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Summary Brief

A Comparison of the Relationships of a Market Orientation,


Agreeableness, Openness to Experience, Gratitude, and
Forgiveness to a Salespersons Customer Orientation
J. Garry Smith, Middle Tennessee State University
Rajesh Srivastava, Middle Tennessee State University

Salespeople that place their customers interests first are significant effect on a sales representatives CO (Siguaw, Brown,
practicing a customer orientation (Saxe and Weitz 1982). and Widing 1994). Therefore, we hypothesize the following.
Previous studies have focused on organizational influences, such Hypothesis 1: Market orientation is positively related to a
as a firms market orientation, and personality characteristics, salespersons customer orientation.
such as personality traits, as antecedents of a salespersons
customer orientation. What seems to be missing is a study that Agreeableness
investigates the simultaneous influences on a salespersons Agreeableness is a Big Five personality factor and includes
customer orientation of organizational and personal forces. This the traits of being helpful, cooperative, accommodating,
paper addresses this gap by testing a model of the relationships of understanding, adaptable, trustful and empathetic (Goldberg
a firms market orientation, the personality traits of gratitude, 1990). A positive relationship was found between agreeableness
forgiveness, and the Big Five factors of agreeableness, and and CO in logistics employees with customer contact job
openness to experience with the customer orientation of responsibilities, including salespeople (Periatt, Chakrabarty, and
salespeople. 191 employees of an automobile dealership group Lemay 2007). Based on this, the following hypothesis is
with sales responsibilities provided data to test the model. Results presented.
showed that gratitude and forgiveness had positive relationships Hypothesis 2: Agreeableness is positively related to a
with customer orientation, while market orientation had no salespersons customer orientation.
relationship. Agreeableness had a surprising negative
relationship with customer orientation.
Openness to experience
Salespersons high in openness to experience would be
Introduction perceptive, imaginative, and inquisitive (Goldberg 1990), and
Having a sales force practice a customer orientation is critical should be more likely to discover and propose solutions for their
to firms who wish to implement the marketing concept. A market customers true needs. Perriatt, Chakrabarty, and Lemay (2007)
orientation (Siguaw, Brown, and Widing 1994) and the Big Five found a positive relationship between openness to experience and
personality factors of agreeableness and openness to experience CO in logistics sales representatives and other front line
(Perriatt, Chukrabarty, and LeMay 2007) have been found to be employees. We base the following hypothesis on those findings.
positively related to a salespersons customer orientation. We Hypothesis 3: Openness to experience is positively related to
build on this research by testing the relationships of these and the a salespersons customer orientation.
narrower personality traits of gratitude and forgiveness with the
customer orientation of sales employees of a single firm. Gratitude
Gratitude is a trait linked with positive interpersonal
Customer orientation feelings,higher levels of optimism (Emmons and McCullough
Customer orientation (CO) reflects the practice of the 2003) and the capacity to be more empathetic (McCullough,
marketing concept by an individual salesperson (Saxe and Weitz Emmons and Tsang 2003). Salespersons higher in gratitude
1982). A positive relationship between CO and performance has should appreciate their customers needs better and more
been found in previous research (Siguaw et al., 1994). confidently propose correct solutions. Based on this, we offer this
hypothesis.
Market orientation Hypothesis 4: Gratitude is positively related to a
Market orientation (MO) is an organizational culture that salespersons customer orientation.
includes a focus on understanding customer wants and creating
superior value for customers (Narver and Slater 1990). Narver Forgiveness
and Slater (1990) identify three behavioral components of a MO The trait of forgiveness contributes to repairing and
culture- a competitor orientation, interfunctional coordination, and continuing interpersonal relationships (McCullough 2000).
a customer orientation. The MO of a firm has been found to have a Conflicts and disputes are regarded as unavoidable aspects of life

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in general, and seeking and practicing forgiveness can contribute
to the formation and maintenance of relationships with customers
References
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We analyzed data collected from 191 sales representatives,
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Perhaps the most useful finding in this study is that carefully (1), 22-37
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