Examining the effects of role stress on customer orientation and job performance of retail salespeople

The purpose of this paper is to examine causal relationships between role stress, customer orientation, selling orientation, and job performance of retail salespeople.

The sample (n=259) was salespeople in eight units of a national department store located in the USA. Participants in the clothing, accessories, shoe, and home furnishings departments completed self‐administered questionnaires. To test the hypotheses, structural equation was employed using AMOS 4.0.

Role stress (i.e. role conflict and role ambiguity) affected customer orientation and also had direct and indirect effects on job performance mediated by customer orientation. The impact of role conflict was negative on customer orientation, but positive on selling orientation and job performance.

Retail managers are instrumental in creating a culture conducive to the practice of customer orientation and the degree to which retail salespeople experience role stress.

This study is notable because it investigated the intuitively plausible question of whether customer‐orientated behavior mediates the effects of role stress on retail salespeople's job performance.