Emotional intelligence, adaptive selling, improvisation and sales performance a study on salespeople in ho chi minh city

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY International School of Business --- Nguyen Thi Han EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE, ADAPTIVE SELLING, IMPROVISATION AND SALES PERFORMANCE.. In this d

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

International School of Business -

Nguyen Thi Han

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE, ADAPTIVE SELLING, IMPROVISATION AND SALES

PERFORMANCE A STUDY ON

SALESPEOPLE IN HO CHI MINH CITY

MASTER OF BUSINESS (Honours)

Ho Chi Minh City-Year 2016

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

International School of Business -

Nguyen Thi Han

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE, ADAPTIVE SELLING, IMPROVISATION AND SALES

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Firstly, I would like to express my gratefulness to my supervisor Dr Le Nhat Hanh for

her professional guidance, intensive support, valuable suggestions, instructions and

encouragement during the time of doing my research

I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Dr Nguyen Dong Phong, Dr Tran Ha

Minh Quan, Dr Nguyen Dinh Tho, Dr Nguyen TN Que and Dr Pham Phu Quoc for their

valuable time as the members of the thesis examination committee Their comments and

meaningful suggestions were contributed significantly for my completion of this research

My sincere thanks are given to all of my teachers at International Business School –

University of Economics of Ho Chi Minh City for their teaching and guidance during

my master course

ABSTRACT

Today, the market is extremely competitive, many international retail groups have

entered the market, providing greater choices for consumers whilst creating intense competitive

challenges A key challenge facing firms is to determine how to deploy highly effective

salesforce in order to perform in this complex environment In this dissertation, the study

examines the mutual impact of emotional intelligence on adaptive selling and improvisation,

and subsequently exploring its effect on sales performance in Vietnam A combination of mail

and in person survey was used to collect the data A pilot test was conducted prior to final

survey administration

The results of the data illustrated strong support for the conceptual model This study contribute

to sales management literature by understanding emotional intelligence-sales performance

relationship Consequently, these findings indicate several managerial implications for

recruitment, training, work practices, and policies at the workplace

Key words: emotional intelligence, adaptive selling, improvisation and sales performance

CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

ABSTRACT

ABBREVIATION

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Background to the research and research problem 1

1.2 Research objectives 5

1.3 Research methodology 5

1.4 Research structure 5

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 7

2.1 Adaptive selling and Improvisation 7

2.2 Emotional Intelligence 8

2.3 Sales Performance 10

2.4 Adaptive selling, Improvisation and Sales Performance 12

2.5 Emotional Intelligence and Sales performance 14

2.6 Conceptual model 15

Chapter 3: METHODOLOGY 17

3.1 Research design 17

3.1.1 Research process 17

3.1.2 Measurement scales 19

3.2 Quantitative study 22

3.2.1 Sample 22

3.2.2 Data analysis procedures 23

Chapter 4: DATA ANALYSIS 25

4.1 Respondents’ demographics 25

4.2.1 CFA for the first-order constructs 27

4.2.2 CFA for second-order constructs 33

4.2.3 CFA for the final measurement model 36

4.3 Structural equation modeling (SEM) 41

Chapter 5: CONCLUSION, IMPLICATIONS, AND LIMITATION 48

5.1 Managerial implications 48

5.2 Limitations and future research 49

REFERENCES 51

APPENDICES 56

LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1 Conceptual model 15

Figure 3.1 Research process 18

Figure 4.1 CFA model of Improvisation 28

Figure 4.2 CFA model of Adaptive selling 30

Figure 4.3 CFA model of Sales Performance 31

Figure 4.4 CFA model of Emotional Intelligence 34

Figure 4.5 Final measurement model 40

Figure 4.6 Structural results (standardized estimates) 42

LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1 Source of data collection 22

Table 4.1 Respondents’ characteristics 27

Table 4.2 The first run of CFA (of Improvisation, Adaptive selling and Sales performance) 29 Table 4.3 Summarized of CR, AVE and Cronbach’α (first order constructs) 32

Table 4.4 The first run of CFA (Emotional Intelligence) 33

Table 4.5 Summarized of CR, AVE and Cronbach’α (Emotional Intelligence) 35

Table 4.6 Correlation (Emotional Intelligence) 36

Table 4.7 Summarized of CR, AVE and Cronbach’α (final model) 36

Table 4.8 CFA Summary of eliminated item 38

Table 4.9 Correlations (final measurement model) 39

Table 4.10 Unstandardized structural paths 41

Table 4.11 Measurement validation 43

LIST OF APPENDICES

Appendix A List of in-depth interviews’ participants 61

Appendix B Qualitative in-depth interview 61

Appendix C Qualitative in-depth interview findings 64

Appendix D Questionnaire (English Version) 67

Appendix E Questionnaire (Vietnamese Version) 70

Appendix F Correlations among components of Emotional Intelligence, Adaptive selling, Improvisation and Sales Performance 73

ABBREVIATION

AVE Averaged variance extracted

CFA Confirmatory Factor Analysis

EI Emotional Intelligence

HR Human Resource

MSCEIT Mayer Salovey Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test

SEM Structural equation modeling

SPSS Statistical Package for the Social Sciences

TNS Taylor Nelson Sofres

TPP Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement

WTO World Trade Organization

Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background to the research and research problem

