Salesperson Cooperation: The Influence of Relational, Task, Organizational…sdh.ba.ttu.edu/JAMS...

Salesperson Cooperation The Influence of Relational Task Organizational and Personal Factors

Cengiz Vilmaz Gebze Institute ofTechnology Turkey

Shelby D Hunt Texas Tech University

Salesperson cooperation has become a crucial issue for the overall performance ofmost sales organizations The authors examine the antecedents oftask-specific cooperashytive behaviors of salespersons toward other salespeople working in the same organization The main theses ofthe study are that (1) the four major antecedent categories of factors-relational task organizational and personalshyconstitute collectively the primary determinants ofsalesshyperson cooperation and (2) each antecedent category exshyerts independently significant influence on the coshyoperative behaviors of salespersons The results support the main theses and provide useful insights for sales manshyagers attempting to foster cooperation among salespeoshyple The relative impact of each antecedent category as well as the effects of specific variables within each is discussed

Recent decades have witnessed a dramatic change in the nature of the selling job for many companies The trashyditional view of a salesperson-a single individualistic persistent person who works independently on a commisshysion basis and who competes fiercely against even fellow salespersons-has given way to a strikingly different conshyceptualization (Cespedes Doyle and Freedman 1989 Weitz and Bradford 1999) Selling in many businesses today has become an integrated process that requires the

coordinated efforts of salespeople and other participants both within and across product lines functional departshyments and geographic districts Cooperation defined as the willful contribution of individuals groups and so on to the successful completion of common tasks andor to the achievement of mutual objectives (J Anderson and Narus 1990 Deutsch 1949 Wagner 1995) has become a critical issue in sales management Many companies seek sales forces composed of cooperative salespersons who can work effectively in groups In such sales forces salesshypeople share their skills knowledge time and effort with coworkers to achieve common objectives TIlls emerging era of the cooperative salesperson is manifested in the growing use of team selling (Moon and Armstrong 1994) relationship selling (Weitz and Bradford 1999) selling centers (Hun Johnston and Ronchento 1985) and key account programs (Cohen 1996)

As a result of the growing importance of cooperative selling research in sales force management has begun to focus on understanding the dynamics of a salespersons interpersonal relationships with coworkers Issues investishygated include feedback provided by coworkers (Kohli and Jaworski 1994) sales force socialization (Dubinsky Howell Ingram and Bellenger 1986) peer mentoring (Pullins Fine and Warren 1996) and altruistic behaviors toward coworkers as a form of organizational citizenship behaviors (eg Netemeyer Boles McKee and McMurrian 1997) Nonetheless salesperson cooperation a critical determinant of the effectiveness of selling efforts for many businesses has received little attention

JGurnal of the Academy 9f Marketing Science V91ume 29 NG 4 pages 335-357 Consider the problem faced by a sales manager who Copyright C 2001 by Academy Gf Marketing Science believes that salesperson cooperation is important for

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sales perfonnance and wants to take action or develop polshyicies to increase such cooperation The literatures of the different research traditions that have examined cooperashytion give different sometimes conflicting advice As sugshygested by the relationship marketing literature (eg Dwyer Schurr and Oh 1987 Morgan and Hunt 1994 J Smith and Barclay 1997) should the sales manager focus on taking steps to increase the trust and commitment of salespeople Or should the manager focus on increasshying the task interdependence of the salespeople as sugshygested by Deutsch (1973) Van De Ven Delbecq and Koenig (1976) and Wageman and Baker (1997) Or should the manager simply focus on hiring salespeople who have a general proclivity toward cooperativeness as suggested by the works ofArgyle (1991) and Chatman and Barsade (1995) Answering these questions requires research that crosses disciplinary lines

Using an interdisciplinary approach we address the question Why do some salespeople more than others cooperate with coworkers We develop and test a model of antecedent factors that affect salesperson cooperation which is viewed as task-specific cooperative behaviors among salespeople On the basis of a review of the multidisciplinary literature on interpersonal cooperation in organizations and workgroups we propose that each of the antecedent factors suggested by prior research can be categorized into one of four categories relational task organizational and personal The main theses ofour study are that (I) the four major antecedent categories constitute collectively major detenninants of salesperson cooperashytion (2) each antecedent category exerts independently significant influence on cooperative tendencies among salespeople and therefore (3) sales managers should endeavor to address factors in all four categories and not just focus on one or two Thus our study aims to provide sales managers with guidance on how to promote cooperashytion among their salespeople

The article is organized as follows First we briefly review the literature on interpersonal cooperation in orgashynizations Next we describe the four main antecedent catshyegories and develop a structural model that incorporates predictor variables from each Third we test the proposed model using a large sample of salespersons (N=531) from 112 different automobile dealerships The final sections include implications and suggestions for future research

INTERPERSONAL COOPERATION

K Smith Carroll and Ashford (1995) suggest that approaches to the study ofcooperation can be grouped into five broad traditions First an influential research tradition explains the emergence of cooperation based on the calculative orientations of individuals (eg Williamson 1975) In this view individuals will cooperate ifand only if

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cooperation is in their long-term self-interests based on their rational calculations According to K Smith et aI (1995) most well-known theoretical explanations of cooperation belong to this first category (eg transaction cost theory and game theory) A second research tradition addresses the noneconomic aspects of cooperative relashytionships (eg Thibaut and Kelley 1959) Rooted in the social exchange literature research in this tradition focuses on the effects of interpersonal attraction psychoshylogical attachment and norms of reciprocity

A third approach relies heavily on power and conflict theories (eg Emerson 1962) Conflict the opposite of cooperation according to some authors and a key concept in these theories stems from diversity in individuals resources perceptions of injustice values and goals A fourth approach relies on social-structure theories and emphasizes dimensions outside the focal relationship to explain cooperation (eg P Blau 1974) Social cultural and structural aspects of the environment in which the relationship occurs are seen as drivers of cooperation Finally the fifth approach involves modeling theories and emphasizes the impact of social learning and imitation on cooperative tendencies (eg Bandura 1971) Given the differing underlying assumptions and units of analysis adopted by each research tradition the current state of inquiry on cooperation is replete with explanatory varishyables (K Smith et aI 1995)

Differences notwithstanding at least three similarities exist across the research traditions that explore cooperashytion First definitions ofcooperation in the traditions conshyverge on a common conceptual domain and all include a willful-contribution element and a common task or objecshytive element I Second the resulting outcome for most task situations is increased productivity especially in complex task situations (Tjosvold 1984 Tjosvold and Tsao 1989) because of cooperating individuals tending to (1) provide each other with necessary information (2) more willingly assist and help each other (3) understand each others points of view (4) be influenced by each others interests and ideas and (5) rely on division of labor (Laughlin 1978V Third some conceptual overlap exists among the explanatory variables suggested by each approach even though research in each tradition-true to the silo view ofacademia-seldom crosses lines (K Smith et aI 1995) Perhaps this lack of an interdisciplinary approach accounts for the low variance explained in most studies of cooperation

Indeed research in each ofthe traditions has (necessarshyily) been limited in scope (Le in terms of including all major antecedents of cooperation) For example studies using game theory generally emphasize structural and psychological detenninants such as task characteristics and personalities of the participants (eg Murnighan 1994) whereas studies based on social-exchange theory focus on the aspects of the relationship between

cooperating parties Similarly while social-structure theoshyries focus solely on the broader context in which a coo rshyative relationship occurs such as the structural and culshytural environment modeling theories highlight the influence of third parties outside the focal relatio hip (eg managers) However as Pinto Pinto and Pre cott (1993) note factors that act as facilitators ofcooperati n in organizations may belong to a broad set ofantecedent ateshygories ranging from individual factors such as perso alishyties ofgroup members interpersonal relations and tr ng and skills to organizational factors such as stra egy structure reward systems and cultural nonns (p 1282) Therefore using inferences from each of the traditiont we argue that the cooperative behaviors of salespdople emerge from the combined effects of variables in four disshytinct categories (1) the quality of interpersonal rel~onshyships between organizational members that is relatfonal factors (2) specific properties and requirements ofth~ task at hand that is taskfactors (3) the structural cUltural proshycedural and managerial dimensions of the organiz tion that is organizational factors and (4) individual c acshyterisUcs of organizational members that is persona1 facshytors Table 1 provides a review of the explanatory vari~bles in the cooperation research Each antecedent variabh~ used in the various research approaches can be grouped into one of the four categories

t

I A MODEL OF SALESPERSON COOPERATION

I Our model of salesperson cooperation is shown i Figshy

ure 1 Although the model incorporates antecedent fmiddot ctors from each main category it is obvious that not all po factors can be included Thus the factors from eac cateshygory included in our model are those we propose ard most relevant to salesperson cooperation in the context pf the present study For example factors such as organiz~onaI commitment and job satisfaction are included in the model because these factors are frequently used attitudintarishyabies in the sales management literature in expl ning salesperson behaviors Similarly factors such as bull t in coworkers and task interdependence are included since such factors are key explanatory factors suggesteltf in at least one of the research traditions exploring coope~tion We discuss each variable in the four antecedent categories and the theoretical and empirical grounds for 15 srcific hypotheses I

Relational Factors

Relational factors are those that cause salespeJons to value their relationships with coworkers and develop mutually beneficial long-tenn orientations in wprking relationships The social-exchange literature implifs that

Yilmaz Hunt I SALESPERSON COOPERATION 337

interpersonal attraction psychological attachment and nonns of reciprocity-stimulated by loyalties friendship and faithful expectations-affect individuals behavioral choices in relationships Although such relational varishyables as communication quality (J Anderson and Narus 1990) shared values (Chatman 1991 Morgan and Hunt 1994) cultural differences (McAllister 1995) personshyorganization fit (Chatman 1991 Netemeyer et aL 1997) and expectations regarding the future behaviors of role partners (Wiener and Doescher 1994) have been theorized to affect cooperative tendencies the most prominent relashytional factors are trust and commitment (Achrol 1991 Morgan and Hunt 1994)

Indeed commitment and trust are considered key for distinguishing social from purely economic exchange (K Cook and Emerson 1978 G McDonald 1981) Coopshyeration entails vulnerability and both commitment and trust are considered necessary for individuals to value a relationship and to be willing to be vulnerable (Mayer Davis and Schoorman 1995 Weitz and Bradford 1999) Morgan and Hunt (1994) theorize that an individuals commitment to a relationship and trust in the exchange partner are key detenninants of several behavioral tendenshycies in the relationship including a disposition to coopershyate Similarly we argue that a salespersons trust in coworkers and his or her commitment to the organization are central to understanding how relational factors facilishytate cooperation Specifically with respect to salesperson cooperation we model (1) organizational commitment as mediating the effects of intrinsic and extrinsic job satisfacshytion (2) trust in coworkers as mediating the effects of past opportunistic behaviors of coworkers and communication quality and (3) both trust and commitment as mediating the effect of shared values

