Effects of Goal-Directed Emotions on Salesperson Volitions, Behavior, and Performance: A Longitudinal Study

The authors investigate the motivational effects of emotions in a sales force context. The personal stakes that salespeople have in a goal situation triggered anticipation of emotions that result from attaining or failing to attain their performance goal. Positive anticipatory emotions were positively related to volitions and mediated the relationship between personal stakes and volitions. Goal attainment was positively related to positive outcome emotions and negatively related to negative outcome emotions. Goal-directed behavior was positively associated with positive outcome emotions, independently of goal attainment. The findings suggest that emotions are an important driving force behind sales force motivation. The authors discuss the implications for sales management, theory development, and further research. A ttempts to identify the motivational antecedents of sales performance constitute one of the longeststanding research streams in marketing research (Churchill et al. 1985). This research, however, has generally neglected a basic psychological factor likely to affect sales force motivation, behavior, and performance: emotions. Although personal selling is a profession in which emotional highs and lows are commonplace, existing research provides little indication of how emotions are related to motivation, behavior, and performance. The research literature suggests that salesperson motivation results primarily from rational thought processes, unaffected by emotions. Yet emotions constitute a powerful psychological force that can affect behavior and performance in