Despite contemporary shifts in sales organizations toward more collaborative work, the sales
profession tends to comprise many individuals with a psychological preference to work alone,
known as “lone wolf tendencies” (LWT). For this reason, theory about LWT has been almost
exclusively developed in the sales literature. The current literature has largely assumed that lone
wolfism is an innate characteristic, and results have been mixed with regard to the relationship
between LWT and sales performance. This study considers an alternative to this prevailing
assumption and proposes a nurture model of LWT in which one’s level of exposure to social
workplace interactions (i.e., social comparison and career mentoring) may influence LWT. Our
research questions are tested in a sample of 279 business-to-business (B2B) and business-toconsumer
(B2C) salespeople using structural equation modeling. Results support our social
learning-based hypotheses and reveal a positive association between LWT and job involvement
and performance via the mechanism of concern over mistakes. These results suggest an extension
to the current understanding of LWT at work and open a dialogue concerning the influence
of social context on creating and reinforcing the lone wolf phenomenon.
Success in today’s business world requires multiple interactions
across a number of functional areas of the firm
(Kahn 2009). Achieving work process goals is often
conceptualized as depend