Personal characteristics and salesperson’s justifications as moderators of supervisory discipline in cases involving unethical salesforce behavior

In a mail survey, role-playing sales managers were asked to evaluate the personnel records of a salesperson who was found to be using an unethical selling practice. Information manipulated on the instruments included 2 levels of sales representative name, 2 levels of height and weight, and 3 levels of accounts that were tied to the problem area. The subjects received only one version of the personnel record and were assigned at random to the treatment conditions. As expected, overweight salespeople were disciplined more harshly. Subjects expressed significantly more appropriateness for terminating and issuing written and verbal reprimands and less appropriateness for counseling in the overweight salesperson's conditions. Using excuses as justification did not neutralize the sales managers' supervisory responses. In the case of blaming the salesperson's unethical behavior on the unethical behavior of customers, harsher disciplinary treatment resulted.