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Humor Usage by Salespeople: A Socio-Psychological Inquiry of Antecedents and Outcomes in Professional Selling

Wang, Valerie
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5843-0896
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1501689407960839

Abstract Details

2017, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, Individual Interdisciplinary Program.
As a cue for laughter in interpersonal communications, humor has been observed in various professional selling occasions. This dissertation aims at quantitatively investigate the antecedents and outcomes of salespeople’s humor usage in sales communications. A research framework with ten hypotheses is built to describe why or when humor messages are created by salespeople, and then why or how humor messages, as an interpersonal sales communication tool, influence various performance outcomes in professional selling. It is proposed that humor usage by salespeople is positively influenced by higher creativity, stronger learning orientation, greater sales effort, and a higher degree of role stress represented by role ambiguity, role conflict, and task overload. In turn, humor usage by salespeople may positively influence customer relationship quality in terms of trust, commitment, and relationship satisfaction, as well as salespeople’s job performance. To test the hypotheses, a series of multiple regression analyses are performed using survey data collected from 407 salespeople. The results provide insights about salespeople humor usage in a number of aspects. First, creative salespeople are more likely to find the appropriate and actionable contextual cues to form humor messages in professional selling. Second, with higher learning orientation through routine observation and interaction with customers, peers, and competitors, salespeople can become more adept at creating humor messages for particular customers and situations. Third, humor usage is a stress reliever for stressed salespeople who encounter role ambiguity. Fourth, through improving customers’ cognitive and affective experiences, salespeople’s humor usage in sales communications ultimately enhances customer relationship quality and job performance. Overall, the findings suggest that salespeople humor usage in sales communications act as a useful marketing mechanism that produces positive organizational outcomes. The new knowledge created by this dissertation not only offers a fresh perspective for researchers, but also shed light on sales management practices and marketing communications.
Gregory Newton (Committee Chair)
Parul Jain (Committee Member)
Catherine Axinn (Committee Member)
147 p.
Communication; Marketing
Marketing; Sales Communication; Learning Orientation; Creativity; Job Performance; Customer Relationship

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Wang, V. (2017). Humor Usage by Salespeople: A Socio-Psychological Inquiry of Antecedents and Outcomes in Professional Selling [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1501689407960839

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Wang, Valerie. Humor Usage by Salespeople: A Socio-Psychological Inquiry of Antecedents and Outcomes in Professional Selling. 2017. Ohio University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1501689407960839.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Wang, Valerie. "Humor Usage by Salespeople: A Socio-Psychological Inquiry of Antecedents and Outcomes in Professional Selling." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1501689407960839

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ohiou1501689407960839
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© 2017, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Ohio University and OhioLINK.