Are Women or Men Business-to-Business Salespeople More Engaged on the Job?

ABSTRACT Research Implications: This exploratory study investigates three possible antecedents to engagement and highlights the differences that gender plays in engaging employees. Overall, this research showcases how grit, ethical climate, and perceived supervisory support positively impact physical and emotional engagement in business-to-business salespeople. More specifically, this study finds that having an ethical climate directly promotes physical engagement for females. However, for males, the impact of ethical climate on physical engagement is mediated through perceived supervisory support. This is shown by the fact that only males exhibited a positive impact of perceived supervisory support on physical engagement coupled with ethical climate’s impact on perceived supervisory support being significantly stronger for males. Therefore, it is imperative that organizations exhibit an ethical climate in order for sales representatives to engage physically in their roles. In addition, it is essential that male sales representatives perceive support from their supervisor since that also directly impacted physical engagement. This study also illuminates that emotional engagement is not formed via ethical climate but instead is directly impacted through perceived supervisory support, whereas the impact is stronger for males than females. Therefore, enhancing perceptions of supervisory support will aid in employees being excited, interested, and enthusiastic towards their job. Finally, although there were no gender differences, the individual construct, grit, positively impacted both physical and emotional engagement for business-to-business salespeople. This trait should be considered in hiring decisions and developed using sales training in the sales workforce. Although this study provides a good initial examination of how physical and emotional engagement can be impacted by grit, ethical climate, and perceived supervisory support in business-to-business sales organizations, this study also highlights the need for additional research on both engagement and how differences in gender might impact these results. Contribution of the article: This is the first study that has examined antecedents to engagement in a business-to-business sales setting. In addition, this study investigates how gender impacts the development of physical and emotional engagement. This study is important to sales research because it highlights how physical and emotional engagement are developed by different antecedents when gender is taken into consideration. Some examples of guidance provided based on the study results can be categorized into three primary categories. These categories include (1) how an organization can exhibit an ethical climate, (2) ways a supervisor can provide support to their salespeople, and (3) sales management training to improve the grittiness of employees.