople play a key role in building relationships with customers as well as sales. Considering the roles of these salespeople, it is very important to manage salespeople according to their goals for the success of a company. Based on the vision pursued by the company, by fully sharing the company’s values and goals with the salespeople, the values of the company and the salespeople can be aligned, thereby strengthening the behavior of the salespeople desired by the company. To match the values of the salesperson and the company, value education should be established in the salesperson training system. It is important to make salespeople feel the necessity of values and to form a consensus on the values through continuous education about corporate values. For this, education related to values should be included in salesperson training and workshops. In other words, it is necessary to educate all salespeople to increase their understanding of corporate values and create an environment for salespeople to share values by strengthening their awareness of corporate values, especially for managers.
6.3. Limitations and Future Research Directions
Although this study has found significant results for all hypotheses, however, there are following limitations. First, this study is expected to have limitations in generalizing the results because the survey was limited to salespeople engaged in the service industry. Therefore, in future research, it is necessary to increase the generalizability of the results by collecting data from various other industries.
Second, this study identified the difference between the two sales behaviors, customer-oriented selling behavior and adaptive selling behavior, but indirectly confirmed the difference based on the opportunistic behavior level. However, to confirm a more fundamental difference between the two sales behaviors, a more direct method should be used, such as analyzing sales data or comparing the short-term/long-term performance between the two sales behaviors by introducing a time series analysis. Therefore, it will be possible to increase the theoretical validity of the results of this study by attempting to explore this avenue in future studies.
Third, this study only confirmed the difference between the two sales behaviors, and the possibility of interaction between the two sales behaviors was not considered in this study. Although there are differences between the two selling behaviors, they are not mutually exclusive strategies because they also have commonalities [
66]. Therefore, they can influence each other, and it will be possible to study the situation in which two sales behaviors are used at the same time and the influence they have at that time. For example, there may be differences in the effect according to the order, including the possibility of starting with adaptive sales and switching to customer-oriented selling when the number of years of service with a specific customer is long, or vice versa. Furthermore, in a specific customer group, even in a relationship with the same customer, both strategies may be used simultaneously, such as customer-oriented selling behavior and adaptive selling behavior, depending on the situation. Therefore, it is another area that needs a follow-up study to explore.
Finally, previous studies on the two sales behaviors revealed that organizational traits, including individual psychological traits of salespeople, affect not only sales propensity but also sales performance [
74,
90]. Therefore, among these variables, it is expected that there will be variables that can change the results of this study. For example, more relationship-oriented people may prefer customer-oriented selling behavior over adaptive sales behavior because they value relationships and are expected to have lower opportunistic tendencies. Therefore, future research can also examine this perspective too.