How Do Political Skills Affect Attitude of Clients in Real Estate Industry?

Abstract

This study, which is based on the social capital theory, explores how the political skills of salespersons (which include interpersonal influence (II), social astuteness (SA), networking ability (NA), and apparent sincerity (AS)) affect the trust of their clients in order to increase their loyalty. By incorporating the concept of political skills into research on real estate sales behavior, this study addresses the literature gap on the lack of discussion of the social abilities of salespersons in the real estate industry. To validate this theoretical model, this study targets real estate salespersons and buyers in Taiwan, by using questionnaires to collect dyadic data, and linear regression modeling to test the relevant hypotheses. The results indicate that among the political skills, II and SA are positively significant, thus indicating that salespersons with high degrees of II and SA are capable of increasing the trust of their clients, which in turn increases client loyalty. Moreover, the interaction effects on client trust are all negative and significant, which suggest that self-efficacy has a crucial moderating role. Salespersons with low self-efficacy who have NA and AS can enhance client trust. The findings of this study can be considered as constructive advice for the real estate industry in their training of salespersons.