Over the last 30 years since Doi Moi, the policy of opening the country and integrating into

the international economy has become a primary strategy of Viet Nam, in line with structural

reforms, aiming at economic growth and sustainable development The reforms have changed the

lives of Vietnamese consumers At present, the country represents an attractive market with vast

potential According to Kearney (2008), with a population of nearly 90 million people, rapid

economic development, relative political stability, and an underdeveloped local retail system, it

was the most attractive emerging market destination for retail investment Major international

retailers wish to penetrate deep into this market In accordance with its World Trade Organization

(WTO) commitments— Vietnam became a member of the WTO in 2007—Vietnam fully opened

its retail sector after January 2009 Furthermore, Vietnam also stand out among the TPP countries

and Vietnam’s average applied tariffs on imports are 9.5%, one of the highest levels among TPP members Many international retail groups have entered the market, providing greater choices for

consumers whilst creating intense competitive challenges for domestic players Domestic retailers

and the Vietnamese authorities have raised concerns about losing market share to new foreign

retail giants

A relatively young population, coupled with rising income levels, increased urbanisation,

and an attractive business environment supported by lower trade barriers and reduced corporate

tax rates, have enhanced Vietnam’s position as a high potential growth market A survey by the Taylor Nelson Sofres (TNS) World Panel Vietnam revealed three major characteristics among the

new generation of consumers First, they are younger than those in the previous generations (50

percent of Vietnamese consumers are less than thirty years old) and have high and complicated

product requirements Second, they spend more on body and health care products and appreciate

product utility Third, they tend to enjoy shopping in safe and comfortable environments (VNN

2008) So, with the increasing incomes and living standards, they have become more concerned

about the quality, hygiene and safety of the products purchased Hence, there has been a slight

shift towards modern trade outlets for the hygienic, convenient and friendly shopping

environments that they offer Enterprises have also implemented a wide variety of programmes to

build customer loyalty and attract new customers These active young consumers represent a

powerful new consumer force driving trends that affect most of the country’s industries, especially the modern retail sector

Fundamental issues of the customer and their expectations involve around three magical

questions 1.What more? 2.What next? 3.What else? Salespeople are facing the challenge of

structuring the new product development processes At the same time, organizations are

constrained by limited financial and human resources, a lack of a market orientation As a result,

the role of organizations and individuals in providing goods and service is continuously

developing, the sale function is required to adapt and change Therefore, a salesforce must have a

wide range of skills to compete successfully This is because nothing can replace the power of

personal sales-force in generating sales and building strong, loyal customer relationship (Kurtz &

Boone, 2008; Kotler & Armstrong, 2005; Paparoidomis & Guenzi, 2009) Boone and Kurtz claim

that “professional salespersons are problem-solvers who focus on satisfying the needs of customers before, during and after the sales are made” (2008, p 529) Salespeople arm themselves with

knowledge about their firm’s goods and services, those of competitors and their customer’s business needs, and pursue a common goal of creating long-term relationships with customers

Salespeople play a key role not only in customer relationship management but also in

understanding, creating, communicating and delivering values to customers, which in turn

increases the sales performance of the firm (Paparoidomis & Guenzi, 2009; Weitz & Bradford,

1999) Firms need to have very high performing, productive and motivated salespersons in order

to succeed Therefore, it is not surprising that practitioners and researchers have long sought to

gain deep insight into the characteristics of an effective salespersons

In the past two decades, researchers within the field of selling have prescribed many

different relational-selling behaviors to salespeople, presumably leading to better sales

performance, such as customer-oriented selling (Schwepker, 2003), adaptive selling (Park &

Holloway, 2003), key account selling (Guenzi, Pardo & Georges, 2007; Jones et al., 2005), and

relationship selling (Crosby, Evans & Cowles, 1990) In a similar vein, the focus in the evolved

sales process, leading to high performance, is on customer relationship maintenance, satisfying

needs, and nurturing relationships (Moncreif & Marshall, 2005) All these different prescriptions

or requirements of the salespeople demand advanced interpersonal skills such as the ability to

handle conflicts (Weitz & Bradford, 1999) and be empathic (Rozell, Pettijohn & Parker, 2004) or

persuasive (Cron et al 2005) On the other hand, several studies have examined specific emotions

in marketing encounters such as fear and anxiety (Verbeke & Bagozzi, 2000), cheerfulness and

excitement (Chitturi, Raghunathan & Mahajan, 2008), gratitude (Palmatier et al., 2009), anger and

frustration (Wagner, Hennig-Thurau & Rudolph, 2009), and shame and guilt (Agrawal &

Duhachek, 2010), research has not addressed salespeople’s abilities to recognize and respond to

their own and their customers’ emotions and have not considered how these abilities affect building relationships between salespersons and clients and sales performance

Emotional intelligence is the ability to acquire and apply knowledge from one’s emotions and those of others to produce beneficial outcomes (Mayer & Salovey, 1997) Previous studies in

this area have generally examined the salespersons from mostly Western countries such as the

United States of America (Anderson & Nichols, 2007; Barrick, Parks & Mount, 2005), the United

Kingdom (Souchon et al., 2003), New Zealand (Gray, Matear, Basoff & Matheson, 1998) and

other European countries such as Germany and the Netherlands (Birgelen, Ruyter & Wetzels,

2000, 2001) Many researchers agree that in order to generalise the model of the impact of human

behaviour on successful performance, it is essential to examine the effects under various

environmental situations and circumstances (Lopez, Carr, Grgory & Dwyer, 2005; Wong & Law,

