Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing

Emotion regulation – natural reward strategy linkage and its impact on sales performance: the mediating
impact of salesmanship skills
Ramendra Singh, Rakesh Kumar Singh, Diptiman Banerji,
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Issue: 3, pp.353-364, https://doi.org/10.1108/JBIM-10-2016-0236
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 Emotion regulation – natural reward strategy
linkage and its impact on sales performance:
the mediating impact of salesmanship skills
Ramendra Singh
Marketing, IIM Calcutta, Kolkata, India
Rakesh Kumar Singh
Marketing, IMT Ghaziabad, Ghaziabad, India, and
Diptiman Banerji
Department of Marketing, Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, Calcutta, India

Abstract
Purpose – In the context of an emerging market, this paper empirically investigates the direct as well as the indirect impact of natural reward
strategies (NRS) on the sales performance of B2B sales force. It also investigates the mediating impact of salesmanship skills on the NRS–sales
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performance linkage.
Design/methodology/approach – Structural equation modeling (using AMOS 18 software) is used to analyze the data collected, using a survey
questionnaire from a sample of 317 B2B salespersons of a single media firm in India.
Findings – Results indicate that NRS are influenced primarily by a salesperson’s emotion regulation abilities, while salesmanship skills partially
mediate in the NRS–performance relationship.
Research limitations/implications – The study results are based on convenience sampling, which may limit the theoretical generalization of the
results across all emerging markets.
Originality/value – It is one of the earliest studies in the B2B sales literature that integrates multiple theoretical perspectives from job-demands-
resources theory, self-regulation theory, motivation and skills theory and social cognitive theory. These theories have been synthesized; then they
have been used to develop and test the impact of emotional regulation on NRS components of self-leadership among salespersons, and its
subsequent direct impact on sales performance, as well as mediating impact via salesmanship skills.
Keywords India, Emerging market, Sales performance, Emotional regulation, Natural rewards strategy, Salesmanship skills
Paper type Research paper

Selling environments are becoming tougher, as the frontline
sales force often face stressful customer interactions with long
B2B sales cycles, along with increasingly complex product and
services offerings (Ingram et al., 2005). In the buyer
organizations too, the decision-making units or buying centers
during organizational buying are largely responsible for joint
decision-making (Hunter et al., 2006; Smeltzer and Siferd,
1998; van Weele, 2010) involving significant investments and
complex technologies (Anderson et al., 2009). These buying
centers often act as a key source of influence on organizational
buying behaviors. More often than not, organizational buying is
assumed to be the resultant of rational decision-making;
therefore, our understanding of organizational buying being
devoid of emotional impacts in the decision-making process has
often been referred to as being secondary, because of which
academic research has not paid much attention to it thus far.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on
Emerald Insight at: www.emeraldinsight.com/0885-8624.htm
Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing
33/3 (2018) 353–364
© Emerald Publishing Limited [ISSN 0885-8624]
[DOI 10.1108/JBIM-10-2016-0236]
Only a few recent studies have emphasized that emotions too
play a salient role in B2B buying and selling decisions (Bagozzi,
2006), including the time span of a salesperson’s interactions
(Singh and Venugopal, 2015).
Given this backdrop, one must admit that the emergence of
concepts such as sales leadership has also grown in recent years
both in practice as well as in sales literature. Sales scholars for
example, have called for developing sales leadership within a
sales force to enable them to handle complexities of the selling
environment (Jones et al., 2005; Boichuk et al., 2014; Gabler
et al., 2014; Ingram et al., 2005). Sales leadership literature has
enhanced our knowledge about the influence mechanisms
through which sales leaders tend to affect a salesperson’s
attitude, behavior and performance (Panagopoulos and
Ogilvie, 2015), although most sales leadership studies take a
top-down perspective to influence a salesperson’s performance
(Shepherd et al., 2006; Verbeke et al., 2011). But even this
approach remains less effective (Marshall et al., 2007) given
Received 5 October 2016
Revised 13 April 2017
6 July 2017
12 September 2017
15 September 2017
Accepted 20 September 2017

