ANTECEDENTS AND CONSEQUENCES OF INFORMATION OVERLOAD ON RETAIL SALESPERSONS

ABSTRACT

Salespersons' Information Overload is a state experienced by a sales team suffering from a great volume of information in their activities. This phenomenon can affect both the professional performance of the salesperson and of the organization as a whole. This research is a new application of Hunter and Goebel’s (2008) study about the impact of Salesperson Information Overload on sales people, where antecedents such as Polychronic Attitude, Role Overload and Need for Cognition, and consequences, such as Job Satisfaction and Sales Performance, were analyzed. The relevance of this work is associated with the innovation promoted in relation to the original research, as sales people from a different area of the industry (physical retail stores) were used instead. We have also applied the Structural Equation Modeling, a more appropriate technique for the analysis of causal relationships. The results demonstrated a significant positive relation between Role Overload and Need for Cognition, pointing out that a salesperson with more Need for Cognition can suffer less from the effects of Information Overload. It was also observed that Information Overload reduces both Job Satisfaction and Sales Performance.

Information Overload; Polychronic Attitude; Need for Cognition; Role Overload; Retail Sales Performance; Job Satisfaction