Joint impact of ethical climate and external work locus of control on job meaningfulness

Researchers prescribe that the combined influence of personal characteristics and work conditions should be examined to provide a clearer understanding of predictors of performance. This study investigates the joint impact of salespeople's external work locus of control (WLOC) and a firm's ethical climate on job meaningfulness, job performance and turnover intentions. The study hypotheses were tested with a sample of 151 business-to-business salespeople from a sales organization based in the southeastern United States. The results of the study suggest that when salespeople perceive that their sales organization has a strong ethical climate, the negative impact of external WLOC is mitigated based on the salesperson's feelings of job meaningfulness, resulting in positive job performance and fewer turnover intentions. Implications, limitations and suggestions for future research are provided.