353
 Impact of salesmanship skills
Ramendra Singh, Rakesh Kumar Singh and Diptiman Banerji
both the role and task ambiguities (Ingram et al., 2005) faced
by salespersons in their day to day jobs, and considering the fact
that many work through virtual offices (Prussia et al., 1998),
where the physical, social and psychological isolation from the
firm is perceived to be much higher (Panagopoulos and Ogilvie,
2015; Singh and Venugopal, 2015). In such a context, one of
the most effective approaches for inculcating leadership
attributes among salespersons is that of “self-leadership”
(Houghton and Neck, 2002). This concept has gained traction
in the recent times and several sales scholars have also
suggested that in-depth research should be undertaken to
assess the feasibility of implementing “self-leadership” for
salespersons (Ingram et al., 2005).
Manz (1986) defines “self-leadership” as a self-influence
strategy helping the salesforce to:
 manage task performance (i.e. especially the mundane
tasks); and
 focus on the natural motivational value of the task/activity
itself.
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Self-leadership encompasses three strategy domains (Neck and
Houghton, 2006):
1 behavior-focused strategies (e.g. self-goal setting, self-
reward, self-punishment and self-observation);
2 natural reward strategies; and
3 constructive thought pattern strategies (e.g. imagining
successful performance or evaluating beliefs).
Self-leadership shares the same social cognition lineage as that
of self-regulation theory and self-influence theory, yet it is
distinct from these theories in terms of assumptions related to
behavioral standards and self-influence strategies (Williams,
1997). Widely accepted as a self-influence process to achieve
self-direction and self-motivation to perform necessary tasks
(Manz and Neck, 2003; Manz, 1986), self-leadership as a
concept has enjoyed considerable popularity even in the
practitioner-oriented literature on this subject. Manz (2015)
further extends the concept of natural reward strategies to a
higher-level “self-leadership high road” consisting of
authenticity, responsibility and increasing capacity, which has
also gained currency with sales practitioners to hone specific
behavioral and cognitive strategies for achieving increased
personal effectiveness (Neck and Houghton, 2006).
Although prior studies do provide some empirical evidence
on “self-leadership” influencing job performance and
achievement outcomes (Lee and Turban, 2010; Prussia et al.,
1998), they are skewed as they have majorly been based on
developed markets; only a few studies have looked to explore
the developing/emerging markets. Ho and Nesbit (2014) for
example, in the context of Chinese firms, found partial support
in associating “self-leadership” with job performance; their
study revealed that while self-leadership influenced supervisor
performance rating, it had no impact on objective job
performance, especially in the absence of job autonomy.
Because the evidence from emerging markets is scarce, there is
certainly a need to validate the mechanisms through which
“self–leadership” influences sales performance.
However, our research primarily focuses on the natural
reward strategies domain of self-leadership, considered to be a
central domain under this construct (Furtner and Hiller, 2013;
Neck and Houghton, 2006). Natural rewards strategies
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Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing
Volume 33 · Number 3 · 2018 · 353–364
(hereafter NRS) is a cognitive strategy directed toward self and
is a useful job resource available to salespersons to enhance
sales performance through successful customer interactions, by
meeting various job demands.
We argue that NRS does explain the link between self-
management and performance in a personal selling
environment, wherein it specifically helps salespersons create a
motivating environment for her/himself, which can go on to
influence sales performance (Lee and Turban, 2010; Neck and
Manz, 2007). Because the context of our study is salesperson–
customer encounters, we specifically look to investigate the
mediation role of salesmanship skills, which is one of the three
dimensions of selling skills (Rentz et al., 2002), the other two
dimensions being interpersonal skills and technical skills.
Salesmanship skills measure the proficiency of a salesperson in
performing key tasks, prospecting and qualifying customer
leads, making effective presentations and closing the sales
encounters. Drawing on the theoretical contexts of self-
regulation theory (Carver and Scheier, 1981, 1998),
motivational traits, skills theory (Kanfer and Heggestad, 1997)
and job-demands-resources (JD-R) theory (Crawford et al.,
2010), we hypothesize a model to examine:
 the influence of self-regulation (emotion regulation) on
the practice of NRS; and
 the role of salesmanship skills as a mediating mechanism
in the relationship between NRS and sales performance.
As there have not been too many studies in the past looking into
the emerging markets, we chose to focus on India. India’s rising
economic and political clout places it right at the top of being
one of the leading emerging markets in the world. From a
research angle, India covers some typical challenges that are
faced doing business in emerging markets. A country with more
than 1.2 billion people, more than 2,000 local languages and
dialects, the business landscape is characterized by many
institutional voids. Doing business in India is different from
western countries because of several factors including the
deeply embedded socio-cultural norms, which impact firms in
the emerging markets (Puffer and McCarthy, 2011; McCarthy
et al., 2012). India also straddles between globalizing economy
and the influence of local culture, coupled with government-
induced transformations in the domestic business landscape
that presents a unique collage of big opportunities and multiple
challenges at the same time; it is therefore interesting to explore
from the sales perspective.
The rest of the paper is structured as follows: the construct of
NRS is presented first, followed by its theoretical
underpinnings, its relationship with emotion regulation,
salesmanship skills and sales performance, finally leading to a
hypothesized model. This model is then tested using data
collected from a sample of 317 B2B salespersons from a large
media firm in India, and the results are discussed, followed by
the resulting implications for managerial practice and theory
development. The paper concludes with the limitations of the
study and scopes future research.
Conceptual framework and theoretical
background
Using the theories of self-regulation, social cognition and JD-R,
we posit that emotion regulation does act as a self-regulation
 Impact of salesmanship skills
Ramendra Singh, Rakesh Kumar Singh and Diptiman Banerji
mechanism to shape a salesperson’s own expectations from
stressful selling tasks. Generally speaking, salespersons always
stay focused on the positive aspects of selling to control their
emotions and accordingly tailor their responses to meet various
job demands. This mechanism of regulating emotions helps
salespersons develop NRS, which in turn is deployed as a job
resource for these people to cope with their job demands.
Further, when we also take into account the theory of
motivational traits and skills, we extend our argument to
assume that NRS as a job resource serves as a critical
motivational skill and does exert a positive influence on task-
related processes leading to higher levels of sales performance.
Manz and his colleagues go further to suggest that individuals
by and large possess the capacity to control their thoughts,
emotions and cognitions (Manz and Neck, 2003) by regulating
their self-direction and self-motivation, which are inherent in
their cognitive processes (Neck and Manz, 2007). NRS
involves converting a task into a more positive experience by
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using one of the three strategies:
1 selecting a context or a setting that is pleasant for
completing the selling process;
2 modifying the selling process so that it is more enjoyable
to engage in the process; or
3 focusing on the pleasant aspects of the task and paying