Organizational commitment and cooperation Organishyzational commitment was originally defined as the strength ofan individuals identification with and involveshyment in a particular organization (Porter Steers Mowday and Boulian 1974604) Stated this way high levels of organizational commitment are characterized by positive affective responses toward various subgroups inshycluding coworkers that fonn the organization (Becker 1992) Thus a salesperson s commitment to the organizashytion should facilitate his or her cooperative tendencies toshyward coworkers Salespeople who are committed to the organization should attach more importance to their relashytionships with coworkers anticipate future interactions with coworkers for a longer time horizon and highly value their associations with coworkers (OReilly and Chatman 1986) Each of these variables in turn poSitively affects cooperative tendencies (Axelrod 1984 Heide and Miner 1992) Supporting this view organizational commitment has been shown to promote several forms of constructive organizational behaviors (OReilly and Chatman 1986)

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including organizational citizenship (Tompson and Werner 1997) and level ofeffort exerted for group mainteshynance (G Blau and Boal 1987) Specifically Dubinsky Kotabe Lim and Wagner (1997) demonstrate that salesshypeople who value pro-social behaviors are also more comshymitted to the organization and MacKenzie Podsakoff and Aheame (1998) show that organizational commitment is associated strongly in sales force contexts with various supportive extrarole activities including those directed to peers

Hypothesis 1 Organizational commitment and salespershyson cooperation are positively related

Trust in coworkers and cooperation A salespersons trust in coworkers stems from his or her perceptions of such trust-generating qualities of coworkers as integrity reliability and competence (Larzelere and Huston 1980 Morgan and Hunt 1994 J Smith and Barclay 1997) Trust exists when the salesperson believes that coworkers posshysess these major qualities of trustworthiness and is confishy

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factor a CoU~vistioneJlati11lll b PersOOlll oooperat~ c Agreeableness d Extraversioo (L ExtemaI locus

j self~~i furllelllllwtltk k Age Gender m Fdlllalioo 11

YiImaz Hunt I SALESPERSON COOPERATION 339

laquolURE 1 ~mfodampl

dent that they will be reflected in future behaviors of coworkers Confidence is crucial because this is what causes the most important outcome of trusting relationshyships the willingness to rely on the words actions and decisions of the other party (McAllister 199525) Trust reduces perceived uncertainty facilitates risk-taking beshyhavior and fosters a cooperative andlor constructive orienshytation (Mayer et al 1995 Moorman Deshpande and Zaltman 1993 Morgan and Hunt 1994) Consistent with its properties several authors have posited trust as an imshymediate antecedent ofcooperation (eg Jones and George 1998 Ring and Van De Ven 1994) and as a key mediating construct between various relational factors and cooperashytion (Morgan and Hunt 1994)

Hypothesis 2 Trust in coworkers and salesperson coopshyeration are positively related

Trust facilitates organizational commitment Relationshyships with peers especially the degree and quality of soshycialization with coworkers are among the primary drivers of commitment to the organization (Hunt Chonko and Wood 1985 Mottaz 1988) High levels of interpersonal trust allow mutual respect to prevail reduce the complexshyity of organizational life enable organizational members

to develop positive affective responses and therefore fashycilitate organizational commitment (Ny han 1999) Thus a positive relationship between trust in coworkers and orgashynizational commitment is expected In support of this view Hrebiniak and Alutto (1972) find trust among new employees as positively related to the subsequent developshyment of organizational commitment J Cook and Wall (1980) report strong correlations between various dimenshysions oftrust in peers and organizational commitment and Morgan and Hunt (1994) find trust to influence relationshyship commitment

Hypothesis 3 Trust in coworkers and salesperson orgashynizational commitment are positively related

Intrinsic and extrinsic job satisfaction Empirical studshyies in sales force contexts show that job satisfaction and several forms of cooperative andlor constructive behavshyiors such as peer mentoring (Pullins et al 1996) and orgashynizational citizenship (Netemeyer et al 1997) are positively related Similarly Argyle (1991) notes that job satisfaction is higher in cooperative groups While explashynations for the relationship between job satisfaction and various forms of cooperative andlor constructive behavshyiors are based on the premise that those who are satisfied

340 JOURNAL OF THE ACADEMY OF MARKETING SCIENCE

with their jobs will respond in reciprocation to those who have contributed to their positive job experience whether this relationship is direct or mediated by organizational commitment or both is stm an issue that warrants further research (cf Tompson and Werner 1997) Much research has found a positive and strong relationship between job satisfaction and organizational commitment (eg Johnston Parasuraman Futrell and Black 1990) Furthershymore the preponderance ofempirical and conceptual evishydence (see Brown and Peterson 1993) suggests that satisfaction precedes organizational commitment causally in sales force settings because it is more specific less stashyble and mOre rapidly formed (MacKenzie et a1 199890) Therefore we suggest that the satisfactionshycooperation relationship is mediated by organizational commitment

We further distinguish between the intrinsic and extrinshysic aspects of job satisfaction The former refers to an emshyployees satisfaction with the specific nature of the job itself while the latter concerns those aspects of the job that are outside the specific scope but still within the general context of the job (Lucas Parasuraman Davis and Enis 1987) Major components of (l) intrinsic job satisfaction include the joy of actually performing the job feelings of accomplishment received from the job and the degree of freedom in the job and of (2) extrinsic job satisfaction inshyclude fair pay financial earnings work conditions and benefit plans (Lucas et al 1987)

Hypothesis 4 Intrinsic job satisfaction and salesperson organizational commitment are positively related

Hypothesis 5 Extrinsic job satisfaction and salesperson organizational commitment are positively related

Shared values with coworkers Shared values are deshyfined as the extent to which [ organizational members] have beliefs in common about what behaviors goals and policies are important or unimportant appropriate or inapshypropriate and right or wrong (Morgan and Hunt 199425) The relationship between shared values and deshyvelopment of commitment and trust is well documented in the marketing (Dwyer et al 1987 Morgan and Hunt 1994) and organizational behavior literatures (Chatman 1991) Shared values positively influence organizational commitshyment because salespeople sharing values with coworkers can be expected to develop stronger affinities with their overall organization Similarly shared values positively influence trust in coworkers because as Brewer (1979) obshyserves individuals tend to perceive socially dissimilar inshydividuals as dishonest untrustworthy and uncooperative

Hypothesis 6 Shared values with coworkers and salesshyperson organizational commitment are positively related

Hypothesis 7 Shared values with coworkers and salesshyperson trust in coworkers are positively related

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Past opportunistic behaviors of coworkers Empirical evidence on trust in working relationships suggests that people when assessing competence and trustworthiness consider whether partners have carried out role-related reshysponsibilities reliably (J Cook and Wa111980) Coworkers who carry out role responsibilities reliably and in a manner consistent with norms of fairness and reciprocity will enshyhance partners assessments of their trustworthiness (McAllister 1995) In contrast when coworkers engage in opportunistic behaviors which Williamson (1975) defines as self interest seeking with guile (po 6) and which John (1984) characterizes as deceitful violations of appropriate role behavior the subsequent level of trust placed in coshyworkers will decrease

Hypothesis 8 Past opportunistic behaviors of coworkers and salesperson trust in coworkers are negatively reshylated

Communication quality Prior research has focused on two general aspects of the communication process (I) mechanistic aspects such as frequency modality dishyrection and content (eg Churchill Ford and Walker 1976 Mohr and Nevin 1990) and (2) qualitative aspects (eg E Anderson and Weitz 1989 J Anderson and Narus 1990) Consistent with much research on trusting relationshyships (eg Morgan and Hunt 1994 J Smith and Barclay 1997) we limit our discussion to the qualitative aspects of the communication process among salespeople

Communication quality is defined as timely and accushyrate sharing of information through both formal and inforshymal means (E Anderson and Weitz 1989 J Anderson and Narus 1990 Morgan and Hunt 1994 J Smith and Barclay 1997) The timely and accurate sharing of information alshylows salespeople to be more confident in their attributions regarding the trustworthiness of coworkers and enables them to better assess the motives and intentions behind the actions of coworkers (Boorom Goolsby and Ramsey 1998) Thus communication quality results in increased trust (Mayer et a1 1995)

Hypothesis 9 Communication quality with coworkers and salesperson trust in coworkers are positively related

Task Factors

Ever since Morton Deutsch published his theory of cooperation in 1949 task factors have been the most comshymonly used explanatory variables in cooperation research Deutschs theory viewed cooperation as a form of social interaction that can be characterized by perceptions of positive interdependence That is Deutsch (1949 1973 1980) argued that individuals will be more likely to coopshyerate if they view (1) one anothers goals as (positively) related and (2) task characteristics as requiring coopshy

eration to achieve those goals (Tjosvold 1984 1986) This notion of interdependence further developed by Deutsch and Krauss (1960) and Thompson (1967) has resulted in the extensive interest in structural factors especially in task factors among researchers investigating cooperative relationships Variables such as task complexity task interdependence and outcome and goal interdependence have been posited as key explanatory factors in studies of cooperation (Kumar Scheer and Steenkamp 1995a 1995b Tjosvold 1984 1986 Wageman 1995 Wageman and Baker 1997) Another research stream has investishygated task characteristics in the context of free riding and social loafing Findings reveal that identifiability of indishyvidual contributions to the task at hand and personal accountability influence the degree of within-group coopshyeration (Kidwell and Bennett 1993 Wagner 1995) espeshycially in reciprocal task-flow situations (ie when each person acts on the output of the other)

Consistent with Deutschs theory we posit that task inshyterdependence defined as the extent to which salespersons depend on one another for information and aid to acshycomplish their tasks and improve their performance (Thompson 1967) will have a direct and positive effect on salesperson cooperation However Deutsch viewed intershydependence as central or even equivalent to cooperationshyother factors affecting cooperation can do so only indirectly through their impact on perceptions of interdependence (Tjosvold 1986) Hence for example trust and commitshyment can have no direct effect on cooperation in Deutschs theory but can only exert indirect influence by magnifying perceived interdependence In contrast the perspective taken in the present study is that variables from each of the major antecedent categories exert direct influence on cooperation

Hypothesis 10 Task interdependence and salesperson cooperation are positively related

Organizational Factors

The structural cultural managerial and procedural dimensions of the organization have long been thought to affect cooperative tendencies among organizational memshybers (Mintzberg 1979 Shapiro 1977) Within this context variables such as physical proximity of participants and their opportunity to interact (Wagner 1995) organizashytional cultural norms (Moch and Seashore 1981) leadershyship style (Podsakoff MacKenzie and Bommer 1996) and the degree to which organizational control systems reward cooperative efforts versus individual achievement (E Anderson and Oliver 1987 Petersen 1992) have been shown to influence cooperative andor constructive orgashynizational behaviors Incorporating organizational factors into models explaining cooperation is important because they provide managers with actionable guidance on how to


develop and maintain cooperative organizational systems (Pinto et al 1993)

