FACTORS AFFECTING SALESPERSON PERFORMANCE IN SMEs CREATIVE INDUSTRY OF ...

Asyhari, Sitty Yuwalliatin

FACTORS AFFECTING SALESPERSON PERFORMANCE IN SMEs CREATIVE INDUSTRY

OF CENTRAL JAVA

JAM

18, 1

Received, October 2019 Revised, October 2019

November 2019 December 2019 Accepted, December 2019

Asyhari Faculty of Economics Universitas Islam Sultan Agung

Sitty Yuwalliatin Faculty of Economics Universitas Islam Sultan Agung

Abstract: This study aims to examine the influence of emotional intelligence, spiritual intelligence, personality and competency toward salesperson performance in SMEs Creative Industry of Central Java. The research uses survey design which a quantitative approach. Data collected from 150 respondents by distributing questionnaires, and then Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) is used to test the hypotheses. The finding of this study demonstrated that emotional intelligence, spiritual intelligence, personality and competency have a positive influence on salesperson performance. The originality of this study is the important role of the internal salesperson in order to enrich the sales management literature. This research has limitations related to indicators are used; therefore future researchers are suggested to expand the indicators of measure salesperson performance and other variables.

Keywords: emotional intelligence, spiritual intelligence, personality, competency, salesperson performance

Cite this article as: Asyhari and S. Yuwalliatin. 2020. Factors Affecting Salesperson Performance in SMEs Creative Industry of Central Java. Jurnal Aplikasi Manajemen, Volume 18, Number 1, Pages 168?180. Malang: Universitas Brawijaya. ub.jam.2020.018.01.17

Journal of Applied Management (JAM) Volume 18 Number 1, December 2019 Indexed in Google Scholar

Corresponding Author: Asyhari, Faculty of Economics Universitas Islam Sultan Agung, DOI: 10.21776/ub.jam.2020.018. 01.17

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) have proven as a major contributor to the country's economy. SMEs play an important role in creating employment and contributing to socio-economic development (Bowen, Morara, and Mureithi, 2009; Tambunan, 2005). In Indonesia, SMEs are independent businesses, in the form of individual businesses, entities, or cooperatives, and are not

large business subsidiaries (Handoko, Soegoto, Wahab, and Wahdiniwaty, 2016; Rahadi, 2016). According to data from the Indonesian Ministry of Cooperatives and SMEs, the number of SMEs reached 63 million, with micro scale details of 62,106,900 business units (98.70%), small businesses 757,090 units (1.20%), and medium businesses 58,627 units (0.09%) ().

The government continues to foster SMEs to incorporate creative products into the digital market and penetrate export markets abroad. Data shows that SMEs in 2017 increased by 2.06 percent, from 61,651,177 units to 62,922,617 units with a market share of 99.99 percent. But the increase

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Factors Affecting Salesperson Performance in SMEs Creative Industry of Central Java

in the number of SMEs in Indonesia was not accompanied by an increase in non-oil exports, with a market share of only 14.17 percent compared to large businesses which contributed 85.53 percent (depkop.go.id). Even though SMEs have received technical, management, capital and business advocacy assistance from the government, their business performance is still low, making it difficult to develop business (Octavia, 2017).

The salesperson is an important element in the sales process (Abdullah and Wibisono, 2013; Reid, 2015; Williams, Spiro, and Fine, 1990). Salesperson performance is one of the factors driving the company's success (Aqmala and Ardyan, 2019). The salesperson in companies has a vital role because they are required to meet sales targets, building a relationship and corporate image through the services provided to customers (Purwanto, 2002). Salesperson plays a key role not only in customer relationship management but also in understanding, creating, communicating and delivering value to customers, which in turn increases sales of company performance (Wisker and Poulis, 2015). Although the company has a good product, without the support of its marketing and sales personnel were adequate, the product will be in vain (Adiyanto and Sunaryo, 2017).

A study on the performance of salesperson has attracted much attention from various researches to find out the combination of effective factors (Yakasai and Jan 2015), but the factors that influence the success of a salesperson's performance are still debated because they are determined by many factors (Udayana, Farida, and Ardan, 2019). Therefore this study focuses on internal employees to identify the factors.