lesser attention to the less desirable portion of the task
(Houghton and Neck, 2002; Manz, 1986; Neck and
Manz, 2007).
In the self-regulation theory, “self-leadership” (Williams,
1997) is the mechanism through which an individual regulates
one’s emotions, cognitions and behavior to achieve
performance goals. A salesperson’s self-regulation leads to
successful customer interactions (Panagopoulos and Ogilvie,
2015), creates perceptions of competence and self-
determination, leading to intrinsic motivation and performance
enhancing behaviors (Neck and Houghton, 2006). At the core
of the causal process lie the self-regulation systems (Bandura,
1991) that equip individuals with the capabilities to influence
their environment (Panagopoulos and Ogilvie, 2015). The
social cognitive theory additionally suggests that individuals
engage in forethought enabling them to influence oneself
(Bandura, 1991). Bandura (1991) emphasized personal agency
as a powerful force because it was about individuals’, “[. . .]
capabilities to exercise control over their own level of functioning and
over events that affect their lives” (p. 257). This self-regulation
mechanism also helps in crafting one’s expected experiences
from customer interactions and outcomes and strengthening
one’s focus on positive aspects of the selling tasks (Bagozzi
et al., 2010).
The JD-R theory (Demerouti et al., 2000; Demerouti et al.,
2001b; Demerouti et al., 2001a) emphasizes on the fact that job
resources are the aspects of a job, and the person who enables
frontline employees to achieve work goals, help reduce job
demands, provide for personal growth and well-being by
reducing stress and burnout (Bakker and Demerouti, 2007).
Job demands include the physical, psychological, social or
organizational aspects of the job requiring sustained physical
and/or psychological efforts, and resulting in physiological or
psychological costs such as, high sales quota pressures, an
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Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing
Volume 33 · Number 3 · 2018 · 353–364
unfavorable physical environment at work or stressful
engagements with difficult customers.
In the context of a selling job, a job resource may enable a
salesperson to plan and execute sales calls to:
 reduce hihe/sher job demands;
 motivate him/her to engage effectively during all stages of
selling process;
 help achive work-related goals; and
 foster hihe/sher learning and development.
The interaction of the job demands and the job resources
results in a mediation process that relates to the salesperson’s
engagement with hihe/sher job and influences the job outcome
(Bakker and Demerouti, 2007).
Kanfer and Heggestad’s (1997) theory of motivational traits
and skills shapes our argument that constructive self-regulation
acts as one of the most critical skills in achievement-related
contexts. Moreover, motivational skills do impact task-related
processes and performance positively (Kanfer and Ackerman,
2000). Therefore NRS, that serves as an important job resource
to equip salespersons in crafting and modifying their job-
related tasks also acts as an essential motivational skill and in
turn enhances the effectiveness of selling skills leading to higher
performance levels during sales encounters.
In the next section, we develop the hypothesized model by
hypothesizing that the “self-regulation” ability does drive a
salesperson to deploy NRS in the context of her/his job, which
has a direct influence on the job outcomes, such as
performance; this influence is amplified when NRS is deployed
as a “job resource” becoming thereby a key motivational skill
enhancing the salesperson’s salesmanship skills and sales
performance thereof. We now elaborate on the hypothesized
relationships (Figure 1).
Hypotheses and model development
Emotion regulation and natural rewards strategies
Emotion regulation consists of processes by which individuals
influence the emotions they experience and its way of
expression (Gross, 1998). Emotion regulation has been
categorized as antecedent-focused – occurring before an
emotion has become completely active and response-focused –
taking place after an emotion is already underway (Gross,
2002).There are four antecedent-focused responses, which can
be activated before an emotion is completely functional:
1 situation selection – allows individuals to choose
situations based on emotions they might elicit;
Figure 1. Research model
Salesman-
ship Skills
Natural
Emotional
Regulation
Rewards
Strategy
Sales
Performance
 Impact of salesmanship skills
Ramendra Singh, Rakesh Kumar Singh and Diptiman Banerji
2 situation modification – altering the situation;
3 attention deployment – focusing on a different aspect of
the situation; and
4 cognitive change – choosing the right context.
Previous studies have found linkages between emotional
regulation and NRS (Gross and John, 2003), as employees
deploy antecedent-focused self-regulation and choose various
regulatory strategies; for example, choosing which task is self-
rewarding, or which task is more pleasant or choosing to move
away from a negative task. Recent research has emphasized that
emotion regulation is closely related to self-regulation (Furtner
and Hiller, 2013) which, as we’ve seen earlier is an integral
aspect of NRS (Furtner et al., 2013).
Salespersons benefitting from their abilities to regulate their
emotions and thereby enhancing their sales performance is a
fait accompli (Rozell et al., 2006). We’ve also looked into the
aspect whereby regulation of emotions has also been found to
positively affect adaptation to various situations (Richards and
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Gross, 2000), exhibiting sympathy discretionarily to others,
and promoting pro-social behavior among salespersons
(Eisenberg, 2000). Extant literature on emotional intelligence
(EI) suggests that EI helps employees to perceive emotions in
oneself and others better, possibly using it in thinking, finding
emotional meanings and managing the barrage of emotions
more effectively (Mayer and Salovey, 1997). Thereby, this
certainly suggests that salespersons with better EI can use their
emotions to find more meaning in their work and interaction
with others (customers) in ways that are self-rewarding.
Moreover, the social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1991) suggests
that individuals are endowed with a personal agency
functioning as a powerful force that enables the salesperson to
have better control over their functioning. Therefore,
salespersons who deploy self-regulation mechanisms such as
emotion regulation have positive expectations from customer
interactions, and they develop favorable dispositions toward
the selling-related tasks. Hence, we hypothesize that:
H1. Salesperson’s emotional regulation has positive impact
on his/her NRS.
Natural rewards strategies and sales performance
Natural reward strategies (NRS) are used by employees to
impact their task-specific intrinsic motivation (Furtner and
Hiller, 2013; Manz, 1986) directly, in turn positively
influencing the individual task and the team member’s work
role performance (Hauschildt and Konradt, 2012). Use of
NRS by salespersons includes focusing not on the negative
aspects of work (e.g. customer rejections or loss of deals), but
rather focusing on the positive aspects of tasks (e.g. enjoying the
selling process and enjoying customer interactions); this, in
turn leads to stronger intrinsic motivation, higher self-
determination (Neck and Manz, 2013), as well as perceived
greater control over their work (Manz, 1986). Wrzesniewski
and Dutton (2001) go on to suggest that employees may also
expand their professional identities by injecting more meaning
into their work and enhancing their roles and duties. Such
expansion of professional identities in turn, leads to higher
performance. Further, salespersons are likely to be self-starters,
action-oriented and task-focused employees; thus, they’re
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Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing
Volume 33 · Number 3 · 2018 · 353–364
likely to adapt their work situations to motivate themselves into
performing better (Frese and Fay, 2001; Seibert et al., 1999)
leading us thereby to the second hypothesis.