2002) In Vietnam, emotional intelligence has been studied in employee engagement (Khuong & Yen, 2014) The marketing literature has largely ignored this ability-based conceptualization of emotional intelligence despite its potential to benefit people who have high emotional intelligence

and also those with whom they interact, such as customers, in exchange relationships For example,

recent research has suggested that sellers’ greater emotion recognition during negotiations with buyers can increase payoffs for both sellers and buyers (Elfenbein et al., 2007) By increasing joint

value, sales professionals create greater outcome satisfaction for buyers and increase the likelihood

of future business (Martin et al., 2008; Mueller & Curhan, 2006) In addition, research in a service

setting suggests that employees’ displays of emotion can affect customers’ affective states and satisfaction (Hennig-Thurau et al., 2006) Thus, emotional intelligence has the potential to improve

current sales performance and enhance long-term customer relationships However, several other

studies have suggested that sales performance could also be related to differences in adaptive

selling behaviour (Franke & Park, 2006) and differences in improvisation (Moorman & Miner,

1998) Cote and Miners (2006) also conclude that the relationship of emotional intelligence to

performance is not always linear In response, the study examines the mutual impact of emotional

intelligence on adaptive selling and improvisation, and subsequently exploring its effect on sales

performance in Vietnam

1.2 Research objectives

As mention above, this study examine the role of emotional intelligence on adaptive selling

and improvisation and subsequently in sales performance of salespeople who are working in Ho

Chi Minh City, Vietnam In particular, this study addresses the following overall objective:

- The relationship between adaptive selling and sales performance;

- The relationship between improvisation and sales performance;

- The relationships between emotional intelligence and adaptive selling behavior;

- The relationships between emotional intelligence and improvisation;

- The relationship between emotional intelligence and sales performance

1.3 Research methodology

The questionnaire was translated from English into Vietnamese Through qualitative study,

in-depth interviews with six people were conducted in order to adjust the items closing to features

of Vietnamese cultures and to make the improvement for the official questionnaire In the

quantitative study The author collected data by using a convenience sampling approach and

employed self-administered survey For analyzing the collected data, SPSS 16 and Amos 20 were

used to test the model For the reliability and validity, the researcher used CFA Then, SEM was

used to test the hypothesized model

Due to the limitation of time, this research is therefore limited to salespeople in the Ho Chi

Minh City; since it is one of the biggest cities in Vietnam In order to obtain a sample size of about

225, both indirectly method via electronic mail and Google surveys and directly one via hard

copies are used to deliver 450 questionnaires to participants Respondents of this research include

salespersons in electric sales, cosmetic, service…

1.4 Research structure

This thesis includes five chapters:

Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 1 presents background to the research, as well as, research problems, research objectives,

research methodology, and structure of thesis

Chapter 2: Literature Review and Hypotheses

In this chapter, the author reviews the conceptual/theoretical dimensions of the literature and

presents the fundamental ideas about: emotional intelligence, adaptive selling, improvisation and

sales performance Based on the literature review and research problems, this chapter also

describes research model and proposed hypotheses

Chapter 3: Methodology

This chapter introduces research design, research methodology, and the process of doing the

research to test the hypotheses

Chapter 4: Research Results

Chapter 4 is designed to present patterns of results and to analyse them for their relevance to the

research questions or hypotheses

Chapter 5: Conclusions, Implications and Limitations

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter mainly introduces the theories, which are proposed by many scholars in

academic field and are related to all the concepts and research model The author firstly clarifies

the definitions of Adaptive selling, Improvisation, Emotional Intelligence, and Sales Performance

Next, the previous research of these concepts and their related discussion are mentioned Finally,

based on these theories and the relation of previous research, the hypotheses of relationship among

these constructs and a conceptual model are proposed

2.1 Adaptive selling and Improvisation

The concept of adaptive selling behaviour has been examined and developed over decades

(Park & Holloway, 2003; Spiro & Weitz, 1990) Generally adaptive selling behaviour refers to

alterations in selling strategies, tactics, social style, verbal communication and physical appearance

of the seller (Giacobbe, Jackson, Crosby & Bridges, 2006) Nonetheless over the years the

definition of adaptive selling behaviour has evolved to reflect the philosophy of selling and

marketing in that era Adaptive selling is defined as “the altering of sales behaviors during a

customer interaction or across customer interactions based on perceived information about the

nature of the selling situation” (Weitz et al., 1986, p 175) In today’s competitive environment, buyer are more experienced, educated and powerful; subsequently, the definition of adaptive

selling behaviour has changed to reflect this condition, where adaptive selling behaviour is defined

“as a complex process that emphasizes customised solutions to fit each buyer” (DelVecchio, Zemanek, McIntyre & Claxton, 2004, p 859) Among the most popular adaptive selling behaviour

concepts and measures is ADAPTS, developed by Spiro and Weitz (1990)

The concept of improvisation is initiated by the term used in jazz performance

Improvisation is defined as a practice of making and creating, of acting and reacting, in the moment

and in response to the stimulus of one's immediate environment which can result in the creation of

new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or new ways to act (Miner,

Basoff & Moorman, 2001) In applied business, improvisation has been defined as “the planning and executing of any action simultaneously or the condition by which composition and execution

converge in time” (Moorman & Miner, 1998, p 698) The strategic business and learning literature

has discussed the various constructs of improvisation where it is linked with the aspects of time,

intuition, creativity, innovation, bricolage and short time learning (Leybourne, 2006; Miner et al.,

