Abstract

The purpose of this research is to understand the use of political skill (PS) in the context of business-to-business seller’s relationship building and ethical decision-making. Drawing on social influence, relationship marketing, and ethical decision-making theories, a model and hypotheses are proposed to examine the impact of political skill, customer-relationship-building competence, and moral intensity, on the frequency of customer-directed deviance while considering the effects of neutralization techniques and consequences of unethical behavior. Structural equation modeling is used to analyze responses from 240 business-to-business salespeople. Findings suggest guidance for sales managers (e.g., training and coaching) to assist salespeople’s application of political skill to build customer relationships and reduce customer-directed deviance. While political skill has received limited analysis in the context of business-to-business salespeople, these findings suggest the direct and indirect effects of political skill are meaningful to sellers and researchers.

摘要

本研究的目的是了解在企业对企业卖方关系建立和道德决策的背景下政治技能 (PS) 的使用。借鉴社会影响、关系营销和道德决策理论，提出了一个模型和假设来检验政治技能、客户关系建立能力和道德强度对客户导向偏差频率的影响，同时考虑中和技术的影响和不道德行为的后果。结构方程模型用于分析 240 名企业对企业销售人员的响应。调查结果为销售经理提供了指导（例如培训和辅导），以帮助销售人员运用政治技巧来建立客户关系并减少以客户为导向的偏差。