Emotional Intelligence Abilities and Work Engagement among Salespersons: A Conservation of Resources Theory Perspective from Germany’s Pharmaceutical Industry

Abstract

Sustaining salespersons’ work engagement has become a critical concern amid intensifying professional demands and increasing turnover within the German pharmaceutical B2B sector. Guided by the Conservation of Resources (COR) theory, this study examines how four distinct abilities of emotional intelligence—self-emotion appraisal, others’ emotion appraisal, emotion utilization, and emotion regulation—affect salespersons’ work engagement. Employing a quantitative design, data were collected from 340 pharmaceutical sales representatives in North Rhine-Westphalia and analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The results reveal that all four emotional intelligence abilities exert significant positive effects on work engagement, confirming the hypothesized relationships. Among these, the utilization and regulation of emotion emerged as the most influential predictors, underscoring their pivotal role in sustaining engagement within emotionally demanding sales environments. Overall, the four abilities of EI explained 68% of the variance in work engagement, affirming its value as a psychological resource that enhances motivational energy and mitigates emotional strain. This study enriches the sales management literature by demonstrating the strategic importance of developing emotional competencies to foster work engagement of salespersons in competitive B2B markets.