The role of organisational ethical climate and management support in the sales performance goal pressure and ethical behaviour relationship

Abstract

Salespeople’s ethical behaviour has a significant part in maintaining the reputation of organisations in South Africa. While performance goal pressure is necessary for optimum sales performance, failure to act ethically can harm the organisation’s brand image. However, there are indications in literature that pressure can impact behaviour. This research employed a quantitative explanatory cross-sectional design, gathering responses from 212 participants in total to test the relationships between performance goal pressure, organisational ethical climate, and perceived management support as predictors, with salesperson ethical behaviour as the predicted variable. The analysis controlled for the influence of age, gender, business model, years of experience, education level, industry type and years of experience under the same manager. The analysis depicted that higher performance goal pressure was associated with lower ethical behaviour among salespeople. Furthermore, it was found that an organisational ethical climate intensifies the adverse effects of performance goal pressure on salespeople's ethical behaviour. However, perceived management support did not correlate with salesperson ethical behaviour nor moderate the relationship between performance goal pressure and salesperson ethical behaviour. Organisations looking to decrease unethical practices within sales teams must thoroughly understand the interactions between these constructs. Putting an organisational climate in place and management which motivates the salespeople to abide by the rules and regulations will lessen harmful effects and could assist in protecting the ethical reputation of the organisation.