Emotional intelligence contributes 80% of a person's success compared to intellectual intelligence (Goleman, 2000). Emotional intelligence is a strong factor for predicting performance (Rangarajan and Jayamala, 2014; Sastre Castillo and Danvila Del Valle, 2017; Vratskikh, Al-Lozi, and Maqableh, 2016). Wisker and Poulis (2015) argued that individual high emotional intelligence tends to show a higher level of performance results. Muhammad Ali (2018) states emotional intelligence is the ability to

realize and understand one's own emotions to understand the emotional reactions of others that produce better, deeper and stronger relationships.

Another intelligence that is believed to make someone work better, think creatively, and have a view is spiritual intelligence (Trihandini, 2005; Zohar and Marshall, 2000). Sulistiyani (2017) concluded spirituality in the workplace is work meaningfulness, work based on passion, delighted in the task of responsibility, solidarity, and harmony among employees. It is proven by the significant positive impact on employee innovative behavior. Research by Arti (2018) showed that the higher the spiritual intelligence, the better the performance of human resources.

Although existing research recognizes the importance of aspects of emotional and spiritual intelligence (Malik and Tariq, 2016; Noermijati, Sunaryo, and Ratri, 2019; Sharma and Upadhyaya, 2018), but the role of emotional intelligence is not well-explained in the literature on the performance of salesperson (Kadic-Maglajlic, Vida, Obadia, and Plank, 2016). The results of several studies state that emotional intelligence has a negative relationship with employee performance (Baxter, Hayward, and Amos, 2008), meanwhile other research concluded that emotional intelligence does not directly influence the salesperson's performance (Wisker and Poulis, 2015). The results of other studies explained emotional intelligence has a direct and positive impact on creativity, but the influence spirituality intelligence is weak (Rodrigues, Jorge, Pires, and Ant?nio, 2019).

Based on the phenomenon and research gap, this study proposed to integrates emotional and spiritual intelligence, personality and competency factors as factors that contribute positively to the human resources performance. This study offers this specific idea with the following arguments: first, a salesperson with high emotional intelligence can manage emotions more effectively against the pressure of work targets imposed on him. Krishnan, Mahphoth, Ahmad, and A'yudin (2018) stated that competencies of emotional intelligence could actually affect employee performance in the workplace. Second, a salesperson that has the capability of intelligence to give meaning or value in the job will

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have the resilience to face and solve problems. Spiritual intelligence and personality traits are two important components and have a meaningful role in the organization (Farsani, Arofzad, and Hosaini, 2013; Sancoko, Setiawan, and Troena, 2019). Third, salesperson skills determine the success or failure of a company in achieving its goal. A salesperson who has good competence will produce good quality service to customers (Zakaria, Ferdinand, and Raharjo, 2017). Research by Punwatkar and Varghese (2014) showed that product knowledge, listening ability, convincing skills, handling objections, and interpersonal skills are the main competencies that affect salesperson performance.

Based on the explanation above, this study aims to examine the role of emotional intelligence, spiritual intelligence, personality and competency in improving the salesperson performance s in SMEs creative industries of Central Java, Indonesia.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Emotional Intelligence and Salesperson Performance

The concept of emotional intelligence has received great attention in organizational behavior and human resource management, especially in predicting employee performance. The research literature has recognized the relationship between emotional intelligence and human resources performance (AlDosiry, Alkhadher, AlAqraa, and Anderson, 2016; MuktiAli, Sukoco, and Suaedi, 2018; Fitriastuti, 2013; Haryono, Rosady, and MdSaad, 2018; Mahmood, Arshad, Ahmed, Akhtar, and Rafique, 2015; O'Boyle Jr, Humphrey, Pollack, Hawver, and Story, 2011; Pettijohn, Rozell, and Newman, 2010; Vveinhardt, Bendaraviciene, and Vinickyte, 2019). Emotional intelligence will produce better, deeper, and stronger relationships with customers in a business environment so that it is very beneficial for the company's marketing efforts. Thus sales department employees are generally responsible for maintaining direct contact with customers, and employee emotional intelligence has an impact on sales that can improve business (Muhammad Ali, 2018). Based on those findings and arguments, the hypothesis is as follows:

H1. Emotional intelligence has a positive effect on salesperson performance.

