INTRODUCTION

According to Market Research Future, the mercado de dispositivos médicos podrá evaluarse en USD 6170.72 Bn al 22% CAGR para el 2025 [medical devices market may be valued at USD 6170.72 Bn at 22% CAGR by 2025] (^{Dispositivos Médicos, 2021}). It is believed that this amount could rise due to COVID-19 and that it has been partially stimulated by the prioritization of healthcare services in developing countries, where the demand for medical technology is boosted, in addition to privatization processes. In Peru, fierce competition is observed in the sector, which is estimated to grow by approximately 8% annually as well as a forecast of foreign competitors participating directly or partnering with national companies (^{Diario Médico, 2019}). In addition to export potential, a significant increase in demand is foreseen since it is estimated that 60% of the sanitary equipment of one of the most important clients (hospitals) could be reaching obsolescence levels. This activates political and social pressures of great importance for the executive branch. Faced with the described scenarios, it is relevant for companies in the sector -especially those located in the B2B (Business-to-Business) segment- to focus on strengthening and developing the competencies of their workers, particularly those related to the emotional component (^{Guillén et al., 2016}), as they are vital for the sales force in charge of face-to-face negotiations, since the emotions shown by the salesperson while interacting with their customer contribute to forging their perceptions of the quality of the service offered. Likewise, these emotions influence the employee performance, an area in which the literature reports significant research gaps (^{Kearney et al., 2017}).

In this context, marketing (sales) literature highlights that, although interpersonal skills are proclaimed as invaluable for good salesperson performance, the understanding of said concept is limited, sporadic and seemingly conflicting. For example, the relationship between interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence (EI) has already been established in disciplines like management and psychology but has been scarcely investigated in marketing (sales). Therefore, there is an urgent need to provide more information that is useful to professionals and companies, and that integrates seemingly conflicting conceptual approaches to interpersonal skills (^{Delpechitre & Beeler, 2018}). Thus, it is argued that the role of EI in sales performance is not clear enough (^{Kadic-Maglajlic et al., 2016}) and understudied, especially in the context of B2B or business-to-business sales (^{Briggs et al., 2018}). Although it has been noted that EI predicts sales (^{McFarland et al., 2016}), empirical research results, in addition to being scarce, show inconsistencies. While some of these results support the positive influence of EI on sales (^{Ambavale, 2018}; ^{Amor, 2019}; ^{Kalra et al., 2021}; ^{Sandroto & Fransiska, 2021}), various researchers do not confirm this hypothesis (^{Griffin, 2013}; ^{Reid, 2015}) or reveal contradictions (^{AlDosiry et al., 2016}). For this reason, some authors indicate that further studies on this topic are needed (^{Kadic-Maglajlic et al., 2016}; ^{Lyne, 2019}), which is one of the main arguments for developing the present research.

The lack of understanding of the relationships between sales performance and EI is also due to the significant changes in buying and consumption behaviors over time. These changes must be taken into account in sales departments as an adequacy response when planning the recalibration of salespeople's performance metrics (^{Herjanto & Franklin, 2019}). The reality is that the role of salespeople has become more critical, as it evolved from an agent executing a job of selling to a value-generating entity for customers and businesses. In addition, businesses need their sales force to face increasingly complex situations (^{Tageja et al., 2021}), persuade customers in increasingly competitive environments, build trust, and achieve organizational sales objectives (^{Franklin & Marshall, 2019}). However, there has not been a systematic and up-to-date review of the scientific literature related to the performance factors that are most effective for salespeople (^{Herjanto & Franklin, 2019}).

These gaps in knowledge about these factors, which include gaps related to EI and sales performance -partly caused by the accelerated changes that the role of salesperson has been undergoing- are the reason for which the aim of this study is to address the influence of EI on sales through a structural equation model. The general objective was “To evaluate the influence of competencies related to emotional intelligence on the SFP of a private service company”. The specific objectives are as follows: 1) To establish the influence of EI competencies related to the component “intrapersonal” on SFP, 2) To establish the influence of EI competencies related to the component “interpersonal” on SFP, 3) To determine the influence of EI competencies related to the component “adaptability” on SFP, 4) To measure the influence of EI competencies related to the component "stress management" on SFP, and 5) To establish the influence of EI competencies related to the component “general mood” on SFP.

