Navigating the Demands of Increasing Customer Participation Through Firm and Individual Job Resources

Link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0019850121001322

Studies have shown firms can improve performance by involving their customers when developing products and services. For companies in business-to-business (B2B) markets, which typically have relatively few customers, the effects can be especially pronounced.

As firms work toward greater customer participation, salespeople are often tasked to do the work of involving customers in the product and service development process. The existing literature suggests that increasing customer participation expectations may increase salespeople burnout, but it says little about what other outcomes one may expect, such as how much they invest in professional development resources.

Using the job demands-resources model as its theoretical background, this study simultaneously incorporates firm- and individual-level job resources (i.e., job autonomy and belief in innate selling ability) to understand negative (i.e., burnout) and positive (i.e., investment in resources) salesperson outcomes. The researchers posit seven hypotheses:

1. Customer participation is positively related to salesperson burnout.
2. Customer participation is positively related to salesperson investment in resources.
3. Job autonomy is negatively related to salesperson burnout.
4. Job autonomy is positively related to salesperson investment in resources.
5. Belief in innate selling ability is positively related to salesperson burnout.
6. Belief in innate selling ability is negatively related to salesperson investment in resources.
7. Salesperson burnout is negatively related to salesperson investment in resources.

The study examines the variables’ relationships using a survey of 210 B2B salespeople. The researchers test their hypotheses using multiple group structural equation modeling, a strategy often used to examine moderation effects. They create two groups for use in the model: salespeople operating in a high-competitive intensity environment and salespeople operating in a low-competitive intensity environment.

The study’s findings demonstrate increased customer participation does not increase salesperson burnout. Specifically, salespeople perceiving their firm as increasing customer participation expectations do not burn out more than others. Rather, increasing job autonomy, which firms can provide in the process of inciting customer participation, can reduce burnout.

Salespeople’s individually-determined belief in their innate selling ability, however, does lead to increased burnout in the context of increase customer participation. Researchers and practitioners must therefore employ a broader job demands-resources model to understand customer participation’s effects on salespeople.

The study demonstrates both job demands and resources can influence a salesperson’s decision to acquire skills and resources. Increased customer participation leads salespeople to rise to the challenge and increase investment in professional development, regardless of competitive intensity. Job autonomy also has a positive impact on resource investment in both high- and low-competitive intensity environments.

Finally, the researchers find belief in innate selling ability decreases a salesperson’s resource investment—though only in low-competitive intensity environments. Attaining skills and resources helps salespeople and their firms become more effective; therefore, this study offers a positive perspective on how sales jobs can be structured. Increases in customer participation and job autonomy can motivate salespeople to align their investments with actions improving company performance.

B2B firms have embraced customer participation as a way to improve product and service quality, boost new product performance, reduce innovation time-to-market, and strengthen key customer ties to forge long-term, profitable relationships. But to optimize its benefits, firms must find a way to mitigate customer participation’s potentially deleterious effects. This study provides new insights for how B2B firms can set policies to enhance salesperson well-being and effectiveness. For B2B firms, nowhere is reducing employee burnout more critical than in sales, where turnover threatens customer relationships and negatively affects revenue goals. Management must empower salespeople with a greater sense of control as they take on expanding roles due to increased customer participation expectations. Firms must carefully select, place, and train personnel when increasing customer participation expectations, recognizing salespeople’s belief in their innate selling ability can cause them to burn out.

Although this study’s findings provide new insights into the relationship between customer participation and salesperson outcomes, it has some limitations potentially leading to important future research. The study is based on a cross-sectional survey, examines salesperson perceptions of the increase in customer participation broadly, focuses on the influence customer participation has on the
emotional exhaustion component of burnout, and relies on a conceptual framework building on a limited set of job demands and resources. Subsequent work can build on the study’s findings to offer firms even more guidance as they increase investments in customer participation.