H2. Salesperson’s NRS positively impact sales performance.
Natural rewards strategies, salesmanship skills and
sales performance: Mediating mechanism
We now extend our understanding on NRS-sales performance
linkage by positing a mediation mechanism through which
NRS influences sales performance. As argued in the previous
section, NRS serves as a key job resource for salespersons as
they work toward meeting their job demands. Given this
theoretical background, we argue that one of the key selling
tasks that produce performance, relates to the way a
salesperson prospects for the right customer, develop a clear
understanding of the customer needs, rightly present the sales
message to the customer to finally close the sales call
successfully (Rentz et al., 2002). Therefore, an enhanced state
of job engagement triggers stronger deployment of
salesmanship skills, which in turn enable the salesperson to
navigate through the sales encounter successfully. Moreover,
NRS also positively impact attention and cognition propelling
the effective use of skills (Lee and Turban, 2010) as well as
selling effort (Kanfer and Ackerman, 2000). It is also
interesting to note that salespersons using NRS are more likely
to “recraft” their perceptions of selling tasks to increase their
interest and commitment to an activity (Sansone et al., 1999),
which actually leads to an enhanced effectiveness in their sales
interactions. We, therefore go onto hypothesize the following:
H3a. Salesperson’s NRS positively impacts his/her
salesmanship skills.
H3b. Salesperson’s salesmanship skills positively impact his/
her sales performance.
Kanfer and Heggestad’s (1997) theory of motivational traits
and skills further shapes our understanding that motivation
skills such as NRS exert a positive influence on task-related
processes and performance (Kanfer and Ackerman, 2000). We,
therefore posit salesmanship skills as a key mediator in NRS–
sales performance linkage. For example, salesmanship skills
measure the salesperson’s efficiency in navigating through
various stages of selling process (Rentz et al, 2002), which
outlines a mediating mechanism through which superior sales
performance is achieved. Therefore, a salesperson with
stronger NRS will be more proficient at handling the selling
process effectively. Further, recent research also supports that
salesmanship skills are an important predictor of sales
performance (Rentz et al., 2002; Wachner et al., 2009, Singh
and Venugopal, 2015). Lee and Turban (2010) as well as other
studies (Kanfer and Ackerman, 2000; Kanfer and Heggestad,
1997) have also shown that natural rewards self-management
strategies enhance the efforts and attention of employees, and
make the task at hand more interesting and/or relevant. We
posit that enhanced efforts and attention act as additional
resources that help salespersons to deploy their skills more
effectively to enhance their performance. Moreover, as per the
NRS mechanism, good performance will be enhanced when
 Impact of salesmanship skills
Ramendra Singh, Rakesh Kumar Singh and Diptiman Banerji
tasks are approached in ways that draw on positive attitudes,
personal interests and a sense of purpose (Neck and Manz,
2013); the latter possibly enhancing effects of skills on
performance. Hence, we also hypothesize the following:
H4. Salesperson’s salesmanship skills mediate the
relationship between NRS and sales performance.
Method
Sample
The context of our study was one of the leading emerging
markets – India, the third largest market in the world (IMF,
2016). Several scholars have emphasized the importance of
research in emerging markets given the potential it has to
enhance the marketing science and practice (Sheth, 2011;
Burgess and Steenkamp, 2006). The difference of context
within the sales literature is highlighted by Mantrala et al.
(2012) where they suggest that while the requirement of selling
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skills may be similar in the US versus the Indian settings, it’s the
cultural and economic differences that would warrant suitable
modifications in a salesperson’s selling strategies.
The sample for our study was drawn from the sales division
of a large media organization (US$1.3 billion annual turnover)
in India; this division is responsible for building and expanding
the audience for its various newspaper and magazine brands.
The function is very critical to the business model of this
organization, as the richness and diversity of the audience for its
brands assures deeper access to advertisers who are the key
revenue generators for the firm. In this division, salespersons
offer a range of alternative offerings to their customers
comprising of various subscription packages, wherein they also
assist the customers in selecting the right package based on
hihe/sher requirements. The target customer segments include
hotels, airlines, travel companies, automobile dealerships,
banks, business parks and lounges and spas. The salesperson is
responsible for drawing contracts between the organization and
its customer base on an ongoing basis, leading to a cooperative
relationship between the salesperson and the customer per se.
So, while a salesperson is tasked to generate new leads/clients,
he/she has also to keep tab of the existing client base in terms of
contract renewals. Repeat sales and referrals are critical sources
of business not only for this company, but for many others. The
roles and responsibilities of the salespersons specifically in this
division could be compared to B2B salespersons in other
industries and thus generalizable.
The sampling frame used for this research is consistent with
similar studies in literature (MacKenzie et al., 1993). Using
data from a single firm also allows better control for other
mitigating or confounding effects such as the firm’s incentive
and compensation system, performance outcome measures,
control systems and technology used in sales processes
(Podsakoff et al., 2000).
A survey instrument was sent to 400 B2B salespersons based
at various locations in India, equally distributed among the four
zonal office heads (north, south, east and west); they were
requested to distribute the survey forms among all the sales
executives within their respective zones. Executives in each
zone (92 in the north, 98 in the south, 98 in the west and 90 in
the east) received the survey instrument resulting in a total of
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Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing
Volume 33 · Number 3 · 2018 · 353–364
378 recipients. With the help of the team leaders from the
zones, the researchers ensured that the forms were filled by
the salespersons in a room where no manager was present. Of
the 378 salespersons who received the forms, only 334
salespersons returned the completed forms by post (response
rate = 83 per cent), within a time period of three months. After
gleaning the responses for incomplete or ambiguous data
points, and checking for multivariate normality (using mardia
coefficient) and outliers (using Mahalanobis distance), 317 out
of the 334 (95 per cent) responses were used in the final
analysis. High response rate (83 per cent) and confirmation
from the management team that the respondents profile
represented the company’s sales force in every aspect, reducing
the non-response bias concerns.
Out of a total 317 respondents, only 10 (3 per cent) were
female salespersons, consistent with the overall salesperson
population where only 4 per cent of the sales force is female. All
the respondents were graduates (science/social science/business
studies) and were experienced in the sales function: 55 per cent
had sales experience of 1-3 years, 45 per cent had 4 or more
years of selling experience. The average age of the respondents
was 32 years, and their monthly income range was Rs.25,000-
35,000 (approximately, US$1 = Rs 65).
Measures
Self-reported measures which had previously been validated
(Lee and Turban, 2010; Rozell et al., 2004; Wachner et al.,
2009) were used in our study. For assessing sales performance,
we measured short-term sales performance as recommended
by Chonko et al. (2000). Salespersons’ performance was
operationalized using a self-reported measure of sales
performance developed by Behrman and Perreault (1982),