2001; Moorman & Miner, 1998) whilst the features of improvisation include temporal

convergence design and execution, novel and deliberate (Miner et al., 2001) Sujan (1986) argued

that salespeople relied mostly on a strictly defined repetitive process such as the standard sales

presentation process Borrowing the concept of improvisation from organizational learning theory

as articulated by Miner et al (2001), improvisation in sales presentation can be defined as ‘the

creative process in the altering of sales behavior during a customer interaction or across customer

interactions outside routines or formal plans’ All in all, the concept of improvisation tends to blend

prescriptive and descriptive elements in which effectiveness and quality of performance have been

embedded in the phenomenon (Vera & Crossan, 2005)

2.2 Emotional Intelligence

The theory of emotional intelligence was initiated by the Harvard psychologist, Howard

Gardner in 1983 (Chrusciel, 2006) In recent years, the scientific viability of emotional intelligence

has been considerable and growing interests (Goleman, 1998; Mayer, Salovey & Caruso, 2004)

Their concept of emotional intelligence has been built upon by Mayer et al (1997; 2004)

The MSCEIT (Mayer Salovey Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test) (Mayer et al., 2004)

measures the four branches of emotional intelligence In return, they propose the following four

emotional intelligence dimensions: (1) appraisal and expression of emotion in oneself – which

relates to an individual’s ability to understand his/her own deep emotions; (2) appraisal and recognition of emotions of others – which relates to an individual’s ability to perceive and

understand the emotion of people around them; (3) regulation of emotion in oneself – which relates

to the ability of an individual to regulate his/her emotions, enabling a more rapid recovery from

psychological distress; and (4) use of emotion to facilitate performance – which relates to the

ability of a person to make use of emotions by directing them towards constructive activities and

personal performance

In an attempt to address issues raised about MSCEIT, Wong and Law (2002) developed a

self-reported emotional intelligence measure - WLEIS based on the concepts and theory initiated

by Davies et al., (1998) The measure includes a self-report questionnaire contrasted with peers’

opinion and a self-report questionnaire contrasted with supervisor opinion The measure has

sixteen items in total where each of the four constructs is measured by four items: self emotion

appraisal, others emotions appraisal, use of emotion and regulation of emotion

Emotional Intelligence is an important interpersonal skill that allows salespeople to

perceive, interpret and react to their own and their customers’ emotions Prentice and King (2012)

recently found that emotional intelligence is positively related to employee service performance

‘Emotional Intelligence is an important predictor of performance amongst customer service representatives because their emotional ability can affect the prospective success of a service

transaction through the manipulation of service encounters’ (Prentice & King, 2012, p 37)

Because of the facilitation of Emotional Intelligence, salespeople work more effectively and

efficiently in adapting selling messages and behaviours Emotional Intelligence will likely enhance

the positive influence of Adaptive and Improvisation by allowing salespeople to perceive

customers’ circumstances, react to customers’ needs and establish effective communication

Summarising the discussion above, I hypothesise the following:

H1 Emotional intelligence has a positive impact on adaptive selling

H2 Emotional intelligence has a positive impact on improvisation

2.3 Sales Performance

During the last two decades, Sales management research finding provide an extensive

knowledge concerning the anteedents of salesperson performance (Baldauf, Cravens & Piercy,

2001; Brown, Cron & Slocum, 1997; Churchill et al., 1985) Among those, scholars have

consistently identified five basic antecedents to an account manager’s sales performance: (1) personal, organisational and environmental variables: (2) role perception: (3) aptitude: (4) skill

level and: (5) motivation (Brown et al., 1997) The aptitude of an account manager is comprised

of physical factors such as age and attractiveness, and personality factors such as extraversion and

emotional stability (Churchill et al., 1985) Over the last decade many studies have been devoted

to a better understanding of the selling process, and have focused on a salesperson’s information

processing (Sujan et al., 1988; Szymnski & Churchill, 1990) For example, they suggest that sales

performance could be linked to differences in an account manager’s knowledge structures and

especially the richness of information that he/she categorises (Sujan et al., 1988) They also

propose that intelligence acquisition and processing are important in the process of building long

term relationships with prospects and clients (Dwyer, Schurr & Oh, 1987)

As a result, salesperson performance is an evaluation of the salesperson’s contribution to

achieving the organisation’s objectives (Brown, Cron & Slocum, 1997; Churchill et al., 1985) It

is conceptually useful to examine performance in terms of (1) the behaviour or activities carried

Little consensus exists in the performance literature about whether job performance should

be measured through subjective measures such as evaluations by top managers, co-workers, or

self-evaluation (Bommer, Johnson, Risch, Podsakoff & Mackenzie, 1995) or through objective

measures such as countable behaviours or outcomes like sales volume, market spanning, number

of customers and number of sales calls (Behrman & Perreault, 1984) Over the years there has

been an increasing number of studies about constructing a comparative analysis between objective

and subjective performance measures (Bommer et al., 1995; Hoffman, Nathan & Holden, 1991;

Pransky et al., 2006)

