Salesperson performance research suggests that role perceptions, motivation, and personal ability affect sales effectiveness. Personal ability has been somewhat neglected in marketing research. The present study attempted to address this by investigating the effects of two interacting personality traits (empathy and Machiavellianism), a communication skill (self-monitoring), and gender on objective and subjective measures of sales performance. The results indicated that the combination of gender and selected personality traits did have a statistically significant effect on objective, but not subjective, measures of adaptive sales performance. Theoretical and managerial implications were discussed, clearly indicating the centrality and value of self-monitoring.
Ricks et al. (Thu,) studied this question.