Date of Award

Winter 2006

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Business Administration (DBA)

Department

Marketing and Analysis

First Advisor

Sean Dwyer

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship of sales managers' implicit personality theory and various leadership variables provided to salespeople by their sales managers. Several bodies of literature were reviewed for this study from the educational psychology, management, leadership, and marketing/sales disciplines. More specifically, this study addressed the following research questions: (1) What effect does sales managers' implicit personality theory have on the nature of the feedback they provide to their salespeople? (2) What effect does sales managers' implicit personality theory have of the transformational leadership they provide to their salespeople? (3) What effect does sales managers' implicit personality theory have on the supervisory control orientation that sales managers use with their salespeople? (4) What effect do transformational leadership and sales managers' feedback have on the salespeople's perception of organizational justice? (5) What effect do transformational leadership, feedback, and sales managers' supervisory control orientation (as moderated by salesperson self-efficacy) have on the salespeople's satisfaction with the sales manager?

The sampling frame for this study was 1996 randomly selected life insurance agents who sell more than two million dollars in policies per year. The study was conducted by mailing a questionnaire to the respondents in three sequential waves. This questionnaire was designed to measure the above-mentioned variables as well as demographic and work-related variables for each respondent. The response rate for this study was just over fifteen percent, and regression analysis was used to test the various hypotheses.

The statistical analysis provided evidence supporting the contention that sales managers' implicit personality theory has important, direct effects on the feedback, leadership, and supervisory control orientation associated with sales managers. Further, as hypothesized, both feedback and leadership are related to organizational justice; and organizational justice, leadership, and supervisory control orientation were found to be associated with the salespeople's satisfaction with the sales manager.

The potential contributions of this study to the various academic disciples of interest and the managerial implications were presented. The concluding section also includes limitations of this study and suggestions for future research.

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