Leveraging coping flexibility to ease emotional exhaustion in salespeople

In the sales realm, the ability of salespeople to effectively cope with varying demands is critical to their performance and emotional well-being. This study investigates coping flexibility as an adaptive approach that affects salesperson emotional exhaustion and subsequent performance. Furthermore, this research examines the moderating effects of perceived managerial support and organizational competitive climate. Drawing from a dataset of 241 sales professionals across different sectors, we conducted cross-sectional and post hoc longitudinal analyses. Our findings indicate that, on average, coping flexibility is significantly associated with decreased emotional exhaustion and improved performance metrics. However, longitudinal analyses reveal a more complex dynamic in which weekly increases in coping flexibility use temporarily heighten emotional exhaustion, even though higher average coping flexibility reduces it over time. Moreover, perceived managerial support amplified, rather than buffered, this short-term positive association between the use of coping flexibility and emotional exhaustion. Competitive climate did not significantly moderate this relationship. These results expose the nuanced interplay between salesperson coping mechanisms and various external characteristics and highlight the findings at both between- and within-salesperson levels. We unpack these findings and discuss their theoretical implications for understanding the dynamics of salesperson performance and emotional exhaustion, alongside practical recommendations for managers and avenues for future research.