Emotional intelligence and boundary-spanning behavior among door-to-door salespeople

Abstract

This study examines the impact of emotional intelligence (EI) on boundary-spanning behavior, relationship quality, and performance among door-to-door salespeople. Data is collected from salespeople and customers of South Korean door-to-door cosmetics businesses and analyzed using structural equation modeling. The findings show that EI positively affects boundary-spanning behavior. Similarly, boundary-spanning behavior improves relationship quality, which improves both sales performance and customer satisfaction. This suggests that EI plays an important role in salespeople's boundary-spanning behavior, thereby enhancing relationship quality, sales performance, and customer satisfaction. Unlike previous studies, this study makes use of actual sales volumes, salespeople's self-reporting responses, and salespeople's customer-reporting, which adds to the findings' uniqueness. The present study highlights that EI improves boundary-spanning behavior, which is vital in developing relationship quality, improving sales performance, and increasing customer satisfaction. The study uses triadic data from door-to-door salespeople, customers, and sales organizations extensively, which is unusual in this field.