Some researchers and theorists suggest that these two type of measures should not be used

interchangeably (Bommer et al., 1995; Murphy & Cleveland, 1991; Pransky et al., 2006) The

implication for these observations is that at the most basic level, subjective measures should not

be used as proxies for objective measures if objective performance is the behaviour of interest (or

vice versa) For example, if sales is the desired outcome, organisations should not reward

employees based on a supervisor’s overall performance evaluation of that employee Conversely,

if broadly defined performance is more important, it is inappropriate to reward employees solely

on objective measures such as gross sales (Bommer et al., 1995) One should note that objective

measures are intended to directly record the actual job-related behaviour or outcome and they are

frequently free of systematic bias and random error A good example is the machine- recorded

performance measures (Sackett, Zedeck & Fogli, 1988)

Interestingly, and in contrast, several other studies have found no significant differences

between the two measuring metrics across various types of performances (Wall et al., 2004; Tett,

Jackson & Rothstein, 1991) Tett et al (1991) in their meta-analytic study examined the personality

of managers against job performance and found no differences in the objective and subjective

measures Similarly, Viswesvaras, Schmidt, and Ones (1996) failed to find differences between

objective and subjective measures involving production records and ratings of overall job

performance

There are reasons why subjective measures of company performance have been, and will

continue to be adopted One is that they are very cost effective and because such performance

measures can be gathered through questionnaires or interview surveys Another is that many small

companies do not have appropriate financial records, and even with such records, the data may be

aggregated in a way that is not compatible with the level of analysis needed for human resource

management (Wall et al., 2004)

2.4 Adaptive Selling, Improvisation and Sales Performance

The concept of adaptive selling behaviour has evolved considerably since Weitz (1978)

found its positive relationship with performance Given the conceptualization of adaptive selling

behavior, a positive relationship between salesperson adaptive capabilities and sales performance

would be expected (Giacobbe et al., 2006; Jeong-Eun & Holloway, 2003) Researchers have

examined the impact of adaptive selling behavior on sales performance Several studies have found

that adaptive selling behavior exerts a positive influence on a salesperson’s regular performance,

on closing ratios, and on the effectiveness of a sales department and unit (Johlke, 2006)

Based on this finding and argument, it is fair to predict that adaptive selling behavior

impacts on sales performance

Several studies in organizational learning literature have theorized the positive outcomes

of improvisational behavior on innovation and change management, on organizational learning,

on new product development and on team performance (Crossan, Cunha, Vera & Cunha., 2005;

Leybourne, 2006; Miner et al., 2001) Although the evidence of the relationship between

improvisation and sales performance is scarce in marketing literature, prior studies have provided

empirical evidence on the positive relationship between improvisation and performance (Bergh &

Lim, 2008; McDaniel, 2007)

In competitive and uncertain environment, salespeople with high improvisational skills

arguably are driven to achieve a desired performance, can generate ideas, incorporate changes

quickly and easily, and communicate effectively and persuasively during sales presentation which

eventually increases the sales Furthermore, a person capable of improvisation can cope with and

adapt to unforeseen circumstances and can devise solutions to intractable problems (Meyer, 1998)

Therefore, it is fair to hypothesise the following;

H3 Adaptive selling has a positive impact on sales performance

H4 Improvisation has a positive impact on sales performance

2.5 Emotional Intelligence and Sales Performance

Although there is much argument about the nature and the validity of emotional

intelligence, there are several empirical studies that have instructed positive association between

emotional intelligence and performance (Mayer et, al., 2004; Dulewicz et al., 2005; Semadar,

Robins & Ferris, 2006) A study of Cherniss (2002) suggested that emotional intelligence provides

the basis of competencies important in almost any job In fact, EI is claimed to be a better predictor

of success than the traditional measures of general intelligence, IQ (Goleman, 1998; Pellitteri,

2002) More recently, Dulewicz et al (2005) study provides some initial evidence that emotional

intelligence (9.2%) makes the greatest contribution to overall performance when compared to

managerial competencies (6.1%) and general intelligence (5.0%)

A person with high emotional intelligence has ability to develop good social relationships

that can boost task performance through advice and social support (Wong & Law, 2002; Pearce &

Randel, 2004) Further, the ability to manage and control emotions such as anger and frustration

can be conducive to a more stable working environment, previous research has also explicitly

proposed that emotional intelligence relates to task performance in independent and

complementary linear ways (Newsome, Day & Catano, 2000)

Researchers have found that a salesperson’s performance relates to his/her ability to

manage various social problems and cope with motivational and emotional problems that arise due

to negative feedback and failures (Brown, Cron & Slocum, 1997) A salesperson is also required

to understand the feelings of others and the reasons behind them in order to persuade them into

entering the sales purchase contract A salesperson of high emotional intelligence will be resilient

and able to maintain self-control and deal with difficult situation (Sjoberb & Littorin, 2003) The

study that uses Bar-On EQ-i (1997) measures found that emotional intelligence is positively related

to customer satisfaction which, in turn, increases the performance of the firm (Longhorn, 2004),

which follow hypotheses:

H5 Emotional intelligence has a positive impact on sales performance

2.6 Conceptual model

Figure 1 depicts a conceptual model explaining the role of emotional intelligence in

adaptive selling and improvisation, and subsequently in sales performance of salespersons

Figure 2.1 Conceptual model

These are all hypotheses that were proposed in the study:

