The dose makes the poison: Investigating the optimum level of a salesperson's charisma

Author(s)
Sandra Pauser, Udo Wagner
Abstract

What makes someone charismatic? Charismatic individuals – whether actors, politicians, celebrities, or athletes – possess the ability to articulate themselves through specific behaviours that inspire others. Recent research has confirmed that charisma is learnable, and that it relates to various performance and organizational outcomes in multiple fields. Although this stream of research has contributed a great deal of insight, there is still limited understanding of how to develop charisma and whether there exists an optimum level (i. e., saturation) of charisma, especially in the personal selling domain. The present article reviews the extant literature, derives four hypotheses on the effects of various training methods on customer responses, and collects empirical data in the field. The findings indicate a positive effect of charisma training on perceived charisma and favourable customer response.

Organisation(s)
Department of Accounting, Innovation and Strategy
Journal
Marketing ZFP - Journal of Research and Management
Volume
40
Pages
35 - 47
No. of pages
13
ISSN
0344-1369
DOI
https://doi.org/10.15358/0344-1369-2018-1-35
Publication date
2018
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
502019 Marketing
Keywords
ASJC Scopus subject areas
Social Psychology, Marketing
Portal url
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/the-dose-makes-the-poison-investigating-the-optimum-level-of-a-salespersons-charisma(aa6eb42c-ada7-4e2e-ab24-6324087145b7).html