One contribution of this study derives from the fact that EI has generally been evaluated as a second-order construct in structural equation models (^{Wisker & Poulis, 2015}), whereas in this paper, EI dimensions are related as first-order constructs to the endogenous variable in order to provide empirical evidence from another perspective in addition to traditional multiple linear regression modeling. On the other hand, the empirical result that shows a partial influence of EI on sales partially coincides with the two types of controversial relationships, total effect and no effect found, in the specialized literature. Likewise, another contribution of the present research is the rigorous validation of the ^{Bar-On (2000}) EI model in the Peruvian context, since a complete psychometric evaluation was applied. Finally, this is a pioneering study in the country on the relationship between EI and sales performance based on an advanced statistical model, which represents a significant contribution, mainly for the business and academic fields.

METHODOLOGY

A non-experimental, cross-sectional design, with explanatory scope, was applied. The unit of analysis was each member of the staff of the commercial area of the Industrial Analytics division of a private company dedicated to the supply of medical equipment in the B2B business model. The company had 58 salespeople at the time of the study, who were considered in the sample whose statistical power was measured with the Gamma-exponential method and indicated a minimum sample size of 56 individuals. EI was measured with the Emotional Quotient-Inventory (EQ-I) proposed by ^{Bar-On (2000}), widely used in recruiting companies. To measure the five EI components, EQ-I has 133 items, which are answered in Likert-type format from 1 (very rarely) to 5 (very often). The total score obtained per person is converted to a standard score with  = 100 and standard deviation =15 (similar to the procedure of intelligence tests). The scheme proposed by ^{Ugarriza (2001}) was used for the analysis and interpretation of the information. Ugarriza evaluated the EQ-I questionnaire assuming the five components of EI as subconstructs -intrapersonal (INTR), interpersonal (INTE), adaptability (ADAP), stress management (MANA) and general mood (MOOD)- and the fifteen factors as observable variables of these subconstructs (or subcomponents). Meanwhile, the sales performance variable was measured by the annual sales volume generated by each member of the company's sales force (USD/salesperson). SmartPls software was used to solve the PLS-SEM model.

RESULTS

Table 1 presents the descriptive statistics of the EI components of the sales force of a company dedicated to equipment supply, where higher values with lower variability are observed in the component “intrapersonal” (INTR). In contrast, the interpersonal component (INTE) reports the lowest values with the greatest variability. The other components do not differ much in average values.

DISCUSSION

The validity of the construct EI was demonstrated, which corroborates previous studies (^{Bar-On, 2000}; ^{Rao et al., 2019}; ^{Sandroto & Fransiska, 2021}). The assessment of the hypotheses determined that only the components “intrapersonal” and “interpersonal” of EI have positive and significant influence on sales performance, while the other components (adaptability, stress management, and general mood) do not impact sales activity. Thus, it is assumed that there is only partial support for the hypothesis relating EI to SFP. Although this result does not agree with the results obtained by several authors (^{Ambavale, 2018}; ^{Amor, 2019}; ^{Kalra et al., 2021}; ^{Sandroto & Fransiska, 2021}) who did establish this relationship, there are other researchers who, like the present study, failed to establish the relationship between EI and sales (^{Griffin, 2013}; ^{Reid, 2015}).

Because the results of the present research only partially coincide with the reports of the two aforementioned streams, it is confirmed that more studies on the relationship between EI dimensions and sales are needed, as supported by several researchers (^{Kadic-Maglajlic et al., 2016}; ^{Lyne, 2019}).

CONCLUSIONS

EI competencies related to the component “intrapersonal” positively and significantly influence SFP in the private service company.

EI competencies related to the component “interpersonal” positively and significantly influence SFP in the private service company.

EI competencies related to the components “adaptability”, “stress management”, and “general mood” do not influence SFP in the private service company.

The general conclusion was that there is only partial support for the general hypothesis, which was intended to prove that competencies related to EI positively and significantly influence the SFP of the private service company, since only the EI components “intrapersonal” and “interpersonal” impact sales force performance.