Ethical Sales Behavior, Relationship Quality, and Customer Loyalty
When you think about sales as developing and maintaining relationships, the ethical demands on your practices are at a premium. Read this journal article on the connections between ethical sales behavior, relationships, and customer loyalty. Ethics in the sales profession is essential to long-term success.
Conceptual Framework and Hypotheses Development
Conceptual Framework
It is now possible to develop an overall model summarizing the hypotheses and reflects a causal ordering derived from the literature reviewed above. The proposed structural model guiding this research is depicted in Figure 1. It builds on core linkages between study variables: ethical sales behavior, customer trust, customer commitment and customer loyalty. As can be seen in the figure, the relationship quality as mediator consists of tow constructs: customer trust and customer commitment.
The research hypotheses are represented in the Figure. Ethical sales behavior is believed to have a positive relationship with customer trust, customer commitment and customer loyalty (H1, H2 and H6). It is suggested also that the relationship quality variables: trust and commitment, lead to customer loyalty to the bank (H4 and H5). Customer trust is posited to have a positive influence on customer commitment (H3). Finally, as for indirect effects, customer trust and customer commitment are proposed as the key mediators that connect or bridge ethical sales behavior with customer loyalty (H7).
Figure 1. The conceptual model
Research Hypotheses
The hypothesized relationships of the proposed structural model guiding this research are illustrated in Figure 1.
Therefore, to examine these relationships the following hypotheses are formulated:
H1: Ethical sales behavior has a positive effect on customer trust in the bank.
H2: Ethical sales behavior has a positive effect on customer commitment to the bank.
H3: Customer trust in the Bank has a positive effect on customer commitment to the Bank.
H4: Customer trust in the Bank has positive effect on customer loyalty to the bank.
H5: Customer commitment to the Bank has a positive effect on customer loyalty to the bank.
H6: Ethical sales behavior has a positive direct effect on customer loyalty to the bank.
H7: Relationship quality (i.e. Customer trust and Customer commitment) mediates the effect of ethical sales behavior on customer loyalty to the bank.