which captures a salesperson’s accomplishment in terms sales
objectives relative to other salespersons in the team, using a
Likert scale ranging from minus-five (much worse) to zero
(average), to five (much better). Studies in the past have
reported high internal consistency and validity of this measure
(e.g. Rozell et al., 2004 reported a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.85).
For salesmanship skills, we used Rentz et al.’s (2002) four items
corresponding to salesmanship skills as part of his consolidated
scale for measuring selling skills. Selling skills measure reported
a very high reliability for the overall scale (Cronbach’s alpha:
0.94), and its convergent validity for each of the dimensions of
this scale has been found to be robust. Four items from this
scale were used to measure a salesperson’s salesmanship skills.
These items assess the salesperson’s ability to prospect and
qualify customers, to present sales messages and to close calls
successfully. Items are anchored from one (highly unskilled) to
seven (highly skilled).
To measure NRS, we took the revised Self-Leadership
Questionnaire (Houghton and Neck, 2002) from which three
items were used to measure the respondents’ ability to focus on
pleasant aspects of their sales job, as well as their ability to do
things in hihe/sher own way and thus enjoy the entire selling
process. Questions were rated on a five-point scale ranging
from one (very inaccurate) to five (very accurate).
For Emotional Regulation, we chose Schutte et al.’s (1998)
33-item self-report measure of emotional intelligence that
captures the following:
 Impact of salesmanship skills
Ramendra Singh, Rakesh Kumar Singh and Diptiman Banerji
 appraisal and expression of emotions in self and others;
 regulation of emotion in self and others; and
 utilization of emotions in problem-solving actions.
Five representative items from Schutte et al.’s (1998) scale were
used to measure respondent’s ability to regulate emotions in
self and hihe/sher customers. Sample items included
statements like: “I present myself in a way that makes a good
impression on others” and “when I am in a positive
mood solving problems is easy for me”. This scale has been
used earlier in sales research (Rozell et al., 2004, 2006) with
significant internal consistency and construct validity. The
Appendix provides the scale items and its loadings for
constructs used in the study.
Data analysis
We used AMOS 18 software for analyzing the sample data,
after subjecting it to several methods to check for different
forms of bias. At first, we tested for the non-response bias
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(Armstrong and Overton, 1977) by comparing the early and
the late respondents for each of the constructs, wherein no
significant differences were found. Then, we checked the
common method bias using Harman’s one-factor test
(Podsakoff and Organ, 1986), in line with sales studies done in
the past (Agnihotri et al., 2012; Olson et al., 2005), and
common method bias was ruled out because loadings on
multiple manifest factors suggested no significant threat
(Podsakoff and Organ, 1986). We then applied Lindell and
Whitney’s (2001) test for common method bias, which
suggests using a partial correlation procedure including a
marker variable, where we used “age”, but found no significant
relationships with other variables in the model; thus, we ruled
out common method bias too.
Dimensionality of measures and discriminant validity
The construct reliabilities were checked first, wherein it was
found that the construct reliability for all other constructs was
above 0.70 while that of NRS was only slightly less. Cronbach’s
alpha was used for all measures except NRS (a = 0.65), which
exceeds the recommended level of 0 0.70 (Nunnally and
Bernstein, 1994); thus, there is strong evidence in support of
the reliability of measures used in the study. To assess
unidimensionality of measures, a confirmatory factor analysis
model was tested. Fit indices for the model meet the acceptable
levels (Fan and Sivo, 2005; Marsh et al., 2004): CFI was 0.92,
GFI was 0.92 and the SRMR was .05. All items reflected
significant factor loadings (p < 0.05).
AVE of each of the constructs was found to be greater than
the squared correlation for each pair of constructs, thereby
demonstrating significant discriminant validity (Fornell and
Larcker, 1981). A series of chi-square difference tests were also
performed for each pair of constructs using the method
suggested by Anderson and Gerbing (1988). In each analysis,
the data fit better in the unconstrained model as compared to
the constrained model, further suggesting discriminant validity
for the constructs. Multicollinearity was checked by examining
each of the independent variables for variance inflation factor
(VIF), which for all constructs were found to be less than eight,
thus suggesting the absence of significant multicollinearity in
the data (Table I).
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Volume 33 · Number 3 · 2018 · 353–364
Table I Construct correlations, means, construct reliability, AVE and
combat alpha reliability
Variable 1 2 3 4 CR AVE a
1.Natural Rewards 1 0.68 0.39 0.65
2.Salesmanship Skills 0.51* 1 0.75 0.42 0.77
3.Emotion Regulation 0.61* 0.57* 1 0.73 0.41 0.72
4.Sales Performance 0.51* 0.56* 0.65* 1 0.83 0.53 0.85
Notes: CR = Construct Reliability; AVE = average variance extracted; a =
Cronbach’s alpha; *p < 0.01, n = 317
Results
For hypotheses testing, several structural models were tested
and compared for the model fit results. Following Mathieu and
Taylor (2006), and other studies in sales(Ahearne et al, 2008),
three models were fitted to test for hypothesized relationships; a
direct effect model, a no direct effect model and a full model.
Table II presents the summary of model fit indices and
parameter estimates.
We first fitted a direct effect model estimating the direct path
from emotion regulation to NRS, and NRS to sales
performance. In this model, the mediating variables remain as
latent variables and no path stem or lead to mediator variable.
The direct effect model exhibits deficient fit indices ( x 2 = 343.46
(117), p < 0.01; CFI = 0.86; GFI = 0.89; SRMR = 0.14;
RMSEA = 0.08) indicating that NRS has a significant
relationship with at least one mediating variable.
In the second step of the analysis, we fitted a no direct effect
model that includes paths from NRS to a mediating variable;
salesmanship skills and mediating variable to sales
performance. This model does not include the direct effect of
NRS on performance. This model too demonstrates deficient
fit indices ( x 2 = 287.79 (116), p < 0.01; CFI = 0.89; GFI =
0.90; SRMR = 0.07; RMSEA = 0.07). As shown in Table II, all
hypothesized relationships are significant. NRS is significantly
related to salesmanship skills ( b = 0.72, p < 0.01), and
salesmanship skill is significantly related to performance ( b =
0.64, p < 0.01).
Finally, we fitted a full structural model that adds a direct path
from NRS to sales performance. This model demonstrates
acceptable fit indices ( x 2 = 251.39 (115), p < 0.01; CFI = 0.91;
GFI = 0.91; SRMR = 0.05; RMSEA = 0.06) and it suggests
significant improvement over the no direct effect model (D x 2
(1) = 36.4). (Figures 2, 3 and 4)
The various models provide us with valuable information
on the significance of hypothesized relationships in this
study. The direct effect model (Table II) clearly indicates the
importance of a mediating variable in the model. The no
direct effect model (Table II) clearly establishes the
significant role of mediating variable in explaining the
hypothesized relationships. Finally, the full structural model
(Table II) explains this research’s model with the best
clarity, providing support for all the hypothesized
relationships. However, the direct effect of NRS on sales
performance reduces from 0.71 (p < 0.01) indirect effect
model to 0.59 (p < 0.01) in the full structural model, thus
establishing a partial mediation role for salesmanship skills
(Barron and Kenny, 1986). We, therefore, suggest that the
relationship between NRS and performance is transmitted
 Impact of salesmanship skills Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing
Ramendra Singh, Rakesh Kumar Singh and Diptiman Banerji Volume 33 · Number 3 · 2018 · 353–364