Three specific organizational factors are hypothesized in the present study to influence salesperson cooperation collectivist organizational norms reward system and number ofcoworkers These three variables are thought to represent major structural cultural and procedural dimensions of the organization affecting cooperative tenshydencies in our sampling context Research about proshysocial organizational behaviors indicates that several manshyagerial variables particularly leadership style and leader behaviors may also influence cooperative tendencies in organizations (Podsakoff et al 1996) The rationale for the potent effects ofleadership variables is based on the modshyeling theories in K Smith et als (1995) review of the cooperation literature Based On this view a sales manager can promote cooperation among salespeople by (1) acting as a role model andor (2) communicating the approprishyate behavioral patterns in the form of guiding principles (Larson and LaFasto 1989) which further contribute to the development oforganizational norms The former process involves imitation of the leaders behaviors and therefore is unlikely to bear a substantive effect in our sampling conshytext (ie acomrnission-based retail selling context where salespeople work in a relatively independent manner) The potential effects of the latter process is captured largely by the collectivist organizational norms variable that we disshycuss next

Collectivist organizational (cultural) norms An orgashynizations internal culture is an important determinant of how organizational members interact with each other (Deshpande Farley and Webster 1993) Socially shared rules and acceptable forms of behaviors within an organishyzation commonly labeled as organizational (cultural) norms tend to limit the variation across behaviors of orgashynizational members by suppressing or supporting certain types of behaviors (Moch and Seashore 1981) As such the norms embedded in the internal culture ofan organizashytion prescribe behavioral patterns (Kahn Wolfe Quinn Snoek and Rosenthal 1964) One important dimension of organizational culture closely relevant to cooperative work environments is the extent to which collectivist vershysus individualistic norms are embedded within the organishyzations culture (Chatman and Barsade 1995)

Individualism-collectivism as a determinant of coopshyeration has been studied at societal (eg Hofstede 1980) individual (eg Eby and Dobbins 1997) and organizashytional (eg Chatman and Barsade 1995 Earley 1993) levshyels As to organizational cultures individualismshycollectivism captures the relative importance organizashytional members give to the interests of a larger workgroup (ie coworkers) as opposed to personal interests (Wagner and Moch 1986) Specifically collectivist organizational cultures encourage the subordination of personal interests

342 JOURNAL OF THE ACADEMY OF MARKETING SClENCE

to the goals of a larger work group and therefore put more emphasis on sharing cooperation and harmony (Wagner 1995)

Hypothesis 11 Collectivist organizational nouns and salesperson cooperation are positively related

Reward system The motivation literature maintains that financial rewards (eg compensation plans bonuses profit sharing plans) and nonfinancial rewards (eg honshyors opportunities for personal growth job security proshymotion) influence the behaviors of organizational members (Pritchard Jones Roth Stuebing and Ekeberg 1988) We define reward system in this study as the degree to which rewards in the organization both financial and nonfinancial encourage cooperation among salespeople

Petersen (1992) notes that managers should carefully design reward systems if certain types of behavioral patshyterns such as cooperation are to be developed Axelrod (1984) suggests that cooperation can be reinforced by making cooperative behaviors more attractive through the usage of rewards Research on team effectiveness shows that when rewards are linked to group performance a reshyward system that Campion Medsker and Higgs (1993) reshyfer to as interdependent rewards and Guzzo and Shea (1992) refer to as outcome interdependence group pershyformance is facilitated through increased motivation toshyward group-oriented behaviors Finally 1 Anderson and Narus (1990) and Wiener and Doescher (1991) note that individuals will be more likely to cooperate if they believe that the outcome of cooperation is going to be positive Inshydeed the supposed relationship between financial rewards and all individual behaviors is so strong in the motivation literature that including financial rewards as an antecedent to cooperation may be considered a control variable That is once one controls for financial rewards do other factors explain variance in individual cooperation

Hypothesis 12 The degree to which financial rewards encourage cooperative behaviors is positively reshylated to salesperson cooperation

Hypothesis 13 The degree to which nonfinancial reshywards encourage cooperative behaviors is positively related to salesperson cooperation

Number of coworkers Research on work groups has posited group size as an important predictor of withinshygroup cooperation (Hechter 1987 Wagner 1995) Because individuals workplace behaviors and incremental task contributions are easier to assess more visible andlor identifiable in small groups people in such groups tend to (1) avoid free riding and social loafing and (2) display cooperative andlor constructive behaviors (George 1992) Furthermore Pinto et al (1993) argue that physical proxshyimity and accessibility of organizational members may

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promote cooperative behaviors by making them more feasible

Hypothesis 14 The number of coworkers is negatively related to salesperson cooperation

Personal Factors

Some people are simply more cooperative than others (Argyle 1991) An individuals disposition to behave cooperatively may stem from such personal factors as pershysonality traits (Baron 1983) and demographic characterisshytics (Argyle 1991) For example Baron (1983) distinshyguishes between cooperators competitors and individualists as personality types Cooperators prefer to work in close collaboration with other people and are primarily interested in the achievement of group objecshytives Competitors put more emphasis on their personal goals Individualists will either cooperate or compete depending On which best fits their personal needs

Researchers have used several personality measures as proxies for personal cooperativeness Examples include collectivist orientation (Wagner 1995) agreeableness (Chatman and Barsade 1995) extraversion (Thorne 1987) locus of control and need for social approval (Eby and Dobbins 1997) social competence (Dodge 1985) and empathy (Eisenberg and Miller 1987) In addition although empirical evidence is scant such demographic variables as age gender education and tenure in the orgashynization have been proposed as predictors of cooperative dispositions (Argyle 1991 Lu and Argyle 1991 Wagner 1995) We focus on personal cooperativeness and several demographic variables

Personal cooperativeness Personal cooperativeness as examined here is a personality trait that determines the predisposition of an individual toward working in close collaboration with others in all life activities A salespershySOn high in this trait

places priority on associating with others for mutual benefits gaining social approval and working toshygether with others toward a common end or purpose while a person with low disposition to cooperate places priority on maximizing his or her own welshyfare regardless of others welfare (Chatman and Barsade 1995424)

Hypothesis 15 The personality trait of cooperativeness and salespersons cooperative behaviors are posishytively related

Demographic differences While it has been argued that demographic differences are indicators of several drivers ofcooperative behaviors such as empathy and perspective taking (eg Davis 1983) several decades of research have in fact failed to yield conclusive evidence regarding

the effects ofdemographic variables on cooperative andor constructive tendencies (Podsakoff MacKenzie Paine and Bachrach 2000) Concerning the impact of age for inshystance Wagner (1995) repons a positive and significant correlation between age and cooperative behaviors while Lu and Argyle (1991) report a negative correlation Simishylarly some studies report significant effects of experience education and organizational tenure (eg Kidwell and Bennett 1993 Pullins et al 1996 Spicer 1985) and yet others fail to support the view that these variables are substantively important predictors of cooperationshyespecially when personality differences are accounted for (Argyle 1991) Given that the literature does not allow us to specify directional hypotheses we examine the effects of age education level and organizational tenure from an exploratory perspective

METHOD

The research setting involved mail surveys of salespeoshyple and sales managers from new-car automobile dealershyships Salespeople from the participating dealerships were asked to respond to self-administered questionnaires in which they were instructed to state their opinions regardshying their coworkers defined as other salespersons working in the same dealership While several more cooperative seIling contexts (such as those that apply team selling) exist new-car salespeople represent a pertinent sample for our research for several reasons First contrary to the steshyreotype image of the automobile salesperson cooperative selling is a rapidly growing practice in this industry In response to the competition from the Internet and the demands of the manufacturer firms many dealerships have initiated relationship marketing and customer retenshytion programs Mixed compensation plans (as opposed to full-commission plans) formal or informal commission sharing and year-end bonuses and several forms of manushyfacturer incentives based on overall dealership perforshymance are common practices Thus it is not only the case that some reasonable level of cooperation exists among new-car salespeople but also many dealership managers consider such cooperation desirable for the performance of the overall firm Our preliminary interviews with dealshyership managers and salespeople and the data we collected for the present research support this view as we demonshystrate in the following sections

Second note that our purpose at this initial stage of theshyory testing is to explain variance and explore relationships Since sales teams are usually composed of people from different functional areas and with diverse backgrounds (Weitz and Bradford 1999) using such a diverse sample would have decreased our ability to explore the true nature of the relationships due to substantial amount of extraneshyous variation that cannot be modeled directly Third new-

Yilmaz Hunt SALESPERSON COOPERATION 343

car salespeople have relatively similar task requirements which eliminates such concerns as cooperate in what manner and enables a consistent operational definition for the cooperation construct Fourth the dealerships in our sample are relatively small organizations (a majority of them employ less than 10 salespeople) which minishymizes the possibility of confusion on the part of the respondents as to the question of cooperate with whom Finally the fact that our sample is drawn from what is genshyerally considered to be a relatively competitive selling context facilitates a strong test of our thesis that each of the four main antecedent categories exerts a significant and distinct influence on salesperson cooperation

Data Collection

Preliminary investigation The study began with unshystructured field interviews with managers and salespeople from four local dealerships The purpose of the interviews with managers was to explore whether sales managers in this sales context regarded salesperson cooperation as imshyportant An four dealership sales managers maintained that they wanted their salespeople to cooperate with each other because they believed such cooperation increased overall sales force performance These interviews also provided useful insights for developing the specific tasks for measuring the cooperation construct The interviews with salespeople provided an on-site pretest of the quesshytionnaire Ten salespeople from the same four dealerships commented on items and suggested changes The final draft of the questionnaire was developed after making the required modifications

Sampling procedure A sample frame of 1181 new-car dealerships in the state of Texas was developed from a mailing list provided by an independent research firm Dealership sales managers were contacted by mail to soshylicit their cooperation in return for the summary of results One hundred and sixty-five dealerships agreed to particishypate in the study providing access to 1975 salespeople These dealership managers also responded to a short quesshytionnaire designed to measure several organizational-level variables These variables include number of vehicles sold per year number of employees number of salespeople perceived overall degree of cooperation within the sales force and importance of cooperation Ninety percent of responses to the question How important is it for the sucshycess of your dealership that salespersons cooperate with each other were above the midpoint of the scale ranging from 1 (very unimportant) to 7 (very important)3

Four weeks after the initial mailing the salesperson questionnaires were mailed to the managers of the 165 participating dealerships for distribution to their salespeoshyple Each questionnaire packet also included a cover letter explaining the purposeof the study and return envelopes to

344 JOURNAL OF 1HE ACADEMY OF MARKETING SCIENCE

assure respondent anonymity Five bundred and eightyshyfive individual salesperson responses from 112 different dealerships were received After the elimination of careshyless respondents and a listwise deletion of missing cases 531 questionnaires were retained resulting in an effective response rate of 27 percent The mean within-dealership response rate was 50 percent