Spiritual Intelligence and Salesperson Performance

In recent decades, spirituality in the workplace has gradually appreciated, because many leaders consider spirituality as a solution (Sheng and Chen, 2012). The work environment is filled with a meaningful work atmosphere, that will explore brilliant ideas in order to enhance innovative behavior (Sulistiyani, 2017). Many studies show that applying a spiritual mindset in the workplace encourages creativity and innovation in workers and increases employee productivity, and leads to better overall organizational performance (Hidayati and Setiawan, 2013; Mahmood, Arshad, Ahmed, Akhtar, and Khan, 2018; Mahmood et al., 2015; Malik and Tariq, 2016; Marques, Dhiman, and King, 2005; Philippus, Afnan, Noermijati, and Achmad, 2016; Tischler, Biberman, and McKeage, 2002; Trihandini, 2005; Wibowo, 2015). Afsar and Badir (2017) explained spirituality in the workplace is encouraged by the willingness of an employee to find the meanings and objectives in his work and strengthen their relevance to work and organization. Spiritual intelligence has a positive impact on the workplace as the results of creativity, skills, abilities, values and personality according to the demands of the organization. Based on the description above, the hypothesis can be proposed as follows: H2. Spiritual intelligence has a positive effect on

salesperson performance.

Personality and Salesperson Performance

Retnawati and Nuryakin (2016) define the performance of salespeople as various measures of success based on what the company decides. Abidin (2016) stated one of the important factors that affect the performance of an employee is personality. Many research such as Yang and Hwang (2014), Widyasari, Syahlani, and Santosa (2017), Gani, Tewal, and Trang (2018) explained that personality has a significant positive effect on employee performance. Study Salleh and Kamaruddin (2011) showed two dimensions of personality, namely high

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self-efficacy and self-monitoring attributes, related to the salesperson performance of insurance agents. Saeed and Siddiqui (2018) concluded the nature of Muslim personality which consists of piety, forgiveness, and truth has a significant positive effect on sales performance. Kawiana, Dewi, Martini, and Suardana (2018) also suggested that there was an influence of personality on Bank employee's performance in Bali. Based on the literature review, the third hypothesis proposed for this study is as follows: H3. Personality has a positive effect on salesper-

son performance.

Competency and Salesperson Performance

Basir, Ahmad, and Kitchen (2010) stated that there are many factors that contribute to the performance of salespeople; however, the skills of salespeople play an important role in seller performance. The resulting study of Basir et al. (2010) on the salesperson's performance revealed that the influence of interpersonal skills positively affecting the performance. Punwatkar and Varghese (2014) stated that competence, namely skills and abilities, plays a vital role in job responsibilities by an individual in a particular professional field that leads to job performance. Rajan and Srinivasan (2015) found that product and customer knowledge, also competitive knowledge plays an important role in increasing sales force in the Indian Pharmaceutical Industry. Zakaria et al. (2017), based on it study stated that achieving higher sales performance can be done by a process where the salesperson's technical competencies which consist of product knowledge, competitor products, unique product selling points and their benefits, have a positive effect on the salesperson performance. These results are reinforced by the study of Amalia, Riyanto, and Farouk (2018) which showed interpersonal skills, salesmanship skills, and technical skills have a positive and significant effect on salesperson performance. Based on this description, the hypothesis can be proposed: H4. Competency has a positive effect on salesper-

son performance.

METHOD

This study is a survey with a cross-sectional research method. In order to confirm the model built, this study used a quantitative analysis approach. The primary data is obtained from the distribution of the questionnaires to the respondents of SMEs salesperson on creative industries in Central Java. The questionnaires sent out to potential respondents. The samples selection used purposive sampling method, by consideration of SMEs with 5 years minimum operation, the SMEs is still active, and have sales force employees. The questionnaires distributed from January to June 2019, with 150 respondents. The number of samples has fulfilled the criteria for structural equation model analysis, the number of samples between 100 to 200 data (Ghozali, 2014; Hair, 2010).