Table II Parameter estimates, model fit statistics and variance explained

Hypothesis and test statistic Direct effect model No direct effect model Full hypothesized model
H1: Emotion regulation fi Natural rewards 0.84** 0.83** 0.86**
H2: Natural rewards fi Sales performance 0.71** – 0.59**
H3a: Natural rewards fi Salesmanship skills – 0.72** 0.62**
H3b: Salesmanship skills fi Sales performance – 0.64** 0.19*
Chi square 343.46 287.79 251.39
Degrees of freedom 117 116 115
CFI 0.86 0.89 0.91
GFI 0.89 0.90 0.91
SRMR 0.14 0.07 0.05
RMSEA 0.08 0.07 0.06
Notes: **p < 0.01, *p < 0.05

Figure 2 Direct effect model and further providing results of Sobel test is considered to be
sufficient to establish the existence of partial mediation in
the model.
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Emotion 0.84** Natural 0.71** Sales

rewards
The direct effect of NRS on sales performance is stronger
performance
regulation strategies than indirect effect (0.59 > 0.118) giving evidence that it is a
partial mediation case. Therefore, the impact of the adoption of
NRS by salespersons on their sales performance happens in two
Notes: **p < 0.01 ways: through direct as well as indirect effects. As Table II
shows, all the proposed hypotheses are supported by the data.

