SALESPERSON BURNOUT: A TEST OF THE COPING-MEDIATIONAL MODEL OF SOCIAL SUPPORT

Salesperson burnout continues to be a major concern among sales organizations. In this work, the authors examine whether certain coping strategies mediate the impact of sales manager support on salesperson burnout; as suggested by Thoits's (1986) Coping-Mediational Model. More specifically, this work investigates if problem-focused coping and emotion-focused coping mediate the impact of sales manager support on feelings of emotional exhaustion in a field sales setting. Study findings indicate that positive sales manager support has a significant negative direct effect on salespersons' emotional exhaustion. Findings also support the assertion that sales manager support encourages salespersons' use of problem-focused coping strategies that, in turn, further reduce emotional exhaustion. In contrast, sales manager support does not significantly influence salespersons' use of emotion-focused coping; however, emotion-focused coping does significantly increase emotional exhaustion.