Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Communication apprehension and salesperson performance—what gift of what gab?∗

1989; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 5; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/0267257x.1989.9964097

1472-1376

Leyland Pitt, B. Ramaseshan,

Public Relations and Crisis Communication

While the importance of communication and communication skills is emphasised in most texts on selling, communication in selling has not received much research attention. While the effect of communication apprehension on a multitude of psychological and performance variables has been studied in other disciplines, it has not been extensively examined by sales researchers. This study considers communication in the sales transaction from the perspective of communication apprehension, and investigates the role of communication apprehension as an indicator of a salesperson's performance. Using logistic regression, an attempt is made to predict a salesperson's performance based on the four contexts of communication apprehension. The results show that it is possible to predict salesperson performance with reasonable accuracy in some categories of selling situations. Furthermore, some contexts of communication apprehension are found to be better predictors than others.