Psychological Type and Sales Orientation-Customer Orientation

Abstract

A business firm expects that salespersons' degree of customer orientation will be compatible with the extent to which the firm itself has adopted the marketing concept. Customer orientation is an important behavior on the part of salespersons, yet it has received relatively little attention from organizational researchers. Differing psychological types show promise as a tool by which a salesperson S performance can be predicted. This exploratory research was designed to evaluate the relationships between individuals' psychological type preferences and their customer orientation. This study found Jungian psychological types to be significantly related to salespersons' customer orientation. These findings suggest that personality types can play a supplemental role in salesperson selection and training. Managerial implications and suggestions for future research are also presented.