Date of Conferral

2015

Degree

Doctor of Business Administration (D.B.A.)

School

Management

Advisor

Lynn Szostek

Abstract

United States business leaders spend $15 billion per year on sales training, but approximately 50% of salespeople still fail to reach their annual sales targets. Business leaders have limited understanding of the relationship between emotional intelligence and its central constructs (self-perception, self-expression, interpersonal, decision making, and stress management) and sales performance of sales professionals based in the United States. The purpose of this correlational research study was to examine the relationship between emotional intelligence and sales performance via an online pre-existing emotional intelligence assessment. The theoretical framework incorporated emotional intelligence theory and job performance theory. The sample included 86 technology sales professionals working in the United States who were recruited through a nonrandom purposive sampling method. The correlation results showed an association exists between decision making and sales performance (r = .310, n = 73; p Ë? .01). For all 6 predictor variables, the regression model was not a significant predictor of sales performance, F(6,66) = 1.295, p = .272, R-² = .105. By including only decision making, the linear regression model was a significant predictor of sales performance, F(1,71) = 7.550, p Ë? .01, R-² = .096. The results were not generalizable, but suggest that decision making is significant in achieving sales performance. These results suggest that higher decision making skills lead to higher sales performance. Social implications for sales and business leaders include using these results to seek and hire emotionally intelligent sales professionals and training existing sales professionals about emotional intelligence competencies to improve company-wide sales performance.

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