The effect of workplace spirituality on salespeople's organisational deviant behaviours: research propositions and practical implications

Abstract

Purpose

Recent survey data suggest that salespeople's organisational deviant behaviours such as fudging an expense report, putting off work-related duties to attend to personal things etc. are growing uncontrollably out in the field. Directed towards the goal of mitigating these behaviours, this research attempts to apply the novel perspective of workplace spirituality. Jurkiewicz and Giacalone's value framework of workplace spirituality which consists of ten values (benevolence, generativity, humanism, integrity, justice, mutuality, receptivity, respect, responsibility and trust) is used to propose the theoretical linkages with salespeople's organisational deviant behaviours. The paper concludes with directions for further research, managerial implications and teaching implications.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper is a conceptual work, which derives research propositions from an extended literature review.

Findings

It is proposed that the ten values (benevolence, generativity, humanism, integrity, justice, mutuality, receptivity, respect, responsibility and trust) of value framework of workplace spirituality negatively affect salespeople's organizational deviant behaviours.

Research limitations/implications

Future research can extend the conceptual framework to salespeople's interpersonal and frontline deviant behaviours.

Practical implications

First, this paper attempts to help sales managers to fight out the epidemic of deviant behaviours by suggesting that adopting workplace spirituality could reduce salespeople's organisational deviant behaviours. Second, by proposing negative effect on organisational deviant behaviours, this paper extends the list of potential benefits of workplace spirituality in sales organisation to suggest that adopting workplace spirituality could be a sound sales strategy.

Originality/value

This is the first study in marketing literature which attempts to integrate workplace spirituality and salespeople's negative (deviant) behaviours.

Citation

Chawla, V. (2014), "The effect of workplace spirituality on salespeople's organisational deviant behaviours: research propositions and practical implications", Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Vol. 29 No. 3, pp. 199-208. https://doi.org/10.1108/JBIM-08-2012-0134