Influence of the ethical servant leader and ethical climate on customer value enhancing sales performance

Abstract

An increasing interest in sales ethics research in recent years is clearly apparent. In response to growing questions of uncertainty, this study examines the influence of an ethical leadership style, servant leadership (SL), and the existence of a caring ethical climate (CEC) on salesperson performance and the extension of those ethical values to customers. SL has emerged as a critical leadership style and has been shown to affect the organization's ethical level, person–organization fit, organizational commitment, and turnover intention of salespeople as well as predict additional variance above and beyond that of other leadership styles such as transformational leadership.. This paper extends previous sales ethics research by examining SL's impact on customer value creation. Results from a sample of 279 business-to-business salespeople suggest that SL affects salespeople's value enhancing behavior performance (VEBP), as well as their outcome sales performance. In addition, CEC perceptions moderate the relationship between SL and salespeople's VEBP. Based on these findings, both implications and opportunities are provided for future ethics research in the sales environment.

Keywords:

• ethics
• salespeople
• sales management
• caring ethical climate
• customer value
• performance
• servant leadership

Acknowledgment

The authors would like to thank the University of Central Missouri for its financial support of this project through the Kyle R. Carter Graduate Faculty Research Award.