Self-discipline and protective self-monitoring in sales: a latent growth curve analysis

Abstract

Field sales jobs receive continued attention in research because of their importance to the success of enterprises. This study aimed to test how self-discipline and protective self-monitoring impact the predicted performance of field salespeople in three consecutive years. Previous research found that organizational tenure is a predictor of the core task performance in a broad variety of jobs. We hypothesized that trait self-discipline will moderate the tenure–performance relation. Furthermore, we hypothesized that the protective self-monitoring personality trait will lead to more other-directed impression management behaviors if this trait is activated by social stress associated with a low-prestige educational background. We predictively assessed the impact of trait self-discipline and protective self-monitoring on objective sales performance data drawn from the archival data of N = 147 salespeople (84% males, Mage = 38.9 years) with a latent growth curve analysis. In line with our hypotheses we found that the higher the self-discipline, the more strongly tenure predicted sales performance. Furthermore, we found that the protective self-monitoring trait predicted increases in sales performance when salespeople had a low prestigious educational background. Unexpectedly, we additionally found that when salespeople had a prestigious educational background, low protective self-monitoring also predicted increases in sales performance.