Unlocking product complexity: elevating emotional exhaustion and customer relationship performance through strategic ties

Drawing upon the theoretical framework of the job demands-resources model, we extend and validate a conceptual model linking product complexity, interfirm ties, intrafirm ties, emotional exhaustion, and customer relationship performance. We conceptualize product complexity as a job demand and interfirm and intrafirm ties as personal job resources. We elucidate the mediating mechanism through which product complexity influences customer relationship performance via emotional exhaustion, as well as its boundary conditions. Utilizing a two-study approach (Study 1: 244 sales personnel, Study 2: 268 sales personnel), this research reveals that product complexity heightens salesperson emotional exhaustion. Furthermore, we offer empirical support indicating that intrafirm ties negatively moderate the relationship between product complexity and emotional exhaustion. Conversely, we demonstrate that interfirm ties mitigate the adverse impact of product complexity on emotional exhaustion. Lastly, our findings indicate that the indirect association between product complexity and customer relationship performance via emotional exhaustion is contingent upon both intrafirm and interfirm ties.