Nonresponse bias Tests for nonresponse bias rely on Armstrong and Overtons (1977) argument that late reshyspondents are similar to nonrespondents (in comparison to early respondents) Two different tests were conducted one for the first sampling stage (dealership managers) and one for the second sampling stage (salespeople) For dealshyership managers we compared late and early respondents on the means of two critical variables namely perceived overall degree ofcooperation within the salesforce and imshyportance ofcooperation For individual salespersons we compared the two groups on the covariance matrix ofconshystruct items (Morrison 1976) No significant differences were found in either of the tests suggesting that nonresponse bias may not be a problem

Sample characteristics Our sampling process resulted in a sample that varied greatly on both dealership and salesperson characteristics The dealerships vary in size as measured by number of employees (M == 40 SD =4916) salespeople (M == 12 SD= 95) and vehicles sold per year (M == 943 SD 9375) Individual respondents vary widely in age (M = 3926 years SD 1149) sales experience (M = 1065 years SD = 978) organizational tenure (M = 257 years SD = 334) and education (S high school dishyploma 1815 some college 5245 college graduate 2033 graduate work 907) Most of the respondents are male (9091) and full-commission salespeople (6978)

Measures

Constructs are measured using multiple-item meashysures whenever applicable All scales use a 7-point scalshying format with anchors strongly disagree to strongly agree unless otherwise noted Measurement items are provided in the appendix The reliabilities of the multipleshyitem reflective measures are presented in Table 2 The coefficient alphas Lisrel-based internal consistency estishymates (ie composite reliability) and the amount of varishyance captured by each construct in relation to measureshyment error (ie average variance extracted) are well beyond the acceptable threshold levels suggested by Nunnally (1978) and Fornell and Larcker (1981)

Cooperation For the sake of operational and nomological clarity we limit the domain of the cooperashytion construct to cooperative behaviors that represent the

FALL 2001

core task of our respondents that is automobile selling Thus our conceptualization of salesperson cooperation based on the work of Laughlin (1978) and Morgan and Hunt (1994) requires a measure capturing various forms oftask-specific cooperative behaviors that respondents are likely to display toward their coworkers Both in-role and extrarole task-specific behaviors (ie those that include and transcend beyond what is formally prescribed by a salespersons organizational role) belong to the domain of cooperation

Measurement items are developed through an interacshytive process with dealership managers and salespeople who participated in our preliminary interviews These informants provided us with valuable insights concerning (1) the nature ofcooperation in automobile selling (2) speshycific types ofcooperative behaviors in various stages ofthe selling process and (3) clarity and completeness of the items in the measure Relatively higher emphasis is given in the scale to cooperative behaviors involving relationshyships with customers (eg sharing information about potential and current customers helping one anothers customers etc) based on the unanimous agreement among our informants that customer-related cooperation is of critical importance for the success of selling efforts and most representative ofa cooperative sales force Other facets ofsalesperson cooperation frequently mentioned by the informants include assisting coworkers during sales presentations sharing information about vehicle specifics and providing support in terms of activities that facilitate the selling process (eg bandling of paperwork) Responshydents rated the extent to which they engage in each type of cooperative behavior on a 7-point scoring format ranging from very little to very much

Trust in coworkers and organizational commitment The scale in Morgan and Hunt (1994) is used for measurshying trust in coworkers Based on the Dyadic Trust Scale of Larzelere and Huston (1980) this measure captures reshyspondents confidence in the integrity reliability compeshytence and general trustworthiness ofrelationship partners An additional item I consider my coworkers as people whom I would be willing to let make important job-related decisions without my involvement was included to put more emphasis on the competence dimension Organizashytional Commitment is measured using the nine-item vershysion of Mowday Steers and Porters (1979) Organizashytional Commitment Scale which has been used extenshysively in prior research (Mathieu and Zajac 1990)

Measures ofexogenous constructs Shared Values With Coworkers and Past Opportunistic Behaviors of Coworkshyers use the scales in Morgan and Hunt (1994) The assessshyment of shared values involves a two-stage procedure (cf Enz 1988) respondents are asked to state the degree to which (1) they agree and (2) their coworkers would agree

1II1i01~1Olt 2

~


with five statements concerning ethical values The differshyences between the two responses (subtracted from 7) are then used to reflect shared values For opportunistic beshyhaviors we added the following item to the original threeshyitem scale my coworkers avoid fulfilling their responsibilshyities unless they are watched closely

Selected items from the marketing practitioners Job Satisfaction Scale of Hunt and Chonko (1984) and the salesperson Intrinsic Job Satisfaction Scale ofLucas et al (1987) are used to measure intrinsic aspects of the repondents job satisfaction Extrinsic Job Satisfaction items are drawn from Lucas et a1s (1987) study Items in both scales come from the Job Dimensions Scale (Groves 1981 Schletzer 1965) Similarly for Communication Quality we use selected items from the Communication Quality Scales in Morgan and Hunt (1994) and J Smith and Barclay (1997) Both scales measure the degree of timely and accurate sharing of information and both are based on the CommunicationParticipationFeedback Scale of E Anderson Lodish and Weitz (1987)

Reward System the degree to which the rewards in the organization encourage (discourage) cooperation between salespeople is operationalized for both financial rewards and nonfinancial rewards Single items for both dimenshysions are developed to assess the degree to which such rewards in the dealership favor cooperative behaviors A 7-point scoring format ranging from strongly discourage cooperation to strongly encourage cooperation is used For Collectivist Norms embedded within the culture of the organization we use the Norms subscale of IndividualismshyCollectivism developed in Wagner and Moch (1986) and further validated in Wagner (1995) Items of the original scale were modified slightly to assess organizational-level cultural norms

For Task Interdependence we use the three-item Task Interdependence Scale in Campion et a1 (1993) which measures the degree to which respondents depend on each other to accomplish their tasks and improve their perforshymance While the third item in the scale is a direct measure of interdependence the first two items tap the degree of interdependence from a dyadic perspective in that the first item is a measure of the respondents dependence on coworkers and the second item is a measure of the responshydents perception ofcoworkers dependence on him or her For this reason responses to the first two items are first averaged and then combined with the third item to genershyate a task interdependence score for each respondent

Finally Personal Cooperativeness is measured using items from the Work-Cooperativeness Scale of Lu and Argyle (1991) the School-Cooperativeness Scale of Robshyerts (1991) and the Acceptance of Cooperation Teamwork Scale of Oliver and Anderson (1994) These scales have been used to determine manifest personality differences aCross individuals in terms of cooperative

FALL 2001

versus competitive behavioral dispositions in specific environments Wordings of the items borrowed from each scale are altered slightly to develop a measure of General Cooperativeness that would apply in all environmentsshywork school family and so on Thus as a significant difshyference from the Cooperation Scale which is limited to task-specific cooperative behaviors directed toward coworkers items in the Personal Cooperativeness Scale measure a salespersons predisposition toward working in close collaboration with others in general

Measure PurHication and Validation

Following the two-step procedure recommended by J Anderson and Gerbing (1988) we estimate and respecify the measurement model prior to incorporating the structural restrictions Maximum-likelihood LISREL 8 (Joreskog and Sorbom 1993) is used in the analyses and the sample covariance matrix is used as input 4 In addition because some of the scales in this research are either comshypletely new (eg Cooperation) or composed of selected items from previously used scales (eg Intrinsic Job Satisshyfaction) it is reasonable to anticipate that several items will have to be dropped during respecification of the meashysurement model Cross validation is recommended for such measure purification processes to minimize error probability and capitalization on chance Accordingly responses were randomly split into two halves so as to cross validate the measurement modeL

The initial model which consisted of all 78 measureshyment items and 17 factors was estimated using the first split sample However several items had high standardshyized residuals and modification indices making the model fit not acceptable x2(1196) == 5362 Comparative Fit Index (CFI) =82 Goodness-of-Fit Index (GFI) = 66 root mean square error ofapproximation (RMSEA) =058 standardshyized root mean square residual (SRMR) = 067 We respecified the model by eliminating three items from the Intrinsic Job Satisfaction Scale four items from Extrinsic Job Satisfaction three from Organizational Commitment four from Cooperation two from Trust three from Comshymunication Quality one from Opportunistic Behaviors and four from Personal Cooperativeness Considering the large number of constructs and items the respecified model fits the data well x2(1248) == 20027 CFI == 91 GFI = 88RMSEA= 046 SRMR= 0495

Next we tested the respecified model on the second split sample The resulting fit indices indicate that the measurement model has a good fit to the data While the GFI is an acceptable 88 the RMSEA value of 044 and the SRMR value of 046 indicate a very good model fit Simishylarly in terms of incremental fit the CFI for the model is 93 which exceeds the recommended90 acceptance criteshyrion (R McDonald and Marsh 1990) The fit of the model

is even better when it is estimated using the fun sample X2

U24S) = 2420 CFI == 93 OFI =88 RMSEA = 041 SRMR = 044 In addition all items load significantly on their respective constructs (with the lowest t-value being ILl) providing support for the convergent validity of measurement items

Unidimensionality and discriminant validity Proceshydures for examining the measurement scales for unidimensionality are based on exploratory and confirmashytory factor analyses of scale items taken one scale at a time to see ifthe items in each scale share a single underlyshying factor Exploratory factor analyses reveal that only one factor accounts for a major portion of the total variance in each scale (ie only one factor is extracted using an eigenvalue of 10 as the cutoff point) Similarly the goodness-of-fit indices obtained from one-factor confirshymatory factor analyses ofthe scales are all acceptable (ie OFIgt 90 CFI gt 90)

Tests for discriminant validity are based on comparishysons of the chi-square statistics obtained from confirmashytory factor analyses of pairwise combinations of the study constructs when the correlation between the constructs are (1) constrained to unity and (2) freed for estimation A sigshynificantly lower chi-square value for the unconstrained model indicates that the two constructs are distinct Discriminant validity is obtained for all the study conshystructs using this test (1Xll gt 384 for all pairwise comparshyisons) as well as the more stringent procedure suggested by Fornell and Larcker (1981) (see Table 2)

RESULTS

Descriptive statistics for the scales are provided in Table 2 The standard deviations indicate a substantial amount of variance in the responses6 More important the large standard deviations for the three endogenous constructs-Cooperation (lI8) Trust in Coworkers (137) and Organizational Commitment (113)-suggest that each of these constructs has considerable amount of variance to be explained In addition most means are within one-half point of the scale centers While the mean for the Cooperation Scale is 538 the dispersion of this variable is also reasonably high indicating that the sample includes both cooperative and noncooperative responshydents (13 of the responses are below the center of the scale) Furthermore the fact that most of the responses are at the higher end of the Cooperation Scale is not unexshypected Studies on organizational members commonly report similar results (eg Chatman and Barsade 1995 Eby and Dobbins 1997) One explanation for this pattern of results lies in the very notion of the organization Organizations exist because individuals come together to work for a common purpose Some level of cooperation is

