Salesperson Ethical Decision Making: The Impact of Sales Leadership and Sales Management Control StrategyJournal of Personal Selling & Sales Management T.N. Ingram, R.W. LaForge, and C.H. Schwepker, Jr.
2007
Authors from the College of Business:
Thomas N. Ingram, Chair, Department of Marketing, and FirstBank Professor of Business Administration
Our research in sales ethics is motivated by the belief that ethical sales behavior is essential for building mutually-beneficial, enduring, profitable relationships with customers. Despite the increased adoption of codes of ethics in business organizations in recent years, unethical sales behaviors are still prevalent. Common problems include the use of untruthful, manipulative, high-pressure sales tactics, and placing a low priority on customer needs during the sales process. In this article, we focus on how sales leadership style and sales management controls can positively impact ethical sales behavior. We reviewed three decades of sales management and business ethics research with an eye toward answering a fundamental question: in addition to codes of ethics, what else should sales organizations do to maximize ethical sales behavior? We identified four potentially crucial avenues for improving ethical reasoning processes of salespeople, which in turn will lead to increased ethical sales behavior. First, a transformational leadership style that features frequent and open communications between sales managers and salespeople is important, in contrast to leadership that relies heavily on directing employees through the administration of rewards and punishments. Second, it is crucial to include ethical content in initial and ongoing training programs to establish the norms and values of the sales organization. Third, interpersonal trust between salespeople and others in their organizations must be strengthened so that there is a consistent commitment to ethical standards. The fourth key avenue for improving ethical sales behavior is utilizing a multilevel leadership model that ensures accountability for sales ethics at three levels: salespeople, sales managers, and sales executives.