The Relationship between Sales Skills and Salesperson Performance, and the Impact of Organizational Commitment as a Moderator: An Empirical Study in a Malaysian Telecommunications Company

The objectives of this paper are two-fold. Firstly to understand the influence of sales skills dimensions, amely interpersonal, salesmanship, technical and marketing skills on salesperson performance in Telekom Malaysia (TM) Berhad, which is a major Malaysian telecommunication corporation; and secondly, to investigate the effect of organizational commitment as a moderating variable on the above relationship. Data was gathered based on a judgment sample of 114 salespersons supervisors in the company. The findings show that the effects of interpersonal skills positively influence salesperson performance. However, more unexpectedly, the findings also show that salesmanship, technical and marketing skills do not influence salesperson performance. And, organizational commitment does not necessarily moderate the relationship between sales skills dimensions and salesperson performance