Yiimaz Hunt I SALESPERSON COOPERATION 347

therefore necessary for sustained membership in the organization

Table 3 reports goodness-of-fit indices and standardshyized parameter estimates for the structural model The overall chi-square statistic is significant X2

(J215) =25306 p lt 01 as is expected given the large sample size (Bagozzi and Yi 1988) All other goodness-of-fit indices are within the acceptable ranges (CFI = 93 OF = 88 RMSEA = 042 SRMR = 051) Taken collectively these results show that the hypothesized structural relationships fit the data well Overall the hypothesized structural relationshyships explain 45 percent of the observed variance in coopshyeration In addition 11 of the 15 hypothesized paths are supported and at least one factor from each of the four antecedent categories exerts significant influence on salesshyperson cooperation

Also included in Table 3 are the parameter estimates and associated test statistics of the hypothesized relationshyships adjusted for common method variance Given that the same informants provided the data for most of the exogenous and endogenous constructs in our model the possibility exists that common method variance may have inflated or deflated the magnitudes of the parameter estishymates for the hypothesized paths Thus it is necessary to assess the degree of this form of bias in our results The adjusted estimates in Table 3 are obtained after partialing out the portion of variance that is common across all our observed variables obtained from the same source (ie salespeople) using the procedure in MacKenzie Podsakoff and Paine (1999)

As shown in Table 3 the overall pattern of significant relationships in the sample is not affected much by comshymon method variance Of the 11 paths that are significant in the unadjusted analysis 10 are significant in the adjusted analysis with the path from collectivist organizashytional norms to cooperation dropping just slightly to the point of being nonsignificant at the traditional 05 level More important given that the adjusted estimates have much greater standard errors because ofthe inclusion ofan additional common method factor in the model and fewer degrees of freedom the absolute sizes of the coeffishycients should be the primary basis of comparison not the significance levels Note that the magnitudes of the adjusted path coefficients in our results are very close to the magnitudes ofthe unadjusted estimates7 and the correshylation between the two sets of estimates is 93 (p value lt 000) Furthermore a chi-square difference test indicates that the model representing the adjusted estimates is not statistically different from the (more parsimonious) model representing the unadjusted estimates (1X2

[621 = 712) Accordingly our discussion in the following paragraphs concerning the effects of specific antecedents is based on the unadjusted estimates We discuss the potential impact of same-source bias in cases where significant deviations


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exist between the adjusted and unadjusted estimates for specific paths

Effects of Specific Antecedents

Of the eight constructs hypothesized to exert direct influence on salesperson cooperation task interdepenshydence (standardized path coefficient 1i 30 plt 01) and personal cooperativeness eYi 29 p lt 01) have the highshyest levels of explanatory power according to both adjusted and unadjusted analyses providing strong support for Hypotheses 10 and 15 Other significant antecedents of cooperation include financial rewards (Hypothesis 12 11 14 p lt 01) trust in coworkers (Hypothesis 2 I~i 14p lt 01) and collectivist organizational nonus (Hypothesis 11 11 10 p lt 05) However while the adjusted and unadjusted estimates of the path coefficient linking collecshytivist organizational nonus to cooperation are close in magnitude the adjusted estimate is slightly below the trashyditionally accepted 05 significance level because of the inflated standard error value Finally the results suggest that three exogenous relational factors namely Comshy

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munication Quality Past Opportunistic Behaviors of Coworkers and Shared Values With Coworkers are also important for cooperation All three of these constructs have significant indirect effects on cooperative behaviors of salespeople through their influence on trust in coworkers

The paths hypothesizing direct effects of organizashytional conunitment (Hypothesis 1) nonfinancial rewards (Hypothesis 13) and number ofcoworkers (Hypothesis 14) are not supported The results of the unadjusted analysis also suggest that none of the three demographic indicatorsshyage organizational tenure and education level-are sigshynificant predictors of salesperson cooperation However there is a sharp contradiction between the adjusted and unadjusted estimates concerning the potential effects of age and organizational tenure While the unadjusted estishymates for these variables do not bear any form of statistical andor substantive significance the magnitudes of the adjusted estimates are much greater and reach the point of being statistically significant These results suggest that same-source effects may be an explanation for the mixed empirical findings in prior studies that explored the effects

of such demographic variables in combination with other potential antecedents ofcooperative behaviors

Concerning the antecedents of trust in coworkers and organizational commitment our findings support strongly Hypotheses 7 8 and 9 as shared values (1 26 p lt 01) past opportunistic behaviors (11 -30 p lt 0I) and comshymunication quality (1i 34 p lt 01) are significantly related to levels of trust placed in coworkers Similarly Hypotheses 3 4 and 5 are supported because trust in coworkers (~i == 20 P lt 01) intrinsic job satisfaction (1i 65plt 01) and extrinsic job satisfaction (1== 21p lt 01) are significant predictors of organizational commitment Hypothesis 6 is not supported however as shared values with coworkers are unrelated to organizational commitment

DISCUSSION

This study explores the antecedent conditions that proshymote or inhibit salesperson cooperation To this end sevshyeral antecedent factors were identified each factor was categorized into one of the four broader sets of antecedent conditions and each factor was tested within a nomologishycal network for its effect on cooperative behaviors ofsalesshypersons directed toward coworkers that is other salespeoshyple The main thesis of the hypothesized structural model is that each antecedent category of factors-relational lask organizational and personal-exerts significant influence on cooperation independently from the effects of others On the basis of this thesis the study explores the relative effects of each main category on salesperson cooperation Our findings provide strong support for the main thesis and valuable insights regarding specific predictors ofsalespershyson cooperation First and foremost the hypothesized structural relationships explain 45 percent of the observed variance in cooperation which exceeds that found in most studies within each of the five research traditions explorshying cooperation Second at least one variable from each of the four antecedent categories is shown to exert significant influence on cooperation The proportion of variance in cooperation accounted for by the significant predictors captures almost all of the total variance explained since the proportion of variance explained by nonsignificant predictors is negligible (less than 1) Using statistically significant effects only task factors and personal factors each explain approximately 15 percent of the observed variance in salesperson cooperation while organizational factors and relational factors explain 10 percent and 5 pershycent respectivelys

Consistent with several decades of research the results support the view that task interdependence is an important predictor of cooperation When salespersons believe that their personal success is dependent on the support of coworkers they have a greater tendency to cooperate with coworkers However consistent with our main thesis


while an interdependent task design will produce more cooperation focusing merely on task interdependence does not seem to guarantee a highly cooperative sales force Developing and maintaining a cooperative sales force requires attention to personal organizational and relational factors as well since these factors are also found to exert influence on salesperson cooperation

Concerning the effects of personal factors there is strong empirical support that personal cooperativeness is a major predictor of salesperson cooperation At the same time while our results suggest that education level is not a significant predictor the potential effects of age and orgashynizational tenure are somewhat unclear Both ofthese varishyables have relatively weak zero-order correlations with salesperson cooperation (see Table 2) and our unadjusted estimates for the effects ofthese variables are far from havshying statistical and substantive significance However after controlling for common method variance age and organishyzational tenure become significant predictors of salespershyson cooperation This finding is interesting given that research about constructive employee behaviors in general has failed to reveal conclusive evidence regarding the effects of such demographic factors Additional research is needed before this issue can be resolved conclusively Thus overall our results regarding the influence of pershysonal factors highlight both the importance and difficulty of recruitment procedures if a cooperative sales force is desired Recruiting salespeople who are cooperators by the very nature of their personality is crucial but identifyshying cooperative candidates could be a difficult task The correlation coefficients relating personal cooperativeness to demographic variables are all small and nonsignificant (see Table 2) suggesting that personal cooperativeness is a personality trait that is not manifested in demographic characteristics As a result sales managers who wish to develop cooperative sales forces rather than relying solely on demographic indicators should attempt to recruit salespersons who (1) have a history of cooperative behavshyiors andor (2) score high on personality tests of cooperativeness

Regarding organizational factors organizational rewards are traditionally seen as one of the most effective managerial tools to influence the behaviors of organizashytional members-and rightly so Our findings suggest a strong effect of financial rewards on salesperson cooperashytion As expected the degree to which financial rewards are designed and awarded in a manner that encourages cooperation between salespeople influences cooperative behaviors On the other hand nonfinancial rewards for example honors opportunities for personal growth job security and promotion do not seem to affect cooperative tendencies This latter finding should be interpreted with caution however The fact that the path coefficient conshynecting nonfinancial rewards to cooperation is not signifishycant does not necessarily mean that these two concepts


have no relationship at all The correlation between these constructs is in fact large and significant 38 p value lt 000) Nonetheless the relationship is attenuated in the structural model (ie when other predictor variables are controlled for) suggesting that nonfinancial rewards are not among the primary motivational drivers for our respondents Given the specific nature of our sampling context further research is required to determine the extent to which this finding generalizes to other selling contexts

Our research indicates a moderately strong effect of collectivist organizational norms on salesperson cooperashytion This finding highlights the importance of norm develshyopment and enforcement processes for sales managers attempting to establish a cooperative sales force Based on their standing in the organizational hierarchy managers in most organizations have the ability to exert a substantial influence on the evolution oforganizational norms This is particularly true for sales managers who have developed effective means to communicate the expected behavior patterns and who set examples through their own actions (Feldman and Arnold 1983) As Larson and LaFasto (1989) report members of workgroups are more likely to practice the guiding principles suggested by their leadshyers when the leaders themselves live up to the prescribed behavioral patterns

Next in contrast to that hypothesized we found no sigshynificant relationship between number of coworkers and the degree of cooperative behaviors directed toward coworkers This result contrasts with research about workgroups that suggest a strong effect of group size on cooperative tendencies One explanation for this unexshypected finding relies on the differences in the types of interdependence observed in other workgroups and our sample According to a typology suggested by Thompson (1967) workgroup members are in reciprocal interdepenshydence when each acts on the output of the other In reciproshycal interdependence workgroup size is an important detershyminant of free riding social loafing and cooperation (Wagner 1995) On the other hand the type of interdepenshydence in the present sample is what Thompson (17) refers to as pooled interdependence in which each responshydent is individually responsible for performing his or her job from the beginning to end and dependent on coworkers for only certain types of aid and support that enhance pershyformance The number of coworkers may be less imporshytant in pooled interdependence as cooperation is more ofa voluntary act and not required by the flow of interdepenshydent tasks

Finally the results show that relationaljactors those that cause an individual to value his or her association with coworkers and develop a mutually beneficial long-term orientation in his or her relationships with coworkers have considerable effect on salesperson cooperation This

FALL 2001

finding is in line with the growing interest in marketing on relational variables particularly on trust Indeed a salesshypersons trust in coworkers is not only a significant predicshytor ofcooperation even when task organizational and pershysonal factors are accounted for but is also a key factor mediating the impact of communication quality past opportunistic behaviors of coworkers and shared values with coworkers Several of these exogenous relational facshytors in the hypothesized model also influence salesperson cooperation indirectly through their effects on trust9

