Salesperson moral identity and value co-creation

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the role of salesperson moral identity centrality in value co-creation. This study identified and tested an extended identity-based formation process of selling orientation, customer orientation and value co-creation. This was accomplished by examining the role of inclusion of others in the self and circle of moral regard in the mechanism through which moral identity centrality impacts selling orientation, customer orientation and value co-creation, taking into account the contingency role of salesperson self-construal. Design/methodology/approach An extended identity-behavior model grounded in identity theory and the social-cognitive perspective of moral identity centrality was tested. The study used survey data from business-to-business salespeople. Data collected was analyzed using structural equation modeling. Findings The results show that a central moral identity to a salesperson’s self-drives higher expansion of the salesperson’s circle of moral regard. This process facilitates the mechanisms for salesperson moral identity centrality to decrease selling orientation and increase customer orientation and value co-creation, leading to higher sales performance. Independent self-construal is found to deteriorate the positive effects of salesperson moral identity centrality on the inclusion of others in the self, expansion of the circle of moral regard and customer orientation. Research limitations/implications Through the conceptualized and tested framework, the study opens the door for additional research to inspect the role of moral identity centrality in sales. Practical implications Findings have implications for the human resource side of sales organizations in the areas of recruitment, mentoring, coaching and training. Moral identity centrality plays a vital role in the interface between salespeople and customers, leading to improved behavioral and sales outcomes. Sales managers must look for their salespeople’s moral identity centrality to improve morality in the attitudes and decision-making of their salesforce. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to uncover the vital impacts of salesperson moral identity centrality on selling orientation, customer orientation and value co-creation. Through the conceptualized and tested framework, the study opens the door for additional research to inspect the role of moral identity centrality in sales.

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How Education Shapes Ethics in Network Marketing: The Role of Identity and Training

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The impact of business-to-business salespeople’s social media use on value co-creation and cross/up-selling: the role of social capital

“…For business-to-business (B2B) salespeople, value cocreation (Itani et al , 2022) and cross/upselling behaviors (Johnson and Friend, 2015) are critical growth strategies. Specifically, value cocreation refers to purposeful engagement and collaboration with customers to jointly produce and enhance value for customers (Itani et al , 2022; Ranjan and Read, 2016), whereas cross/upselling behaviors refer to efforts directed at generating more value from customers by upgrading them to more profitable offerings (Johnson and Friend, 2015). Given the complex and dynamic nature of the B2B sales environment, salespeople need to continuously search for opportunities to enhance their abilities to create value for and extract value from customers (Rangarajan et al , 2021).…”

“…In general, while a few prior studies have explored how salespeople can use internal networking, exploratory navigation and internal selling as mechanisms to identify, nurture and channel internal organizational resources (Liu et al , 2020; Nguyen et al , 2018; Plouffe et al , 2016; Steward et al , 2010), there are significant gaps in the systematic research on salespeople’s entrepreneurial acquisition of resources that are external to the organization, such as social capital. In particular, although sales researchers have highlighted that the utilization of digital tools and technologies can enable salespeople to form professional relationships and expand social networks (Itani et al , 2022; Rangarajan et al , 2021), studies are yet to offer compelling evidence on how salespeople’s social media use helps in the acquisition of social capital through those relationships and networks spanning organizational boundaries. Correspondingly, by leveraging emergent perspectives from the resource acquisition literature (Maritan and Peteraf, 2011; Martens et al , 2007) and recent research on the utilization of social media by salespeople (Minsky and Quesenberry, 2016), we develop and test a framework that demonstrates how B2B salespeople’s use of social media enhances their social capital, which, in turn, contributes to their value creation activities.…”