H1 Emotional intelligence has a positive impact on adaptive selling

H2 Emotional intelligence has a positive impact on improvisation

H3 Adaptive selling has a positive impact on sales performance

H4 Improvisation has a positive impact on sales performance

H5 Emotional intelligence has a positive impact on sales performance

In summary, this chapter presents theoretical background of each concept in the model

Based on discussion of literature review, there are five hypotheses proposed for this research The

next chapter will discuss about methodology that used to analyze the data and test hypotheses of

the research model

Chapter 3: METHODOLOGY

This chapter presents detail information of a research methodology of this study First, it

starts with research process and sample description In order to modify and refine the measures, the qualitative phase involves in-depth interviews interview is conducted to help measurement scales clearer and understandable Through the modified questionnaire survey, the data collection of quantitative survey is used to test the measurement and structural models

3.1 Research design

3.1.1 Research process

Two phases of the study were undertaken in this research: a qualitative study and a

quantitative study The survey questionnaire was originally designed in English and then translated

into Vietnamese by the researcher with the support of some English experts Through the

qualitative study, in-depth interviews with six people were conducted in order to modify and revise

all observed items of the draft questionnaire to make improvement for the official questionnaire

For each interviewee, the researcher alternately read each item of the measurement scale and asked

for his or her understanding If the interviewee didn’t understand the question, the researcher would have asked the reasons of misunderstanding and asked for the suggestions from the

interviewee The in-depth interviews followed by one by one until the researcher got no more

suggestions

Based on the feedback of respondents, the survey questionnaire was slightly modified to

make it clearer and more understandable (see Appendix A, B, & C) After the questionnaire was

modified, the research hypotheses were tested using data set collected from salespeople in Ho Chi

Minh City, Vietnam Both indirect method via e mail, Google survey and direct one via hard copies

were used to deliver questionnaires to participants in Ho Chi Minh City

Figure 3.1 Research process

Participants self-completed a survey with all items were measured by seven-point Likert

scale, anchor points including “strongly disagree” (= 1), “disagree” (= 2), “somewhat disagree” (= 3), “neither disagree nor disagree” (= 4), “somewhat agree” (=5), “agree” (=6), and “strongly

Translation Draft Questionnaire

Revision Final Questionnaire

Research

Problem

Research Model & Hypotheses Literature Review

Analysis

agree” (=7) The questionnaire was mainly delivered to respondents via electronic mail, Google survey and hard copies (see Table 3.1) SPSS and AMOS were used to test the measurement and

structural models

3.1.2 Measurement scales

The final questionnaires consisted of four measurement scales: emotional intelligence,

adaptive selling, improvisation and sales performance

Sales performance

Sales performance was measured by a self-assessed general performance measure

developed by Farh, Dobbins, and Cheng (1991)

Sales Performance (adapted from Farh et al., 1991) Coding

1 I produce a high market share for this company in a specific territory SalesPerf1

2 I make sales with the highest profit margin SalesPerf2

3 I generate a high level of dollar sales SalesPerf3

4 I maintain a high level of current customer retention SalesPerf4

5 I find and develop new customer relationships SalesPerf5

Adaptive selling

Adaptive selling behaviour was measured using seven items from the adaptive selling scale

(ADAPTS), first developed by Spiro and Weitz (1990)

Adaptive selling (adapted from Spiro and Weitz, 1990) Coding

1 I am flexible in the selling approach I use

2 I can easily set a wide variety of selling approaches

3 I vary my sales style from situation to situation

4 I do not use a set sales approach

5 I treat all customers pretty much the same

6 I like to experiment with different sales approaches

7 I change my approach from one customer to another

Previous research has argued that improvisation would be best measured by the length of

time between the planning and the execution of action (Akgun, Byrne, Lynn & Keskin, 2007;

Moorman & Miner, 1998) As such, Akgun et al.’s (2007) and Moorman and Miner’s (1998) concept of improvisation was adopted in developing a measure for improvisation to sales

presentation

Improvisation (adapted from Akgum, 2007) Coding

1 I figure out my sales presentation as I go along

2 I follow a rigid, well defined sales presentation plan

3 I improvise when making my sales presentation

4 I strictly follow my sales presentation plan

5 My sales presentation is an ad-libbed action

Emotional intelligence

To measure EI, I used the self-rating emotional intelligence Wong and Law (2002)

Emotional Intelligence Scale (WLEIS) (Wong & Law, 2002) The 16 items of WLEIS measure

four EI-related subscales: self-emotions appraisal, others-emotions appraisal, use of emotion, and

regulation of emotion

Emotional intelligence (adapted from Wong & Law, 2002) Coding

Self-Emotions Appraisal)

1 I have a good sense of why I have certain feelings most of the time

2 I have good understanding of my own emotions

3 I really understand what I feel

4 I always know whether or not I am happy

1 I always know my friends’ emotions from their behavior

2 I am a good observer of others’ emotions

3 I am sensitive to the feelings and emotions of others

4 I have good understanding of the emotions of people around me

1 I always set goals for myself and then try my best to achieve them

2 I always tell myself I am a competent person

1 I am able to control my temper so that I can handle difficulties rationally

2 I am quite capable of controlling my own emotions

3 I can always calm down quickly when I am very angry

4 I have good control of my own emotions

RegulaE1

RegulaE2

RegulaE3

RegulaE4

Finally, the completed questionnaire in English version and Vietnamese version were

presented in Appendix D and E

3.2 Quantitative study

3.2.1 Sample

The model and hypotheses will be tested using data set collected from salespeople in Ho

