Ethical leadership in the salesforce: effects on salesperson customer orientation, commitment to customer value and job stress

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to attempts to better understand the role of ethical leadership in the business-to-business customer value creation process. Drawing on job demands-resources theory (Bakker and Demerouti, 2007; Demerouti et al. , 2001), this paper develops and tests a model that examines the relationships among ethical leadership, customer orientation, commitment to providing superior customer value and job stress in the salesforce. Design/methodology/approach The sample includes 408 business-to-business salespeople. Structural equation modeling is used to test the study’s hypotheses. Findings Findings suggest that ethical leadership directly and indirectly (via customer orientation) influences commitment to providing superior customer value. Furthermore, both ethical leadership and salesperson commitment to providing value directly influence salesperson job stress. Originality/value This paper develops and tests a model that examines the relationships among constructs not previously examined, as they relate to business customer value creation.