Abstract
This research focuses on the impact that salesperson knowledge and empowering leader behaviors have on salesperson working smarter and
working harder behaviors. In turn, we examine the impact of working harder and smarter on customer service, customer satisfaction, and
ultimately, on sales performance. Moreover, we propose an interactive relationship, whereby the influences of leader empowering behaviors and
salespersons' knowledge will be moderated by salespersons' experience. We tested our hypotheses using survey data from a sample of 175 sales
people in the pharmaceutical field, along with external ratings of salespersons' knowledge from sales managers, customer ratings of sales
satisfaction and service, and archival measures of salespersons' effort and performance. Results indicate that contrary to popular belief, employees
with low levels of product/industry experience benefit the most from leader empowering behaviors. Also, we find that employees with lower
levels of experience and higher levels of knowledge are more inclined to work harder. We conclude with directions for future research.
© 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.