Chi Minh City, Vietnam Both indirect method via e mail, Google survey and direct one via hard

copies were used to deliver questionnaires to participants in Ho Chi Minh City

About sample size, the size of the sample was necessarily big enough to guarantee

statistical significance Hair et al (2009) stated that the minimum sample for appropriate use for

statistical analysis is equal to or greater than five times of number of variables, but not less than

100 The model in this study consisted of thirty-nine variables so that the necessary sample size

should be: n=33*5=165 observations The author delivered 297 questionnaires to participants in

order to obtain a sample size of about 165 After data collection, total 246 responses were collected;

the response rate was approximately 82 percent (Table 3.1)

Table 3.1 Source of data collection Source Distributed Collected Response rate Eliminated Valid

Then, total 21 questionnaires were eliminated because they were invalid (8 respondents

were not enough years of experience and 13 surveys were returned back without answers) Finally,

225 questionnaires were used as valid data for this research In comparison with minimum sample

size, this number of data was satisfactory

3.2.2 Data analysis procedures

SPSS 16 was used for calculating Cronbach’s alpha and Amos 20 for running CFA to test

the reliability for each measurement component separately and the validity for all scales

Additionally, based on composite reliability (CR), the author evaluated the measurement scale’s

reliability among constructs in the research model According to CFA results, average variance

extracted (AVE) was used to conclude the convergent validity and correlation between items (r)

was used to identify the discriminate validity Thus, to implies that the measurement is good,

Cronbach’s alpha for each construct should be at least 0.6 (Nunnally & Burnstein, as cited in

Prajogo, 2007); the factor loading should be 0.5 (Hair et al., as cited in Prajogo, 2007); the

minimum value of AVE is 0.5 (Molina et al., as cited in Chong et al., 2010); and the composite

reliability should be over 0.7 as recommended by Nunnally (as cited in Chong et al., 2010)

Considering the convergent and discriminated validity, the inappropriate items would be removed

if necessity Moreover, the CFA would indicate the model fit if CMIN/DF was less than 2 with

p-value larger than 5%, and the comparative fit index (CFI) analyzed the model fit by examining the

discrepancy between the data and the hypothesized model, while adjusting the issues of sample

size inherence in the chi-squared test of model fit, and the normed fit index A CFI value of 0.90

or larger was generally considered to indicate acceptable model fit The non-normed fit index

(NNFI; also known as the Tucker-Lewis index-TLI) resolved some of the issues of negative bias,

though NNFI values may sometimes fall beyond the 0 to 1 range Values for both the NFI and

NNFI should range between 0 and 1, with a cutoff of 95 or greater, indicating a good model fit

The root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) avoided issues of sample size by analyzing

the discrepancy between the hypothesized model, with optimally chosen parameter estimates, and

the population covariance matrix A value of 0.06 or less was indicated an acceptable model fit

RMSEA was smaller than 8% (Tho & Trang, 2008) Then, structural equation modeling (SEM)

tested the hypothesized model and estimated path coefficients for each proposed relationship

in the structural model

Four measurement scales were sufficient for convergent and discriminant validity, were

analyzed by the Confirmatory factor analysis before the hypothesized model was tested by SEM

The first-order constructs were improvisation, adaptive selling and sales performance The

second-order construct were emotional intelligence, which consisted of four sub-components:

self-emotions appraisal, others-self-emotions appraisal, use of emotion, and regulation of emotion

From the methods are mentioned above, this chapter described the research process,

measurement scale construction, calculation of sample size, and research method conducted to

analyze the collected data This study was designed into two stages: first was qualitative study

(in-depth interview), second was quantitative study (main survey) The in-(in-depth interview was

conducted to modify the measurement scale and the questionnaire was adjusted slightly and before

the quantitative survey Main survey had sample size which included total 225 valid questionnaires

that were used for data analysis with CFA and SEM The next chapter will present data analysis

of main survey

Chapter 4: DATA ANALYSIS

Chapter 4 presents the analysis results of the sample size n=225 This process used SPSS

to review the sample’s characters and the descriptive statistic tested the normal distribution of variables basing on respondents’ demographics Then, AMOS was used for confirmatory factor analysis to examine the reliability and validity of the first order constructs, the second order

construct and the final measurement model basing on calculating Cronbach’s alpha and evaluating

composite reliability (CR), average variance extracted (AVE), and correlation between items (r)

was used to identify the discriminate validity Then, the model fit indicators were considered to

see the CFA and SEM model fitted the data well or not (e.g CMIN/DF, the comparative fit index

– CFI, the non-normed fit index – TLI, the root mean square error of approximation – RMSEA In addition, structural equation modeling was used to test the conceptual model Based on the

analysis’s results, the explanation for finding research was finally discussed

4.1 Respondents’ demographics

The collected data were analyzed using the SPSS – Statistical Software Package This part

aimed to provide the general information of respondents in sales department from organizations in

HCM City, Vietnam The results of the demographics analysis were summarized in table 4.1

Firstly, initial analysis of data indicated that gender of respondents was quite equally between

female and male Male was higher with 53.3% of respondents and female seized 46.7% of

respondents The frequency result of gender surprised the social norms that most of employees in

sales department are female Furthermore, more than half of the respondents who took part in this

study were young people from 15 to 29 years old with 52.4% of total sample This number

indicates that the current labor force in sales is very young Although, age group ranged from 15

to over 65 years old, 52.4% of respondents were between 15 and 29 years old, 47.6% of people

were from 30 to 49 years old, and none of respondents was in age group of over 50 years old