In contrast however the results do not support the paths from shared values with coworkers to organizational commitment and from organizational commitment to cooperation All three of these constructs are in fact posishytively and significantly correlated (see Table 2) but the relationships become statistically nonsignificant when other antecedent factors are controlled for in the structural model Concerning the relationship between organizashytional commitment and cooperation for example a comshymon antecedent trust in coworkers seems to be the drivshying factor An explanation for these results may lie in the notion of multiple commitments (Becker 1992 Reichers 19851986)

The multiple-commitments view suggests that organishyzational commitment is a collection of multiple commitshyments to various groups that compromise the organizashytion (Reichers 1985469) Note that the conceptual domains of shared values and cooperation constructs in our model concern specifically the salespersons relashytionships with coworkers The nomological role that orgashynizational commitment plays in our model depends on the degree to which salespersons associate coworkers directly with their overall notion of the organization The more influence coworkers have on ones affective state regardshying the organization the more important should be the role of organizational commitment The respondents in our sample may not have viewed their relationships with coworkers as a strong determinant ofwhat they feel toward their respective dealerships and vice versa thereby yieldshying the result that organizational commitment is unrelated to both shared values with coworkers and cooperative behaviors toward coworkers

Post Hoc Model Respecification

Although the hypothesized model fits the data one would not expect a simple model such as Figure 1 to be the best fit for the data set Accordingly in an exploratory manner we reviewed LlSREL modification indices and conducted additional analyses to determine whether there exist additional nonhypothesized structural paths that are likely to (1) have statistical significance and (2) improve the model fit Two observations that emerged as a result of this post hoc specification search deserve further

discussion First all relatively high modification indices suggest additional paths from some of the exogenous facshytors specifically from Collectivist Organizational Norms Nonfinancial Rewards Intrinsic Job Satisfaction and Pershysonal Cooperativeness to trust in coworkers Second when these paths are incorporated into the model (1) three of these additional parameters those linking trust with colshylectivist norms nonfinancial rewards and intrinsic satisshyfaction are significant (2) model fit is only marginally improved X2

027l) 24738 CR= 93 OR = 88 RMSEA = 041 SRMR = 047 and (3) all previously significant paths remain significant with only slight changes in parameter estimates These findings suggest that trust in coworkers might be even more crucial for salesperson cooperation fully or at least partially mediating the impact of several organizational personal and relational factors However because exploratory search processes such as the preceding require cross validation we urge the readers to be cautious when interpreting these findings

Limitations and Future Research Directions

Generalizability is a concern for aU studies Even though the sample used in the study due to homogeneity across respondents allowed us to control for the backshyground factors and conduct a strong test of the hypotheshysized relationships caution should be taken when generalshyizing the results to other selling contexts In partiCUlar the sample is composed of automobile salespeople all of whom engage in face-to-face retail selling activities Most of the respondents are male (9091 ) full-commission salespeople (6978) and work in relatively independent working environments Researchers might study the theoshyretical model in different selling contexts particularly in team-selling and industrial-selling contexts

A closely related issue involves investigating potential moderators Future research could examine the moderatshying effects of several factors many of which we control for in this study A nonexhaustive list of such moderators includes (I) type of sales force and the nature ofthe selling job (team selling versus individual selling retail selling versus industrial selling face-to-face selling versus disshytance selling etc) (2) type of interdependence in the sellshying task (Le whether the task flow generates pooled sequential or reciprocal interdependence etc) (3) nature of the compensation system (Le whether the compensashytion system is based on individual versus group perforshymance whether it is full-commission a combination sysshytem or full salary etc) and (4) performance-reward contingencies (Le the degree to which rewards are awarded in proportion to performance)

Yumaz Hunt (SALESPERSON COOPERATION 351

Another area for future research concerns the potential effects of leadership style and leader behaviors in sales forces where salespeople view their manager as a key pershyson in their work environment Podsakoff et al (1996) show that the effects of leadership variables on pro-social organizational behaviors are not only significant but also independent from those of several substitutes for leadershyship Thus given the similarities between the literatures on pro-social behaviors and cooperative behaviors leadershyship variables may bear some distinct influence on salesshyperson cooperation particularly in team-selling situations

Finally inconsistent with expectations the study reveals that organizational commitment is unrelated to both shared values with coworkers and cooperative behavshyiors Our expectation at the inception of the study that is that coworkers constitute a primary group among those that form a salespersons overall view of the organizashytion is brought into question As is often the case this unexpected finding suggests fruitful avenues for further research Researchers might examine several forms of constituency-specific commitments (eg commitment to coworkers supervisors top management union etc) to better understand the interrelationships between these concepts how they form the global notion of organizashytional commitment and how they affect attitudinal and behavioral dispositions ofsalespersons toward coworkers supervisors and other targets

CONCLUSION

In conclusion in this era of the cooperative salespershyson although many sales managers see overall sales pershyformance as being closely linked to the coordinated efforts of their salespeople getting salespeople to cooperate is often perceived to be a difficult task While many highly cooperative sales forces exist it is often difficult to idenshytify the specific factors that contribute to the development of cooperation Our study suggests that each one of the four major antecedent categories of factors-relational task organizational and personal-is important for a cooperative sales force Specifically we find that sales managers seeking to encourage cooperation should (1) take steps to increase task interdependence (2) attempt to hire salespeople who have a history of cooperative behaviors (3) develop reward systems that reward cooperative behavshyiors (4) foster trust among their employees (5) work toward shared values (6) discourage opportunistic behavshyiors (7) promote high-quality communication among salespeople and (8) foster collectivist organizational norms Our study however is but one step toward undershystanding salesperson cooperation


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APPENDIX ContimJed

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors thank Roy Howell James B Wilcox Dale F Duhan Kimberly B Boal and Mike Whitman (all of Texas Tech University) for their helpful comments and assistance in this research The insightful comments of the editor and three anonymous reviewers on drafts of this artishycle are also acknowledged

NOTES

1 These two elements distinguish cooperation from other forms of pro-social workplace behaviors such as peer mentoring and helping beshyhavior Unlike such related constructs the pwpose of cooperation is the improvement ofthe welfare ofall panicipants (including the cooperating individual) not just the other party

2 See Weitz and Bradford (1999) for an excellent discussion of how these common threads of cooperation literature apply in this new era of partnering-oriented selling

3 This question was included in the managers questionnaires to build a priori confidence that cooperation matters in this context We also conducted a post hoc test for the relationship between salesperson coopshyeration and a self-reported long-term performance measure The partial correlation coefficient between salesperson cooperation and perforshymance (contrulling for the influence ofall other study variables) is signifshyicant (r = 11 P = 019) which implies that highly cooperative salespeople tend to evaluate themselves as also heing high in perforshymance

4 Measurement error terms for the composite task interdependence measure and other single-item measures are set at 01 times the variance of each measure

5 It is worthwhile to note that several items across the Intrinsic Job Satisfaction Extrinsic Job Satisfaction and Organizational Commitment Scales tend to cross-load on the other constructs even after the respecification However the modification indices for these items are much smaller in magnitude in comparison with (I) those for the items that were eliminated and (2) total chi-square of the model Thus taking into account the substantive meaning of each item we decided that the measurement model has a reasonable level ofgoodness of fit and stopped the respecification process

6 An interesting issue concerns the sources ofvariabi lity in the scales measuring organizational and task characteristiC$ that is collectivist orshyganizational nonru financial rewards nonfinancial rewards and task inshy

terdependence For each of these measures our study uses perceptions of (multiple) salespersons from each dealership hence incorporating some level of within-dealership variability to the analyses Ideally however the only reason for the variability in these measures should be differences between the dealerships (ie bull across-dealership variability) To assess the degree to which differences in the perceptions of respondents within each dealership contribute to the overall variability in these measures we conshyducted a series of one-way analyses of variance using dealerships as a treatment factor The results of these analyses reveal that although some within-dealership variability exists in the measures oforganizational and task characteristics (on average less than 40) most of their total varishyability is due to differences beTWeen the dealerships

7 Also note that for several paths the magnitudes ofthe adjusted estishymates are actually larger than the unadjusted estimates and therefore conshystitute a stronger case for our overall model

8 These figures are calculated by multiplying the standardized effect size ofeach predictor with the zero-order correlation between the predicshytor and cooperation therefore they do not represent the proportion of variance in cooperation uniquely attributable to each type of predictor (iebull incremental variance explained in cooperation when a predictor variable is added to the model) The unique contribution of each preshydictor variable to the variance explained in cooperation is as follows task interdependence 5 percent personal cooperativenessS percent finanshycial rewards 2 percent trust 1percent collectivist organizational nonns 1 percent

9 LISREL modification indices do not suggest direct paths from any of the exogenous relational factors to cooperation

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ABOUT THE AUTHORS

CengizYilmaz is an assistant professor of marketing at Gebze Institute of Technology Turkey He obtained his PhD in marketshying from Texas Tech University in 1999 His research interests focus on sales management distribution channels and relationshyship marketing and strategic issues concerning intramiddot and interfirm aspects in marketing systems and their links with busishyness performance His research has been published in various conference proceedings

Shelby D Hunt is the J B Hoskins and P W Hom Professor of Marketing at Texas Tech University Lubbock Texas A past edishytor of the Journal ofMar~ting (1985middot1987) he is the author of Modem Marketing Theory Critical Issues in the Philosophy of Marketing Science (South-Western 1991) and A GerreraJ Theory of Competition Resources Competences Productivity Ecoshynomic Growth (Sage Publications 2000) He has written numermiddot ous articles on competitive theory macromarketing ethics channels of distribution philosophy of science and marketing theory Three of his Journal ofMarketing articles The Nature and Scope of Marketing (1976) General Theories and Fundashymental Explananda of Marketing (1983) and The Comparashytive Advantage Theory of Competition (1995) (with Robert M Morgan) won the Harold H Maynard Award for the best article on marketing theory His 1985 Journal ofBusiness Research arshyticle with Lawrence B Chonko Ethics and Marketing Managemiddot ment received the 2000 Elsevier Science Exceptional Quality and High Scholarly Impact Award His 1989 article Reification and Realism in Marketing In Defense of Reason won the Jourshynal ofMacromarketing Charles C Slater Award For his contrishybutions to theory and science in marketing he received the 1986 Paul D Converse Award from the American Marketing Associashytion the 1987 Outstanding Marketing Educator Award from the Academy of Marketing Science and the 1992 American Marshyketing AssociationlRichard D Irwin Distinguished Marketing Educator Award

336 JOURNAL OF TIlE ACADEMY OF MARKETING SCIENCE

sales perfonnance and wants to take action or develop polshyicies to increase such cooperation The literatures of the different research traditions that have examined cooperashytion give different sometimes conflicting advice As sugshygested by the relationship marketing literature (eg Dwyer Schurr and Oh 1987 Morgan and Hunt 1994 J Smith and Barclay 1997) should the sales manager focus on taking steps to increase the trust and commitment of salespeople Or should the manager focus on increasshying the task interdependence of the salespeople as sugshygested by Deutsch (1973) Van De Ven Delbecq and Koenig (1976) and Wageman and Baker (1997) Or should the manager simply focus on hiring salespeople who have a general proclivity toward cooperativeness as suggested by the works ofArgyle (1991) and Chatman and Barsade (1995) Answering these questions requires research that crosses disciplinary lines