Discussion
The results of this study suggest an empirically supported
Figure 3 Indirect effect model integrative model that links emotions, cognitions and skills to
enhance a salesperson’s effectiveness in terms of hihe/sher
Salesmanship performance. This study makes another important attempt to
skills integrate the selling skills as a missing link into the emotion
regulated-NRS-performance linkages and suggests that skill is
0.72** 0.64** indeed the mediator of NRS-performance relationship, while
Emotion Natural Sales
0.83** rewards Performance
most of the previous studies have examined self-efficacy as a
regulation
strategies mediator (Panagopoulos and Ogilvie, 2015). As self-efficacy
remains important, the unexplored constructs of salesmanship
Notes: **p < 0.01 skills highlight a few important aspects of a salesperson’s job. It
highlights that there are upper bounds to how much the sales
force may get motivated through external rewards or even be
controlled following a “carrot and stick” strategy. The indirect
Figure 4 Full hypothesized model effect of salesperson’s NRS on sales performance through the
partial mediation of salesmanship skills highlights the
importance of enhanced engagement in selling related tasks.
Salesmanship
skills The mediation mechanism through which NRS influences
sales performance demonstrates the impact of behavioral self-
0.62** 0.19* regulation on the process through which salespersons achieve
Emotion Natural Sales higher levels of performance. Clearly, NRS as a psychological
0.86** rewards 0.59**
Performance
regulation
strategies phenomenon is an important job resource for a salesperson that
drives hihe/sher efforts and engagement in various stages of the
selling process. Therefore, our results position NRS as a
Notes: **p < 0.01, *p < 0.05 proximate as well as a distal predictor of sales performance.
Moreover, merging the concept of self-management with NRS
does reduce the need for external monitoring and control. We
also find support for our proposition to consider NRS as an
through salesmanship skills. Sobel (1982) test for important job resource for salespersons and build on the
significance of indirect effects shows that test statistic of argument that NRS, when deployed, does considerably reduce
2.04 is significant at p < 0.05. The focal investigation in our the job demands associated with selling. This realization is
paper deals with NR-SP mediation by salesmanship skills. significant in terms of addressing stress and engagement
The method we deployed involved comparing three models elements associated with selling as an occupation. We also

359
 Impact of salesmanship skills
Ramendra Singh, Rakesh Kumar Singh and Diptiman Banerji
demonstrate that emotions and cognitions are linked, which in
turn suggest that NRS is distinct in its operationalization and is
influenced by salesperson’s emotion regulation abilities. All
such linkages are developed on strong theoretical foundations
of JD-R theory, self-regulation theory, motivation and skills
theory and social cognitive theory.
Theoretical implications
Our study contributes to extant literature on natural rewards in
self-management (Manz, 1986; Neck and Manz, 2007) and
demonstrates its efficacy as a positive managerial practice that
helps the sales force to lead themselves. One of the key
outcomes of such practice is that the salesperson’s efforts and
attention on the selling process is not contingent on external
rewards and they rely on intrinsic rewards by re-crafting the job
of selling and making it more meaningful(Lee and Turban,
2010). Recently, Panagopoulos and Ogilvie (2015) suggested
that another branch of self-leadership, (i.e. thought self-
leadership) positively relates with sales performance and argued
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that “[. . .] it would be fruitful if future studies examined other
self-leadership strategies such as natural reward and behavior
focused strategies” (p. 11).
This paper also contributes to extant sales literature by
showing evidence from an emerging market (India), whereby
intrinsic rewards using NRS invoke salespersons to increase
goal persistence over time, similar to what was found in
developed markets (Sansone and Smith, 2000); moreover,
through enhancement of salesmanship skills, NRS eventually
does increase their sales performance. Our results also find
support from a recent meta-analysis on sales performance
drivers suggesting that determinants such as selling-related
knowledge, reduced role ambiguity, cognitive aptitude and
work engagement (Verbeke et al., 2011) are important for sales
performance. The hallmark of our study is that it positions
NRS as an important antecedent to the drivers of sales
performance either directly/indirectly. This in turn has several
theoretical implications: first, NRS as a construct has largely
been ignored in sales research thus far; results from this study
strengthens the on-going efforts on integrating self-leadership
construct into the sales literature (Singh and Venugopal, 2015;
Panagopoulos and Ogilvie, 2015). By examining NRS within a
sales context therefore, the mediation model advances
empirical-based understanding of the outcomes of self-
leadership among frontline sales employees. Second, this study
contributes to extant literature by examining the role of
emotion regulation as an antecedent to NRS, an important
branch of self-leadership. In recent years, the role of emotions
has received greater attention in sales research, and by
incorporating emotion-based self-regulation (Bagozzi, 2006),
we present an integrated effectiveness model for salesperson’s
performance, as well as expand the current understanding of
this important area of inquiry in sales research. Third, as
previous studies (Carmeli et al., 2006) have shown that NRS
were positively correlated with employees’ self-rated innovative
behaviors, the results from our study further the knowledge of
salespersons’ self-regulation, and advance our own
understanding of transformation of emotional traits into self-
rated innovative behaviors. Fourth, our testing of existing
research model suggests that NRS–sales performance link is
partially mediated by salesmanship skills, indicating a boundary
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Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing
Volume 33 · Number 3 · 2018 · 353–364
condition for NRS and sales performance relationships.
Clearly, several variables such as supervisory feedback,
compensation, customer orientation, are likely to moderate
NRS and sales performance relationships. Holistically, this
research thereby aims to establish a foundation for further
investigation into a salesperson’s self-regulatory behaviors and
its impact on performance.
Managerial implications
Our study offers several important managerial implications.
Because salespersons often function remotely in their sales
territories, and given the unstructured nature of selling, NRS
are useful in enhancing satisfaction for salespersons working in
low structure environments (Roberts and Foti, 1998).
Moreover, NRS like other components of self-leadership is a
learned goal-setting behavior (Manz and Neck, 2003; Manz,
1986) thus amenable to be learned as a set of behavioral skills
(Latham, 1989). This can be expectedly imparted to
salespersons through internal training programs of
organizations to ensure that the sales force is able to inculcate
these skills over a period of time. Self-leadership training,
especially focusing on natural reward strategies, should be
given to less-conscientious salespersons for motivating them to
exhibit goal-setting behaviors (Barrick and Mount, 1993).
High-conscientious salespersons are more likely to engage in
goal-setting behavior through self-direction, leading to higher
customer satisfaction in service settings (Bitner et al., 1990) .
Sales managers would benefit by including tests and
measurements on emotional regulation in saleforce selection
and recrtuiment processes. A sales force with a large majority
being high on emotion regultion, can be an important asset for
any organization. Another implication is in the way a
salesperson’s NRS can influence hihe/sher peer group. With the
growing practice of developing and mentoring self-leading
teams, firms can use high NRS salespersons as informal leaders
within sales teams. This in turn would help the firms reduce
role demands of managers and thereby bring down supervision
costs considerably by constituting self-leading teams.
Recognizing salespersons with high NRS and adjusting
supervisory monitoring could help managers in optimizing
supervisory resources, resulting in higher level of sales
performance. Finally, we also suggest that sales force in
emerging markets can be motivated by emotion regulation
training to promote the use of NRS. Moreover, to encourage
salespersons to use NRS, sales managers could provide
incentives, as well as link it to the performance appraisal system
of the organization. A critical implication of this study therefore
is to help managers realize that it’s about time for them to move
away from using extrinsic rewards as incentives toward
imbibing intrinsic rewards such as NRS.
Limitations and future research
This study has its own set of limitations. First, the cross-sectional
nature of data limits our ability to deduce causality in our study,
which can be overcome by using a sample of longitudinal data or
designing experiments. The second limitation comes from the
choice of the sample used in the study, comprising the sales force
from one single firm. Though this does provide a trade-off in
terms of inherent control over confounding factors, it does limit
the empirical generalizability of the results. Another limitation of
 Impact of salesmanship skills
Ramendra Singh, Rakesh Kumar Singh and Diptiman Banerji
our study is that it might be subject to gender bias, as our sample
consists of primarily of male respondents. Further, we examined
only one branch of self-leadership as a consequence of emotion
regulation; future research should consider other two branches,
that is, behavior-focused strategies and constructive thought
pattern strategies to fully test the combined effect on sales
performance. Our study examined emotion regulation and NRS
linkages with sales performance at an individual salesperson level,
we did not consider any variables at a managerial or
organizational level, which could potentially influence our results.
Also, our study did not explore other intervening variables in the
NRS linkage with salesmanship skills and sales performance;
more specifically the NRS and sales performance relationship,
which is likely to be moderated by role ambiguity, supervisory
feedback and control systems; this too could be an area of future
research.
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Ramendra Singh, Rakesh Kumar Singh and Diptiman Banerji Volume 33 · Number 3 · 2018 · 353–364

