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Effects of Trait Competitiveness and Perceived Intraorganizational Competition on Salesperson Goal Setting and Performance
Abstract
The authors assess the effects of trait competitiveness and competitive psychological climate on self-set goal levels and sales performance. The results indicate an interaction between trait competitiveness and competitive psychological climate, such that (1) salespeople who are high in trait competitiveness set higher goals when they perceive the organizational climate as competitive and (2) salespeople who are low in trait competitiveness set relatively low goals, regardless of their perceptions of competition in the organizational climate. Results also indicate that a self-set goal level is related strongly to performance and that self-efficacy has strong direct and indirect effects on sales performance. The authors also discuss implications for theory and practice.
... If trait competitiveness and competitive climate increase, the negative consequences of competitiveness may be noticeable and will offset the benefits of congruency. This is because persons with high trait competitiveness have a strong desire to win and perform better than others (Brown et al. 1998). According to social comparison theory, they urgently need to compare themselves with others to validate their competency (Festinger 1954;Suls et al. 2000). ...
... The competitive climate was assessed with an adapted version of the competitive psychological climate (Brown et al. 1998) and PISA. This Chinese version of Competitive climate has been validated by experts and pretested on adolescents. ...
... Consequently, a more competitive climate cannot counterbalance the negative effects of trait competitiveness. This is due to individuals with high trait competitiveness possessing a strong desire to outperform and surpass others (Brown et al. 1998). According to the social comparison theory, they feel an urgent need to compare themselves with others to validate their competence (Festinger 1954;Suls et al. 2000), even though succeeding in a competitive environment is more challenging. ...
Competitive climate and individual competitive characteristics jointly affect the mental health of adolescents. Based on person-environment fit theory, this study aimed to examine the effects of the match between trait competitiveness and competitive climate on depressive symptoms and anxiety. In this study, data were collected from 2235 Chinese adolescents in the 10th to 12th grades (48.8% girls; Mage = 16.06 years, SDage = 0.95). Self-reported depressive symptoms, general anxiety, trait competitiveness, and competitive climate were assessed. Polynomial regression analyses and response surface analyses indicated that in cases of congruence, as trait competitiveness and competitive climate increase, depressive symptoms and anxiety increase, as do their growth rate. In cases of incongruence, higher levels of depressive symptoms and anxiety are found when trait competitivenesså competitive climate compared to when competitive climateå trait competitiveness. And as trait competitiveness become increasingly higher than competitive climate, the level of depressive symptoms and anxiety were higher. This serves as a reminder for families and schools to place special emphasis on the mental health of adolescents with high levels of trait competitiveness who may exhibit high levels of depressive symptoms and anxiety.
... Second, by accounting for the impact of CIL on both, sales employee's positive stimulation and emotional exhaustion, we show that CIL can yield potential ambivalent consequences on sales employees, and provide an additional potential explanation for the high strain perceived by many B2B sales employees (e.g., Edmondson et al. 2019). Third, we contribute to the literature on interpersonal competition in the workplace (e.g., Brown et al. 1998;Fletcher et al. 2008;To et al. 2020), showing that sales leaders can constitute sources for internal competition in sales organizations with potentially stimulating or exhausting effects. Our findings principally corroborate prior research in that competition among employees can be beneficial when employees prefer such competition. ...
... Although organizational systems as a source of competition have been extensively studied, the role of organizational climate/culture as a source of competition is rarely examined. A limited number of papers focused on the concept of competitive psychological climate (e.g., Brown et al. 1998;Fletcher and Nusbaum 2010;Schrock et al. 2016). Competitive psychological climate refers to the "degree to which employees perceive organizational rewards to be contingent on comparisons of their performance against that of their peers" (Brown et al. 1998, p. 89). ...
... Competitive psychological climate refers to the "degree to which employees perceive organizational rewards to be contingent on comparisons of their performance against that of their peers" (Brown et al. 1998, p. 89). A core finding in this research stream is that competitive climate is beneficial to sales employees' work performance if they are endowed with trait competitiveness, more precisely, if they cherish contending with colleagues (Brown et al., 1998;Fletcher et al., 2008;Shannahan et al., 2013). ...
