Tom J. Brown

We propose that specialty store managers, as well as outside sales personnel attached to the store, have selling responsibilities. In addition, we propose that sales personnel, as well as store managers, should have a propensity for leadership, which reflects an individual’s enduring disposition to exhibit leadership within the context of his or her organizational roles. In two studies, we develop a new individual difference measure of propensity to lead and investigate its nomological validity within a specialty retail store environment. As predicted, leadership propensity was predictive of self-rated sales performance and a proclivity to identify prospects through cold calls to close sales, to reveal customer orientation, and to exhibit organizational citizenship behavior. We found that propensity to lead did not differ between salespeople and retail store managers, but we found that the respondent’s role moderated the relationship between propensity to lead and supervisor performance ratings. Study lim...

Implementation of the marketing concept in service firms is accomplished through individual service employees and their interactions with customers. Although prior research has established a link between service-worker customer orientation and performance outcomes, little research has addressed other potentially important outcomes of customer orientation. Drawing from the literature on person–situation interaction and fit theory, the authors develop and test a model that explains how service-worker customer orientation affects several important job responses, including perceived job fit, job satisfaction, commitment to the firm, and organizational citizenship behaviors. Across three field studies in two distinct services industries, the results indicate that the positive influence of customer orientation on certain job responses is stronger for service workers who spend more time in direct contact with customers than for workers who spend less time with customers. The authors discuss the implications of the results for services marketing managers and researchers.

Prior research indicates that market orientation is associated with positive outcomes for firms. For service organizations, a market orientation is implemented largely through individual service workers. The authors investigate the mediational role of customer orientation in a hierarchical model of the influence of personality traits on self-rated and supervisor-rated performance. The results support a partially mediated hierarchical model. Three basic personality traits (emotional stability, agreeability, and the need for activity) account for 39% of the variance in the customer orientation of employees. In turn, the customer orientation measure and conscientiousness account for 26% of the variance in self-rated performance. The customer orientation measure, along with the direct effects of conscientiousness and agreeability, account for 12% of the variance in manager ratings. The authors discuss the results and their implications for marketing researchers and managers.