The instrument id developed into five sections. The scale of emotional intelligence in this study was measured to adapt from the study (AlDosiry et al. (2016); Shamsuddin and Rahman, 2014; Sony and Mekoth, 2016; Tischler et al., 2002), with tree indicators: self-evaluation/self-regulation, motivation, empathy/social relationship. The spiritual intelligence is measured using the concept of spiritual intelligence related to the work (Ashmos and Duchon, 2000) cited by Hendrastuti, Agung, and Sudja (2018), described in three indicator items namely a spiritual intelligence as the value of life from inside, as work that has meaning and community. Salesperson's personality instruments are based on (Setia, 2018; Waheed, Yang, and Webber, 2017), measured using three scales, namely extraversion, openness to experience, and agreeableness. Competency is measured using three scales based on Basir et al. (2010) and Amalia et al. (2018) include salesmanship skills, technical skills, and interpersonal skills. The salesperson performance was adopted from Basir et al. (2010) measured using three scales: contributing to the company's market share, generating a high level of sales revenue, and exceeding annual sales targets and objectives. All scale use seven available alternatives with a neutral point, from score 1 = very low, up to 7 = very high. The operational definition of this study is summarized in Table 1.

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Table 1 Operational definition and indicators

Variable

Emotional Intelligence

Operasional definition

The ability to understand self emotions and feelings of yourself and others, and motivated yourself. (Goleman, 2000; Salovey and Mayer, 1990)

Indikator

Self-regulation Self-motivation Social Relationship (AlDosiry et al., 2016;

Sony and Mekoth, 2016)

Spiritual Intelligence to place behavior and life in the Intelligence context of broader, richer, and more meaningful

meanings. (Zohar and Marshall, 2000)

Honesty Wisdom Focus to contribution (Zohar and Marshall,

2000)

Personality Basic individual characteristics expressed through ways of thinking, behaving and reacting to an individual's situation.(Setia, 2018)

Extraversion Agreeableness Openness to experience (Waheed et al., 2017)

Competency The expertise possessed by a salesperson in carrying out work activities (Johlke, 2006)

Interpersonal skill Salesmanship skill Technical skill (Basir et al., 2010)

Salesperson Performance

Evaluation of activities carried out with the results obtained by marketing personnel based on targets achieved according to company's goal (Zakaria et al., 2017)

Contribute market share High level of sales Exceeding sales target (Aqmala and Ardyan,

2019; Basir et al., 2010)

This study used the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) approach, a collection of statistical techniques to test models that have concurrent relationships simultaneously (Hair, 2010). The inferential SEM analysis was used to test the proposed research hypothesis. Data analysis is divided into two, namely confirmatory factor analysis and assessment of structural equation models. Both analyzes with the help of the IBM SPSS AMOS 25 program, a new generation and the most powerful for processing multidimensional and tiered research models (Ferdinand, 2006).

RESULTS

Confirmatory Factor Analysis

Data resulted from questionnaires probed unidimensionalitas through measurement model using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to determine the ability of indicators to explain the variables of the study. Based on the results of calculations in

Table 2, it is known that all each question has an estimate greater than 0,7 so that it can conclude that the question items are valid. Other results revealed that the construct reliability (CR) greater than 0,7 and the extract variance (VE) greater than 0,7, so it was concluded that the research instrument proved reliable, all indicators can be consistent to measure the variable. Based on the CFA test results, indicate that each indicator in the model is accepted.

Full Model Analysis

After the CFA test is fulfilled, the next stage is the normality assumption test for data screening and multicollinearity to evaluate the relationship between exogenous variables. The test results in Table 3 show multivariate abnormal data and some cases show outliers. However, because the data has been proven to be normal in univariate ways, which is indicated by the value of a critical value smaller than 2.58.

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