Many sales leaders support competition among their employees. However, inducing competition among peers may exhibit beneficial, motivating as well as harmful, exhausting effects, and which of the two countervailing effects prevails remains an open question. Drawing on the job-demand resources model and 20 interviews with sales professionals, this study proposes that competition-inducing leadership (CIL) exhibits ambivalent effects on sales employees’ positive stimulation and emotional exhaustion, which depend on the specific combination of employees’ extrinsic motivational orientation and role overload. A cross-national, multilevel dataset from 503 business-to-business sales employees reporting to 131 supervisors of a multinational industrial supplier firm supports these propositions. Thus, this study contributes to sales leadership and interpersonal competition research by empirically clarifying that CIL is a double-edged sword that cannot be one-sidedly categorized as beneficial or harmful.
... Perceived competition abstains employees from sharing their knowledge, resources, and experiences (Esses et al., 2005). However, few research studies on employee's perceived competition (Brown et al., 1998) draw attention to its critical role in hiding knowledge. Specifically, to the best of our knowledge, no research has investigated the perceived competition as a mediator between TL and employee's tacit KH and explicit KH. ...
... Perceived competition was measured using a 4-item scale adopted by Brown et al. (1998). The sample item includes "my coworkers frequently compare their results with mine". ...
This study investigates the role of transactional leadership as a pivotal antecedent to employee knowledge hiding, specifically focusing on tacit and explicit forms. Drawing on social learning theory, the study proposes and examines the indirect effect of transactional leadership on both tacit and explicit knowledge hiding through the mediation of perceived competition. Additionally, the study introduces leader knowledge hiding as a potential boundary condition to these relationships. Data were collected from university employees in Pakistan using a time-lagged design. The study employed structural equation modeling, utilizing AMOS 23, to rigorously test the proposed hypotheses. The results reveal that transactional leadership significantly encourages tacit and explicit knowledge hiding, with perceived competition as the underlying mechanism. However, the hypothesized moderating effect of leader knowledge hiding is not supported. This study is a pioneering effort to understand the nuanced relationship between transactional leadership, perceived competition, and the distinct forms of knowledge hiding-tacit and explicit. Incorporating leader knowledge hiding as a potential boundary condition adds a unique dimension to the existing literature, contributing novel insights. Our findings hold implications for knowledge management and transactional leadership literature. Practitioners can glean valuable insights from the study's results to inform strategies to mitigate knowledge hiding behaviors within organizational settings.
... Using survey measures to assess competitiveness and interdependence (desire to work in co-operative group settings), as well as using preexisting sales data as performance, they found more competitive consultants tended to perform better. Other research has identified factors that moderate the effects of competition such as goals (Brown et al., 1998), self-confidence (Tuckman, 2003), and trait competitiveness (Kilduff, 2014). ...
We examine the underlying cognitive mechanisms that govern how competitions play out over time. We used cognitive modeling to examine the dynamic effects of time remaining and relative performance (whether the person is winning or losing) on effort and strategy. In this experiment, participants completed a competitive decision-making task with varying time limits and starting scores, in a repeated-measures design. Participants were tasked with scoring more points than their computerized opponent during a certain time frame, gaining and losing points for correct and incorrect decisions, respectively. The results showed that as the competition deadline approached and as participants drew ahead of their opponent within a competition, they increased effort and became more cautious. Furthermore, the effect of relative score on effort and caution changed over the course of a competition as the deadline approached. These results highlight the importance of considering dynamics when working to understand how competitions unfold as well as the underlying cognitive mechanisms that give rise to the dynamic behavior.
... Moreover, to account for contextual factors that may influence employees' behavior (Kross et al., 2023), we included competitive psychological climate and psychological safety as possible controls. Competitive psychological climate was measured using three items developed by Brown et al. (1998). Example: "The amount of recognition you get in this company depends on how you perform compared to others" (α = 0.949). ...
The prevalence and harmfulness of cyberloafing are increasingly attracting the attention of scholars and organizations, and how to effectively curb cyberloafing deserves attention. Based on employees’ perception perspective, we investigated the associations between negative work reflection, meaningful work, moral disengagement, and employee cyberloafing. We conducted a two-wave study with a two-week departure. Results showed that negative work reflection significantly promotes employee cyberloafing. Meaningful work and moral disengagement played the chain-mediation effect in the relationship between negative work reflection and employee cyberloafing. In conclusion, this study contributes to the expansion of cyberloafing literature and provides organizations with fresh approaches to handling employee cyberloafing.
... Moderating role of competitive psychological climate CPC indicates the degree to which workers sense their work productivity and is subject to their comparative position among their colleagues (Brown et al., 1998). An abundance of firms try to distinguish their commodity from others in common market (Fletcher et al., 2008;Jones et al., 2017;Lam, 2012;O'Neill and Arendt, 2008). ...
