Salespeople/professional change agents (PCAs) interact regularly with purchasing professionals/boundary role persons (BRPs) in marketing endeavors. This article proposes and tests a model of certain hitherto unexplored antecedents and consequences of role stress among BRPs. Empirical data are drawn from 345 BRPs responding to a mail questionnaire. Study findings suggest that important antecedents of role stress among BRPs include the customer orientation of PCAs and their use of closed-influence tactics as well as perceptions of task conflict and ambiguity by BRPs. As for the consequences of role stress, role ambiguity was found to negatively affect BRP satisfaction with a PCA. Further, role stress was found to have important consequences for BRP satisfaction with organizational policies. Implications for role theory and for future research are discussed.
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