Exploring the synergistic role of ethical leadership and sales control systems on salesperson social media use and sales performance

Research suggests that ethical leadership can motivate favorable employee behaviors. In the current study, we explore the influence of ethical leadership on salesperson social media use for work and its downstream effects on empathy and salesperson performance. Leveraging self-determination theory, analysis confirms the positive relationship between ethical leadership and salesperson social media use and tests the hypothesized moderating influence of activity, outcome, and capability control systems. Results also reveal that the positive association between ethical leadership and social media use is stronger when activity or outcome controls are in place, and weaker when capability controls are in place. Furthermore, the tests support positive relationships between salesperson social media use, empathetic behavior, and sales performance. An indirect effect of social media use on salesperson performance through empathetic behaviors was also uncovered.