Antecedents and consequences of salesperson identification with the brand and company

Abstract

To date, little research has investigated the antecedents and implications of salespersons' identification with the brands and the companies they represent. As the nature of the selling job is unique from other inside employee positions, with increased independence of the firm and loyalty that may be expanded to the customers rather than the firm itself, an investigation of this phenomenon within the sales context holds significant implication for sales force management. The salesperson also represents an extension of the marketing communication programme of the firm and thus has direct bearing on how the company and brand image are communicated to the customer. Therefore, the purpose of our paper is to hypothesize and empirically test the notion that higher levels of perceived congruence between a salesperson's own values and those values of the brand and company he or she represents will lead to higher brand identification and company identification which in turn should create higher job satisfaction, commitment and performance. We discuss our results and offer practical insights to sales managers. Further, we discuss limitations of our study and provide directions for future research.

Keywords:

• brand identification
• company identification
• value congruence
• sales force outcomes
• salesperson performance

Notes

1. Social identity theory as conceptualized by Tajfel and Turner (1985) refers to ‘social identity’ as identification with social categories/groups (i.e., category-based identification). It is worth noting that other variations of identity theory exist in the social psychology literature; for example, Stryker and colleagues' conceptualization of identity theory focused on understanding how role-based identities (i.e., role-based identification) within social structures affect self and how self affects social behaviours. Other different but related conceptualization of identity theory by Burke and colleagues focused on the internal processes of self-verification as they affect social behaviour. For detailed discussion of the different variations of identity theory, see Stryker and Burke (2000), Stets and Burke (2000) and Hogg, Terry, and White (1995).

2. It is worth noting that Ashforth and Johnson also argue that ‘organizational identities provide psychological framework for individual members’ (34). This suggests that the relationship between SBI and SCI may also be of reversed causality. This might be particularly relevant in mergers or brand acquisition conditions.

3. Schwartz Values inventory consists of 46 items measuring 10 different human values including hedonism, stimulation, universalism, tradition, security, benevolence, conformity, power, achievement and self-direction. The 21 items we used in our study are relevant to the last five values above. The research team, including two researchers with intensive sales management experience, selected this subset of five values from Schwartz scale that are more relevant within the sales context.

4. Since value congruence at the company level has been widely researched in the literature and the focus of our paper was on salespeople–brand congruence, we use a direct measure to capture company-salespeople value congruence and an indirect measure to assess brand–salespeople value congruence. Both approaches are viable and frequently used in the literature [see Kristof (1996) for a detailed discussion of direct and indirect measures of person-organization fit and the suitability of using both approaches].