Optimal Motivation and Performance, Academic Press, San Appendix

Diego, CA, pp. 341-372.
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Table AI Scale items and loadings
“Once a boring task always a boring task? Interest as a self-
regulatory mechanism”, Journal of Personality and Social Emotion regulation (Schutte et al., 1998)
psychology, Vol. 63 No. 3, pp. 379-390. I present myself in a way that makes a good 0.68
Singh, R. and Das, G. (2013), “The impact of job satisfaction, impression on others
adaptive selling behaviors and customer orientation on By looking at their facial expressions, I 0.66
salesperson’s performance: exploring the moderating role of recognize the emotions people are experiencing
selling experience”, Journal of Business & Industrial When I am in a positive mood, I am able to 0.62
Marketing, Vol. 28 No. 7, pp. 554-564. come up with new ideas
Walker, O.C., Jr., Churchill, G.A. and Ford, N.M. (1977), I have control over my emotions 0.61
“Motivation and performance in industrial selling: present I motivate myself by imagining a good outcome 0.63
knowledge and needed research”, Journal of Marketing to tasks I take on
Research, Vol. 14 No. 2, pp. 156-168.
Natural rewards strategies (Houghton and Neck, 2002)
Whittler, T.E. (1994), “Eliciting consumer choice heuristics:
I focus my thinking on the pleasant rather than 0.59
sales representatives’ persuasion strategies”, Journal of
the unpleasant aspects of my job activities
Personal Selling & Sales Management, Vol. 14 No. 4,
I seek out activities in my work that I enjoy 0.66
pp. 41-53.
doing
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I find my own favorite way to get things done 0.62

Salesmanship skills (Rentz et al., 2002)
Ability to prospect for customers 0.70
Ability to qualify prospects 0.64
Ability to close the sale 0.64
Ability to present the sales message 0.62
Sales performance (Behrman and Perreault, 1982)
My ability to generate higher revenue in my 0.68
territory
My ability to quickly generate sales of new 0.66
company products
My ability to produce higher market share for 0.77
my company in my territory
My ability to exceed sales targets and 0.79
objectives assigned to me
My ability to identify and sell to major 0.74
customers in my territory

Corresponding author
Ramendra Singh can be contacted at: ramendra@iimcal.
ac.in

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