A Study of Identifying the Emotional Competence of Indian Salespeople

In this study, the domain specific framework developed by Verbeke et al. (2004) has been applied to identify the dimensionality of Emotional Competence (EC) skills of Indian salespeople. An effort has been made to identify the EC proficiencies of salespeople of India. A random sample of 480 salespeople (120 each from insurance, automobile, pharmaceutical and telecom industries) was selected from different companies. The sample was drawn from northern states like Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and National Capital Region of New Delhi. After scrutinizing the filled questionnaires, responses of 400 salespeople (100 each from respective industries) were finally selected for the analysis. Six emotional competence proficiencies have been found, which represent the EC skills of the Indian salespeople. These proficiencies are — Ironic Perspective, Authentic Dealing, Empathy with Customers, Emotional Acceptability, Ethical Emotional Flexibility and Self Presentations. Findings are similar to the results of studies conducted in other countries