The divergent effects of organizational identification on salesperson and customer outcomes in a friend-selling context

Abstract

The last decade has witnessed a rapid growth in the number of individuals who sell products and services to their friends. Despite this fast growth, there is scant research on the phenomenon of selling to friends, in general, and on the tension that may arise when salespeople attempt to simultaneously perform the role of salesperson and friend, specifically. To begin to remedy this knowledge gap, we build on transactional models of stress to posit that salespeople who identify with the selling organization are less likely to experience tension and, by extension, role stress when selling to friends. Moreover, we predict that role stress may have both positive and negative consequences in a friend-selling context. We test these ideas using dyadic survey data (provided by salespeople and their customers) and find that (1) organizational identification reduces friend-selling stress, (2) the organizational identification–friend-selling stress relationship is contingent on friend-selling frequency and network size, (3) friend-selling ambiguity decreases sales performance and customer trust, and (4) friend-selling conflict has divergent consequences, leading to positive customer responses but negative salesperson outcomes. Theoretical and managerial implications of these findings are discussed.