Trust repair after a sales manager error

Abstract

Sales managers need to maintain the trust of their salespeople to have productive working relationships. A positive and trusting working relationship can be threatened by a transgression on the part of the sales manager. An important challenge for sales managers concerns dealing with the aftermath of an error that damages the trust of a salesperson, especially when the error results in financial harm to that salesperson (e.g., unfair bonus/incentive allocation). A common restorative approach consists of the sales manager acknowledging the error and providing a financial compensation to the salesperson. Our study finds that instead of acknowledging the error, the sales manager should promise to make things right before providing financial compensation.

Keywords:

• trust repair
• behavioral integrity
• distributive justice
• compensation
• salesperson trust
• sales manager relationships

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.