These age group indicators might be a good reason resulting that more than half of respondents

earned less than 5 million VND In addition, marital status had a dominant ratio for single (55.1

percent) and a lower ratio for married but they have no children (41.3 percent) Respondents who

are married and have children was a very small part of marital status with 3.6 percent of

respondents Income per month was divided in three groups Income per month of most of

respondents was not very high, fluctuated between less than 5 million VND and lower than 15

million VND Specifically, 63.6% of respondents revealed that their income lower than 5 million

VND, 28.0% of people earned from 5 million to less than 15 million VND, and the last portion

was the respondents with the income more than 15 million VND per month with only 8.4% of

sample size Finally, the frequency of education level also indicates a ratio with 63.1% of

respondents who have undergraduate degrees and 34.7% for post-graduation There was a very

small part of education level with 2.2 percent of respondents who just finished high school Basing

on the results of frequency, almost people in these groups graduated college, university and

post-graduation, and reflected their understanding about emotional intelligence, adaptive selling,

improvisation and sales performance However, this demographic profile might not reflect the

picture Due to research topic and research objectives as mentioned above, these information only

help researcher have a better understanding about respondents

Table 4.1 Respondents’ characteristics Demographic profile Category Frequency Percentage (%)

Female Total

0

100

Married (no children) Married (children) Total

4.2.1 CFA for the first-order constructs

Improvisation was measured by 5 items For the first run of CFA, the CFA model of

improvisation fitted the data well However, the factor loading of Improvis5 was not significant

(0.091 < 0.5) (see table 4.2) The author removed Improvis5 and re-tested the construct The factor

loading of items to measure improvisation were significant with 0.86 for Improvis1, 0.83 for

Improvis2, 0.87 for Improvis3 and 0.82 for Improvis4 (see figure 4.1 and table 4.3) In

consequence, as shown in Figure 4.1, the research had the model fit (square=3.595; df=2;

Chi-square/df=1.797; P=0.166; CFI=0.997; TLI=0.992; NFI=0.994; RMSEA=0.060)

Figure 4.1 CFA model of improvisation

For the first run of CFA for the construct of adaptive selling, standardized regression

weights of AdaptSell2, AdaptSell3, AdaptSell4 and AdaptSell7 were higher than 0.5 (0.87, 0.88,

0.84, and 0.76 in sequence) Although these estimates fitted the data well, the factor loadings of

AdaptSell1, AdaptSell5 and AdaptSell6 were not significant (0.082, -0.006 and 0.067 < 0.5) (see

Table 4.2)

Factor Loadings

Improvisation  Improvis1 0.86 Improvisation  Improvis2 0.83 Improvisation  Improvis3 0.87 Improvisation  Improvis4 0.82 Improvisation  Improvis5 0.091 AdaptiveSelling  AdaptSell1 0.082 AdaptiveSelling  AdaptSell2 0.87 AdaptiveSelling  AdaptSell3 0.88 AdaptiveSelling  AdaptSell4 0.84 AdaptiveSelling  AdaptSell5 -0.006 AdaptiveSelling  AdaptSell6 0.067 AdaptiveSelling  AdaptSell7 0.77 SalesPerformance  SalesPerfor1 0.90 SalesPerformance  SalesPerfor2 0.89 SalesPerformance  SalesPerfor3 0.69 SalesPerformance  SalesPerfor4 0.011 SalesPerformance  SalesPerfor5 0.71

After removing insignificant items AdaptSell1, AdaptSell5 and AdaptSell6, the model of

adaptive selling was measured by four items: AdaptSell2, AdaptSell3, AdaptSell4 and AdaptSell7

(see figure 4.2 and table 4.3) Figure 4.2 displayed the result of CFA analysis and the CFA model

of adaptive selling for the second run also fitted the data well (Chi-square=7.610; df=2;

chi-square/df=3.805; P=0.022; CFI=0.990; TLI=0.971; NFI=0.987; RMSEA=0.112; PCLOSE=0.081)

Figure 4.2 CFA model of adaptive selling

For the first run for CFA model of sales performance, this first order construct was

measured by five items SalesPerfor1, SalesPerfor2, SalesPerfor3, SalesPerfor4 and SalesPerfor5

The findings show that factor loading of SalesPerfor4 was lower than 0.5 which was removed

(0.011<0.5) (see table 4.2) and the other factor loadings were higher than 0.5 (0.90, 0.89, 0.70 and

0.71 respectively) (see table 4.3) The author used these significant items for the second run of

CFA and the CFA model also fitted the data well (Chi-square=35.525; df=2; Chi-square/df =

3.701; P=.000; CFI=0.935; TLI=0.806; NFI=0.932; RMSEA=0.274; PCLOSE=0.000)

Figure 4.3 CFA model of sales performance

For each construct, the author tested the reliability and convergent validity by calculating

Cronbach’α, composite reliability (CR) and averaged variance extracted (AVE) values based on items’ standardized loadings Cronbach’α, composite reliability of improvisation, adaptive selling and sales performance were higher than 0.7 (0.91 and 0.90; 0.90 and 0.90; 0.88 and 0.87

respectively) Thus, reliability of first order constructs was acceptable