Abstract
Arrogance is a problem in business and other sectors of American society. This multi-university study assessed more than 500 business students’ perceptions of arrogance in sales and marketing environments. It also probed the arrogance issue in 12 other professions (five business-related and seven non-business occupations). Sales professionals were perceived as being more arrogant than marketers. Gender, ethnicity, and school type were found to be predictors of arrogance in marketing positions. Overall, sales were in the middle-of-thepack with respect to perceived arrogance (several professions were more arrogant and several professions were less arrogant), while marketers were considered relatively nonarrogant. Implications of this research are threefold: 1) rethinking the sales and marketing interface in organizations, 2) understanding perceptions of arrogance by future business leaders and 3) training sales and marketing professionals to be perceived as less arrogant by their internal and external customers.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
DOI
10.20429/jamt.2010.010107
Publication Date
9-2010
Recommended Citation
Weinstein, Art, Britt, Margaret, Balloun, Joseph, and Haan, Perry (2010). How arrogant are sales and marketing professionals: Perceptions of business students. Journal of Applied Marketing Theory, 1(1), 82-97. ISSN: 2151-3236. https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/jamt/vol1/iss1/7