Too much of a good thing?: The impact of ethical controls and perceived controllability on salesforce job performance

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to attempt to better understand the relationship between organizational ethical climate, the internalization of ethical codes (INT), perceived control and business-to-business (B2B) and retail salesperson job performance. This research develops and tests a model that examines these relationships to better understand the relationship of these variables to salesperson job performance. Design/methodology/approach Using the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 2002) as the theoretical lens and survey data from 307 salespeople in the USA, this study examines the relationship between organizational ethical climate, salesperson perceived control and salesperson job performance. This study examines whether this relationship may change with the presence of intervening variables related to a strengthened organizational ethical climate, and examines the relationship between these variables in two different analyses. First, this study examines the differences among retail salespeople as compared to B2B salespeople. Then this study examines the total dataset of salespeople as one sample. Findings The findings show that the positive effect of organizational ethical climate on the job performance of salespeople was reduced significantly when salespersons’ INT and salesperson perceived controllability, were examined in this relationship. Practical implications Organizational controls, such as an ethical climate within a firm, can impact salesperson job performance, especially if the firm’s ethical climate causes the salesteam to feel that it lessens their perceived control. This study found that if the ethical climate reduces the salespeople’s feelings of self-efficacy, that the ethical climate changes can intervene and can significantly reduce the otherwise positive effect of the organizational ethical climate on salesperson job performance. Originality/value From a theoretical perspective, the research is distinctive in its endeavor to better understand the relationship between the role of salespersons’ ethical code internalization and their feelings of self-efficacy and perceived control. This paper then examines how these variables can be influential to the direct effect of organizational ethical control and can impact the job performance of salespeople. The findings contribute to research by advancing our knowledge of how we can enhance the responses of salespeople to an organization’s ethical control, leading to higher customer satisfaction and improved sales performance.