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ABSTRACT
Professional salespeople are often placed in situations where role conflict and ambiguity are prevalent. They are generally expected to sell a firm's products and services to generate immediate profits, while simultaneously building customer satisfaction and promoting lifetime customers and the long-term economic viability of the firm. The concept of customer-oriented selling illustrates the conflict, as salespeople are required to forgo immediate benefits in lieu of long-term rewards. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationships existing between customer-oriented selling, emotional intelligence, and organizational commitment. The results indicate that a salesperson's customer orientation level is significantly related to emotional intelligence. Implications of the findings indicate that managers should consider using emotional intelligence as a selection and human-resource development tool, as improvements in emotional intelligence are correlated with greater levels of customer orientation. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals,Inc.
Many factors interact to influence the degree to which customers experience satisfaction with their purchases. Customer expectations, product performance, price, service, and numerous other factors interact to determine the extent of customer satisfaction (Grewal & Sharma, 1991; Nicholls, Roslow, & Taelikis, 1995; Sharma, 1997). One factor that influences customer satisfaction is the salesperson (Grewal & Sharma, 1991; Jap, 2001). The salesperson's role in determining satisfaction is largely based on the expectations the salesperson helps create, the service the salesperson provides, and the degree to which the salesperson provides solutions that create satisfaction for the customer (Pilling & Eroglu, 1994).
A dimension of behavior that has received considerable management attention in the literature is a concept termed emotional intelligence (EI). Mayer and Salovey (1995, p. 197) define emotional intelligence as "the capacity to process emotional information accurately and efficiently, including that information relevant to the recognition, construction, and regulation of emotion in oneself and others." Dimensions of emotional intelligence include self-confidence, self-control, emotional awareness, and empathy (Goleman, 1995, 1998; Mayer & Salovey, 1995; Salovey & Mayer, 1990). Emotionally intelligent individuals may be more aware of their own feelings as well as the feelings of others, better able to identify them, and better able to communicate them when appropriate (Mayer & Salovey, 1993). Emotions influence behavioral choices in the workplace and can even undermine rational selection of optimal courses of action (Leith & Baumeister, 1996), so people having...