Using an interdisciplinary approach we address the question Why do some salespeople more than others cooperate with coworkers We develop and test a model of antecedent factors that affect salesperson cooperation which is viewed as task-specific cooperative behaviors among salespeople On the basis of a review of the multidisciplinary literature on interpersonal cooperation in organizations and workgroups we propose that each of the antecedent factors suggested by prior research can be categorized into one of four categories relational task organizational and personal The main theses ofour study are that (I) the four major antecedent categories constitute collectively major detenninants of salesperson cooperashytion (2) each antecedent category exerts independently significant influence on cooperative tendencies among salespeople and therefore (3) sales managers should endeavor to address factors in all four categories and not just focus on one or two Thus our study aims to provide sales managers with guidance on how to promote cooperashytion among their salespeople

The article is organized as follows First we briefly review the literature on interpersonal cooperation in orgashynizations Next we describe the four main antecedent catshyegories and develop a structural model that incorporates predictor variables from each Third we test the proposed model using a large sample of salespersons (N=531) from 112 different automobile dealerships The final sections include implications and suggestions for future research

INTERPERSONAL COOPERATION

K Smith Carroll and Ashford (1995) suggest that approaches to the study ofcooperation can be grouped into five broad traditions First an influential research tradition explains the emergence of cooperation based on the calculative orientations of individuals (eg Williamson 1975) In this view individuals will cooperate ifand only if

FALL 2001

cooperation is in their long-term self-interests based on their rational calculations According to K Smith et aI (1995) most well-known theoretical explanations of cooperation belong to this first category (eg transaction cost theory and game theory) A second research tradition addresses the noneconomic aspects of cooperative relashytionships (eg Thibaut and Kelley 1959) Rooted in the social exchange literature research in this tradition focuses on the effects of interpersonal attraction psychoshylogical attachment and norms of reciprocity

A third approach relies heavily on power and conflict theories (eg Emerson 1962) Conflict the opposite of cooperation according to some authors and a key concept in these theories stems from diversity in individuals resources perceptions of injustice values and goals A fourth approach relies on social-structure theories and emphasizes dimensions outside the focal relationship to explain cooperation (eg P Blau 1974) Social cultural and structural aspects of the environment in which the relationship occurs are seen as drivers of cooperation Finally the fifth approach involves modeling theories and emphasizes the impact of social learning and imitation on cooperative tendencies (eg Bandura 1971) Given the differing underlying assumptions and units of analysis adopted by each research tradition the current state of inquiry on cooperation is replete with explanatory varishyables (K Smith et aI 1995)

Differences notwithstanding at least three similarities exist across the research traditions that explore cooperashytion First definitions ofcooperation in the traditions conshyverge on a common conceptual domain and all include a willful-contribution element and a common task or objecshytive element I Second the resulting outcome for most task situations is increased productivity especially in complex task situations (Tjosvold 1984 Tjosvold and Tsao 1989) because of cooperating individuals tending to (1) provide each other with necessary information (2) more willingly assist and help each other (3) understand each others points of view (4) be influenced by each others interests and ideas and (5) rely on division of labor (Laughlin 1978V Third some conceptual overlap exists among the explanatory variables suggested by each approach even though research in each tradition-true to the silo view ofacademia-seldom crosses lines (K Smith et aI 1995) Perhaps this lack of an interdisciplinary approach accounts for the low variance explained in most studies of cooperation

Indeed research in each ofthe traditions has (necessarshyily) been limited in scope (Le in terms of including all major antecedents of cooperation) For example studies using game theory generally emphasize structural and psychological detenninants such as task characteristics and personalities of the participants (eg Murnighan 1994) whereas studies based on social-exchange theory focus on the aspects of the relationship between


