Mood

Regardless of which form of customer orientation behavior, OCB, POB or SHB, they are

all helping behaviors which are affected by one factor—a salesperson‘s mood.

2.5.1 Positive Mood toward Helping Behaviors

The effect of positive mood on helping behavior has been demonstrated in many studies.

For example, George (1991) suggested that positive mood at work was significantly and

positively related with the performance of both extra-role and role-prescribed POB. In

addition, Brief and Motowidlo (1986) proposed that mood is a factor to affect POB: people in

a positive mood exhibit more POB.

Many scholars have tried to find out why a positive mood fosters helping behaviors. Two

reasons have been suggested. First, people in a positive mood tend to look at things on the

bright side. Fiske and Taylor (1991) pointed out that people in positive moods perceive and

evaluate other people, events, situations, and objects more positively, enthusiastically and

optimistically than when they are in neutral or negative moods. George (1998) also argued

that salespeople in positive mood provide higher service quality, because they perceive

customers and sales opportunities more positively. They also recall additional positive

material from memory when face to face with a customer in a sales encounter. Second,

helping others helps people maintain their present positive moods. Clark and Isen (1982) and

Isen et al. (1978) suggested that people in good moods are more helpful, because being

helpful is self-reinforcing or enables them to maintain or prolong their positive mood. A

similar concept has been mentioned by Carlson et al. (1988): helping behavior makes people

feel good or tends to promote positive moods, and may actually be used to maintain a positive

mood state.

2.5.2 Negative Moods toward Helping Behaviors

While positive moods foster helping behavior, negative moods can also engender helping

behavior in some conditions. The reason why people in negative mood exhibit helping

behavior is that negative mood states are aversive, and helping others is a way to relieve the

feelings of aversion (Cialdini et al. 1973). In negative mood, whether a person engages in

helping behaviors or not depends on the cost-benefit analysis. Unlike the consistent effect of

positive mood states on helping, the influence of negative mood states on helping are various

(Weyant 1978). When the benefits for helping overrun the costs, the perceived reward value

for helping should be high. Hence, individuals would attempt to relieve a negative mood state

(Piliavin et al. 1969). Brief and Motowidlo (1986) also found that mood affected POB: people

in positive mood engage in more POB; people in negative mood have more POB only when

benefits are larger than costs.

2.5.3 Positive Moods versus Negative Mood

Other studies have demonstrated the difference between positive and negative mood.

Cialdini et al. (1973) argued that a U-shaped relationship exists between temporary mood

state and helping: people in negative or positive mood may be more helpful than people in a

neutral mood state. Besides, helping increases under conditions of temporary sadness because

altruism, as a self-gratifier, serves to alleviate the depressed mood state. Altruism and

self-gratification are thus equivalent operations, and Baumann et al. (1981) found that if a

person was in a happy mood, altruistic activity did not cancel the tendency for

self-gratification. Conversely, if a person was in a sad mood, altruistic activity canceled the

tendency for self-gratification.

2.5.4 Consequences and Determinants of Positive Mood

As has been discussed above, positive mood is vital for the helping behavior, and it‘s one

of the key points which influences organization‘s and salespeople‘s benefits. Salespeople‘s

feelings have powerful effects on their behavior and determine how helpful they will be

toward customers. If people are in a positive mood, they may exhibit SHB and thus provide

high quality customer satisfaction. George (1998, p.25) wroted that “ongoing affective states

or moods at work, regardless of their origin (customer service intension), influence the extents

to which salespeople are helpful to customers and provide high quality customer service”,

and suggested some ways to promote salespeople‘s positive moods. (1) Create a sense of

competence, achievement and meaning; from Isen et al. (1987, p.1129) we have, “the most

important way of inducing good feelings may be allowing workers to achieve a sense

competence, self-worth, and respect”. (2) Provide reward and recognition: let salespeople

know that their significant contributions to the organization are valuable and appreciated. (3)

Create relative small work group or team sizes: small groups have longer and more frequent

interpersonal exchanges, and feel larger emotional attachment to each other. (4) Instill

positive moods in leaders: when leaders are in positive moods, they may give more support

and display more concern for their subordinates.

To sum up, we know each the different helping behaviors may benefit certain groups. Of

them, customer-orientation behaviors and SHB are both exclusively oriented toward

customers. Since there is a standard way to measure customer-orientation behaviors, the

SOCO Scale, a standard method to measure SHB would be very valuable. The focus of this

research was thus on SHB and on developing a way of distinguishing it from

customer-orientation behaviors, by being able to measure it on a scale, which is termed the

SHB Scale.