Purpose
The objective of this research is to examine the association of artificial intelligence (AI) awareness on workers' retention and the boundary conditions in the context of project organizations.
Design/methodology/approach
We collected time-lagged data from project organizations in China.
Findings
The results showed that AI awareness predicted workers' turnover intention. Moreover, this association was moderated via supervisor support.
Practical implications
This research provides several practical implications aimed at timely communication, training and automation guide for helping firms to foster healthy workplace climate, support and workers’ retention.
Originality/value
The rise of AI and its potential impact on manpower is a popular topic. Yet, the evidence of project workers’ awareness of such potential effects on their retention is scant. Therefore, this study broadens our understanding of the association of AI awareness on turnover intention and boundary conditions in the context of project organizations.
... However, the debate over whether competitiveness is more beneficial or harmful to individuals and organizations is still being fought. One faction maintains that competitiveness is positively related to well-being through its positive effect on performance for which reward, status and survival are achieved (Brown et al., 1998) and that winning a competition can make competitive people more motivated and satisfied (Newby and Klein, 2014). Some scholars also contend that competition can enhance organizational outcomes in the workplace; specifically work performance (Sauers and Bass, 1990) and that competition leads individuals to do their best (Crowley, 2004). ...
Purpose-Competitiveness is an individual difference variable that incorporates factors generally associated with the desire to excel in comparison to others and the enjoyment of competition. There is still much debate on whether it is helpful or harmful, which may stem from the scattered ways in which it is studied. Thereby, this study aims to properly synthesize the literature concerning the prevailing correlates, underlying theory, and frequent applications of competitiveness and to set forth an outline of domains in need of further research and exploration.
Design/methodology/approach-The authors do so by using two methods of analysis on a representative sample of 546 peer-reviewed publications.
Findings-The authors find that competitiveness research has and will continue to grow expeditiously, but its complexity and cloudiness have not yet been attenuated.
Originality/value-The study uncovers opportunities for pertinent future research on competitiveness to grow more productively and collaboratively by highlighting salient works and identifying the fragmentations that have led the literature into a state of disarray.
The aim of the article is to identify and evaluate the impact of collaboration and competition on team work engagement. The data was obtained from 12 teams from various industries by means of a multidimensional cluster analysis. The key statistical results in this study reveal that that a team’s engagement may be shaped by means of collaboration and competition, as it is fostered by high levels of intensity in both activities. As far as cooperation is concerned, moderate levels of both behavioral and structural interdependence, as well as higher levels of the former become important. In the case of competition, an adequate (not too high) level of competitiveness between particular characteristics and appropriate conditions for competition are of utmost importance. The findings also reveal that a structural composition of a team plays a certain role, as it may affect both their members’ involvement in cooperation as well as their intensity of competition.
The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) has led many companies to embrace AI-oriented changes; leaders’ AI-oriented change behaviors have therefore become increasingly prevalent in contemporary organizations. However, knowledge on the effects of such behavior remains limited. Additionally, literature on change-oriented behavior (e.g., taking charge, change-oriented citizenship) has uniformly demonstrated that it is beneficial for employees, teams, and organizations. We challenge this consensus by revealing that leaders’ AI-oriented change behavior has mixed effects on employee outcomes. In Study 1, we developed a scale for leaders’ AI-oriented change behavior and assessed its psychometric properties using samples from the United States. In Study 2, we tested our full model with a three-wave, multi-source field study in China. The results show that leaders’ AI-oriented change behavior is positively associated with employee performance orientation, in turn increasing both employee job performance and unethical behaviors. Furthermore, employee trait competitiveness moderates the positive effect of leaders’ AI-oriented change behavior on employee job performance and unethical behavior via employee performance orientation. By revealing the perils and benefits of leaders’ AI-oriented change behavior, our research contributes to the literature on change-oriented behavior and performance orientation.
Sales force contests are an important component of many business firms' marketing programs. However, reports on research measuring the effect of contests have been sparse in the marketing literature. This paper reports on measuring the effect of two sales-force contests conducted by a regional investments brokerage firm. The research employes an ex-post-facto approach using historical data analyzed with multiple regression analysis using dummy variables. Results indicate a net positive effect of the contents on sales and profits. The study represents an application of problem-oriented research [9] and illustrates a measurement approach which is uncomplicated and easy to apply, but applicable to many situations.