t




Relational Factors






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T_fllcwn





















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Task Factors




















FALL 2001



Personal Factors








METHOD





Data Collection








Measures



FALL 2001





1II1i01~1Olt 2

~







FALL 2001










RESULTS











Nnmbu ofCowoH=s



1m





(Vall(l


-44 -696

34 11 262

30 508 31 5Ai9

1n 208 08 147

2~35 15 245 00middotmiddot 100 04 08

05 -124 -07 -124

29 38 589 12 231

-02 -J8 10 197





DISCUSSION












FALL 2001














CONCLUSION




trust in Coworketl

Organi~

Commitment



74 16A

tl 115 33 164 78 177

75 169 11 161

lO 1511

amp5 234

91 294

87 265 i19 27amp ~l 29J~

298 liS 1Il1

73 113

85 199

17 lU

83 2L4

lU 194

n UU

66 111

74 lAS

83 lU~

Sl 157

13 145

amp1 1M

9) 2L9

81 210

~5 121 14977


4PNlNUII Contimed



1234lt3 61

19

81

74

82

tl $9

92

94

72

153 156

146

207 233 2411

3(11 325 209

66

78

~

1)5

12i 14l

142

155

123

IH Ui9


APPENDIX ContimJed

125

in other scales

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


NOTES











REFERENCES





















































































FALL 2001

























































ABOUT THE AUTHORS




t




Relational Factors






CV~OOlp~








T_fllcwn





















FALL 2001






Task Factors




















FALL 2001



Personal Factors








METHOD





Data Collection








Measures



FALL 2001





1II1i01~1Olt 2

~







FALL 2001










RESULTS











Nnmbu ofCowoH=s



1m





(Vall(l


-44 -696

34 11 262

30 508 31 5Ai9

1n 208 08 147

2~35 15 245 00middotmiddot 100 04 08

05 -124 -07 -124

29 38 589 12 231

-02 -J8 10 197





DISCUSSION












FALL 2001














CONCLUSION




trust in Coworketl

Organi~

Commitment



74 16A

tl 115 33 164 78 177

75 169 11 161

lO 1511

amp5 234

91 294

87 265 i19 27amp ~l 29J~

298 liS 1Il1

73 113

85 199

17 lU

83 2L4

lU 194

n UU

66 111

74 lAS

83 lU~

Sl 157

13 145

amp1 1M

9) 2L9

81 210

~5 121 14977


4PNlNUII Contimed



1234lt3 61

19

81

74

82

tl $9

92

94

72

153 156

146

207 233 2411

3(11 325 209

66

78

~

1)5

12i 14l

142

155

123

IH Ui9


APPENDIX ContimJed

125

in other scales

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


NOTES











REFERENCES





















































































FALL 2001

























































ABOUT THE AUTHORS



CV~OOlp~








T_fllcwn





















FALL 2001






Task Factors




















FALL 2001



Personal Factors








METHOD





Data Collection








Measures



FALL 2001





1II1i01~1Olt 2

~







FALL 2001










RESULTS











Nnmbu ofCowoH=s



1m





(Vall(l


-44 -696

34 11 262

30 508 31 5Ai9

1n 208 08 147

2~35 15 245 00middotmiddot 100 04 08

05 -124 -07 -124

29 38 589 12 231

-02 -J8 10 197





DISCUSSION












FALL 2001














CONCLUSION




trust in Coworketl

Organi~

Commitment



74 16A

tl 115 33 164 78 177

75 169 11 161

lO 1511

amp5 234

91 294

87 265 i19 27amp ~l 29J~

298 liS 1Il1

73 113

85 199

17 lU

83 2L4

lU 194

n UU

66 111

74 lAS

83 lU~

Sl 157

13 145

amp1 1M

9) 2L9

81 210

~5 121 14977


4PNlNUII Contimed



1234lt3 61

19

81

74

82

tl $9

92

94

72

153 156

146

207 233 2411

3(11 325 209

66

78

~

1)5

12i 14l

142

155

123

IH Ui9


APPENDIX ContimJed

125

in other scales

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


NOTES











REFERENCES





















































































FALL 2001

























































ABOUT THE AUTHORS



















FALL 2001






Task Factors




















FALL 2001



Personal Factors








METHOD





Data Collection








Measures



FALL 2001





1II1i01~1Olt 2

~







FALL 2001










RESULTS











Nnmbu ofCowoH=s



1m





(Vall(l


-44 -696

34 11 262

30 508 31 5Ai9

1n 208 08 147

2~35 15 245 00middotmiddot 100 04 08

05 -124 -07 -124

29 38 589 12 231

-02 -J8 10 197





DISCUSSION












FALL 2001














CONCLUSION




trust in Coworketl

Organi~

Commitment



74 16A

tl 115 33 164 78 177

75 169 11 161

lO 1511

amp5 234

91 294

87 265 i19 27amp ~l 29J~

298 liS 1Il1

73 113

85 199

17 lU

83 2L4

lU 194

n UU

66 111

74 lAS

83 lU~

Sl 157

13 145

amp1 1M

9) 2L9

81 210

~5 121 14977


4PNlNUII Contimed



1234lt3 61

19

81

74

82

tl $9

92

94

72

153 156

146

207 233 2411

3(11 325 209

66

78

~

1)5

12i 14l

142

155

123

IH Ui9


APPENDIX ContimJed

125

in other scales

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


NOTES











REFERENCES





















































































FALL 2001

























































ABOUT THE AUTHORS





















FALL 2001



Personal Factors








METHOD





Data Collection








Measures



FALL 2001





1II1i01~1Olt 2

~







FALL 2001










RESULTS











Nnmbu ofCowoH=s



1m





(Vall(l


-44 -696

34 11 262

30 508 31 5Ai9

1n 208 08 147

2~35 15 245 00middotmiddot 100 04 08

05 -124 -07 -124

29 38 589 12 231

-02 -J8 10 197





DISCUSSION












FALL 2001














CONCLUSION




trust in Coworketl

Organi~

Commitment



74 16A

tl 115 33 164 78 177

75 169 11 161

lO 1511

amp5 234

91 294

87 265 i19 27amp ~l 29J~

298 liS 1Il1

73 113

85 199

17 lU

83 2L4

lU 194

n UU

66 111

74 lAS

83 lU~

Sl 157

13 145

amp1 1M

9) 2L9

81 210

~5 121 14977


4PNlNUII Contimed



1234lt3 61

19

81

74

82

tl $9

92

94

72

153 156

146

207 233 2411

3(11 325 209

66

78

~

1)5

12i 14l

142

155

123

IH Ui9


APPENDIX ContimJed

125

in other scales

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


NOTES











REFERENCES





















































































FALL 2001

























































ABOUT THE AUTHORS




METHOD





Data Collection








Measures



FALL 2001





1II1i01~1Olt 2

~







FALL 2001










RESULTS











Nnmbu ofCowoH=s



1m





(Vall(l


-44 -696

34 11 262

30 508 31 5Ai9

1n 208 08 147

2~35 15 245 00middotmiddot 100 04 08

05 -124 -07 -124

29 38 589 12 231

-02 -J8 10 197





DISCUSSION












FALL 2001














CONCLUSION




trust in Coworketl

Organi~

Commitment



74 16A

tl 115 33 164 78 177

75 169 11 161

lO 1511

amp5 234

91 294

87 265 i19 27amp ~l 29J~

298 liS 1Il1

73 113

85 199

17 lU

83 2L4

lU 194

n UU

66 111

74 lAS

83 lU~

Sl 157

13 145

amp1 1M

9) 2L9

81 210

~5 121 14977


4PNlNUII Contimed



1234lt3 61

19

81

74

82

tl $9

92

94

72

153 156

146

207 233 2411

3(11 325 209

66

78

~

1)5

12i 14l

142

155

123

IH Ui9


APPENDIX ContimJed

125

in other scales

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


NOTES











REFERENCES





















































































FALL 2001

























































ABOUT THE AUTHORS







Measures



FALL 2001





1II1i01~1Olt 2

~







FALL 2001










RESULTS











Nnmbu ofCowoH=s



1m





(Vall(l


-44 -696

34 11 262

30 508 31 5Ai9

1n 208 08 147

2~35 15 245 00middotmiddot 100 04 08

05 -124 -07 -124

29 38 589 12 231

-02 -J8 10 197





DISCUSSION












FALL 2001














CONCLUSION




trust in Coworketl

Organi~

Commitment



74 16A

tl 115 33 164 78 177

75 169 11 161

lO 1511

amp5 234

91 294

87 265 i19 27amp ~l 29J~

298 liS 1Il1

73 113

85 199

17 lU

83 2L4

lU 194

n UU

66 111

74 lAS

83 lU~

Sl 157

13 145

amp1 1M

9) 2L9

81 210

~5 121 14977


4PNlNUII Contimed



1234lt3 61

19

81

74

82

tl $9

92

94

72

153 156

146

207 233 2411

3(11 325 209

66

78

~

1)5

12i 14l

142

155

123

IH Ui9


APPENDIX ContimJed

125

in other scales

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


NOTES











REFERENCES





















































































FALL 2001

























































ABOUT THE AUTHORS



1II1i01~1Olt 2

~







FALL 2001










RESULTS











Nnmbu ofCowoH=s



1m





(Vall(l


-44 -696

34 11 262

30 508 31 5Ai9

1n 208 08 147

2~35 15 245 00middotmiddot 100 04 08

05 -124 -07 -124

29 38 589 12 231

-02 -J8 10 197





DISCUSSION












FALL 2001














CONCLUSION




trust in Coworketl

Organi~

Commitment



74 16A

tl 115 33 164 78 177

75 169 11 161

lO 1511

amp5 234

91 294

87 265 i19 27amp ~l 29J~

298 liS 1Il1

73 113

85 199

17 lU

83 2L4

lU 194

n UU

66 111

74 lAS

83 lU~

Sl 157

13 145

amp1 1M

9) 2L9

81 210

~5 121 14977


4PNlNUII Contimed



1234lt3 61

19

81

74

82

tl $9

92

94

72

153 156

146

207 233 2411

3(11 325 209

66

78

~

1)5

12i 14l

142

155

123

IH Ui9


APPENDIX ContimJed

125

in other scales

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


NOTES











REFERENCES





















































































FALL 2001

























































ABOUT THE AUTHORS









FALL 2001










RESULTS











Nnmbu ofCowoH=s



1m





(Vall(l


-44 -696

34 11 262

30 508 31 5Ai9

1n 208 08 147

2~35 15 245 00middotmiddot 100 04 08

05 -124 -07 -124

29 38 589 12 231

-02 -J8 10 197





DISCUSSION












FALL 2001














CONCLUSION




trust in Coworketl

Organi~

Commitment



74 16A

tl 115 33 164 78 177

75 169 11 161

lO 1511

amp5 234

91 294

87 265 i19 27amp ~l 29J~

298 liS 1Il1

73 113

85 199

17 lU

83 2L4

lU 194

n UU

66 111

74 lAS

83 lU~

Sl 157

13 145

amp1 1M

9) 2L9

81 210

~5 121 14977


4PNlNUII Contimed



1234lt3 61

19

81

74

82

tl $9

92

94

72

153 156

146

207 233 2411

3(11 325 209

66

78

~

1)5

12i 14l

142

155

123

IH Ui9


APPENDIX ContimJed

125

in other scales

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


NOTES











REFERENCES





















































































FALL 2001

























































ABOUT THE AUTHORS







RESULTS











Nnmbu ofCowoH=s



1m





(Vall(l


-44 -696

34 11 262

30 508 31 5Ai9

1n 208 08 147

2~35 15 245 00middotmiddot 100 04 08

05 -124 -07 -124

29 38 589 12 231

-02 -J8 10 197





DISCUSSION












FALL 2001














CONCLUSION




trust in Coworketl

Organi~

Commitment



74 16A

tl 115 33 164 78 177

75 169 11 161

lO 1511

amp5 234

91 294

87 265 i19 27amp ~l 29J~

298 liS 1Il1

73 113

85 199

17 lU

83 2L4

lU 194

n UU

66 111

74 lAS

83 lU~

Sl 157

13 145

amp1 1M

9) 2L9

81 210

~5 121 14977


4PNlNUII Contimed



1234lt3 61

19

81

74

82

tl $9

92

94

72

153 156

146

207 233 2411

3(11 325 209

66

78

~

1)5

12i 14l

142

155

123

IH Ui9


APPENDIX ContimJed

125

in other scales

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


NOTES











REFERENCES





















































































FALL 2001

























































ABOUT THE AUTHORS





Nnmbu ofCowoH=s



1m





(Vall(l


-44 -696

34 11 262

30 508 31 5Ai9

1n 208 08 147

2~35 15 245 00middotmiddot 100 04 08

05 -124 -07 -124

29 38 589 12 231

-02 -J8 10 197





DISCUSSION












FALL 2001














CONCLUSION




trust in Coworketl

Organi~

Commitment



74 16A

tl 115 33 164 78 177

75 169 11 161

lO 1511

amp5 234

91 294

87 265 i19 27amp ~l 29J~

298 liS 1Il1

73 113

85 199

17 lU

83 2L4

lU 194

n UU

66 111

74 lAS

83 lU~

Sl 157

13 145

amp1 1M

9) 2L9

81 210

~5 121 14977


4PNlNUII Contimed



1234lt3 61

19

81

74

82

tl $9

92

94

72

153 156

146

207 233 2411

3(11 325 209

66

78

~

1)5

12i 14l

142

155

123

IH Ui9


APPENDIX ContimJed

125

in other scales

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


NOTES











REFERENCES





















































































FALL 2001

























































ABOUT THE AUTHORS





DISCUSSION












FALL 2001














CONCLUSION




trust in Coworketl

Organi~

Commitment



74 16A

tl 115 33 164 78 177

75 169 11 161

lO 1511

amp5 234

91 294

87 265 i19 27amp ~l 29J~

298 liS 1Il1

73 113

85 199

17 lU

83 2L4

lU 194

n UU

66 111

74 lAS

83 lU~

Sl 157

13 145

amp1 1M

9) 2L9

81 210

~5 121 14977


4PNlNUII Contimed



1234lt3 61

19

81

74

82

tl $9

92

94

72

153 156

146

207 233 2411

3(11 325 209

66

78

~

1)5

12i 14l

142

155

123

IH Ui9


APPENDIX ContimJed

125

in other scales

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


NOTES











REFERENCES





















































































FALL 2001

























































ABOUT THE AUTHORS








FALL 2001














CONCLUSION




trust in Coworketl

Organi~

Commitment



74 16A

tl 115 33 164 78 177

75 169 11 161

lO 1511

amp5 234

91 294

87 265 i19 27amp ~l 29J~

298 liS 1Il1

73 113

85 199

17 lU

83 2L4

lU 194

n UU

66 111

74 lAS

83 lU~

Sl 157

13 145

amp1 1M

9) 2L9

81 210

~5 121 14977


4PNlNUII Contimed



1234lt3 61

19

81

74

82

tl $9

92

94

72

153 156

146

207 233 2411

3(11 325 209

66

78

~

1)5

12i 14l

142

155

123

IH Ui9


APPENDIX ContimJed

125

in other scales

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


NOTES











REFERENCES





















































































FALL 2001

























































ABOUT THE AUTHORS











CONCLUSION




trust in Coworketl

Organi~

Commitment



74 16A

tl 115 33 164 78 177

75 169 11 161

lO 1511

amp5 234

91 294

87 265 i19 27amp ~l 29J~

298 liS 1Il1

73 113

85 199

17 lU

83 2L4

lU 194

n UU

66 111

74 lAS

83 lU~

Sl 157

13 145

amp1 1M

9) 2L9

81 210

~5 121 14977


4PNlNUII Contimed



1234lt3 61

19

81

74

82

tl $9

92

94

72

153 156

146

207 233 2411

3(11 325 209

66

78

~

1)5

12i 14l

142

155

123

IH Ui9


APPENDIX ContimJed

125

in other scales

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


NOTES











REFERENCES





















































































FALL 2001

























































ABOUT THE AUTHORS





trust in Coworketl

Organi~

Commitment



74 16A

tl 115 33 164 78 177

75 169 11 161

lO 1511

amp5 234

91 294

87 265 i19 27amp ~l 29J~

298 liS 1Il1

73 113

85 199

17 lU

83 2L4

lU 194

n UU

66 111

74 lAS

83 lU~

Sl 157

13 145

amp1 1M

9) 2L9

81 210

~5 121 14977


4PNlNUII Contimed



1234lt3 61

19

81

74

82

tl $9

92

94

72

153 156

146

207 233 2411

3(11 325 209

66

78

~

1)5

12i 14l

142

155

123

IH Ui9


APPENDIX ContimJed

125

in other scales

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


NOTES











REFERENCES





















































































FALL 2001

























































ABOUT THE AUTHORS




4PNlNUII Contimed



1234lt3 61

19

81

74

82

tl $9

92

94

72

153 156

146

207 233 2411

3(11 325 209

66

78

~

1)5

12i 14l

142

155

123

IH Ui9


APPENDIX ContimJed

125

in other scales

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


NOTES











REFERENCES





















































































FALL 2001

























































ABOUT THE AUTHORS




APPENDIX ContimJed

125

in other scales

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


NOTES











REFERENCES





















































































FALL 2001

























































ABOUT THE AUTHORS


















































































FALL 2001

























































ABOUT THE AUTHORS



































ABOUT THE AUTHORS



Salesperson Cooperation: The Influence of Relational, Task, Organizational…sdh.ba.ttu.edu/JAMS...

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Transcript of Salesperson Cooperation: The Influence of Relational, Task, Organizational…sdh.ba.ttu.edu/JAMS...