Salesperson Role Stress and Unethical Behavior

Abstract

The purpose of the current study is to provide first insights into two broad research questions: what is the relationship between role stress and sales force unethical activity? And how can management act to shape this relationship, if at all? Despite the important theoretical advances made in the last decades with regard to antecedents to unethical sales behavior, research has yet to thoroughly investigate the influence of job-related affect on unethical selling behavior. This omission may be because such factors are difficult to reconcile with the assumption of a rational cognitive decision-making process inherent to existing ethics models. Yet, Robertson and Anderson (1993, p. 639) noted that “when salespeople experience enough stress to drive them to ‘cut corners’, they may act without thinking about it (behavior without cognition).” As such, it seems strange that role stress has received so little attention as a potential determinant of unethical selling behavior.