Salesperson Burnout: A Test of the Coping-Mediational Model of Social Support

Abstract

Salesperson burnout continues to be a major concern among sales organizations. In this work, the authors examine whether certain coping strategies mediate the impact of sales manager support on salesperson burnout; as suggested by Thoits’s (1986) Coping-Mediational Model. More specifcally, this work investigates if problem-focused coping and emotion-focused coping mediate the impact of sales manager support on feelings of emotional exhaustion in a feld sales setting. Study fndings indicate that positive sales manager support has a signifcant negative direct effect on salespersons’ emotional exhaustion. Findings also support the assertion that sales manager support encourages salespersons’ use of problem-focused coping strategies that, in turn, further reduce emotional exhaustion. In contrast, sales manager support does not signifcantly infuence salespersons’ use of emotion-focused coping; however, emotion-focused coping does signifcantly increase emotional exhaustion.

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