“He was successful as he chased quotas and sales goals alongside colleagues, and was quickly making good money and all the trappings of young affluent professional life. But when he looked around, he saw people sinking into misery, as they hit higher and higher targets and felt less and less satisfaction. His long-term intuition that he was motivated by something other than external rewards got too loud to ignore…” ~ Debevoise (2019)

Actively engaged salespeople are undeniably important to firms. As salespeople span the boundary between customers and the firm, they assume multiple roles such as knowledge broker, customer-consultant, problem solver, demand generator, and value co-creator in a service-dominant ecosystem (Hartmann et al., 2018). Challenges from rapidly improving technology, changing economic conditions, competitor market (re)actions, and even internal new product innovations can create tension for salespeople as they choose where to focus their attention, time, and effort. Hence, firms often deploy controls to redirect or focus a salesperson’s behavior with the ultimate goal of improving his or her performance (Katsikeas et al., 2018).

Historically, these controls have been either outcome-based (where salespeople are compensated in direct proportion to their sales, i.e., commissions) or behavior-based (with incentives centered on the salesperson’s activities or strategies that are expected to generate future results) (e.g., Kim & Tiwana, 2016; Malek et al., 2018; Oliver & Anderson, 1994). A vast majority of research on salesperson motivation for the last five years has focused on monetary controls to direct salesperson behavior toward improved performance. For example, studies have examined the impacts of financial incentives (Bommaraju & Hohenberg, 2018; Patil & Syam, 2018; Viswanathan et al., 2018), compensation structure (Chung & Narayandas, 2017; Daljord et al., 2016; Rubel & Prasad, 2016), and sales contests (Chen & Lim, 2017; Hossain et al., 2019). Likewise, practitioners tend to rely heavily on sales quotas and salesperson incentives to meet goals (McLeod, 2020).

However, as the opening vignette suggests, even when successful, unintended side effects exist from this type of motivation. Self-Determination Theory (SDT) suggests that “when externally regulated, individuals perceive their behavior as being directly controlled by others, often through contingent rewards and threats” (Deci et al., 2017, p. 21). Indeed, extrinsic motivation has been defined as doing an activity to attain separable consequences (Deci & Ryan, 1985). Salespeople thus are compelled to think, feel, or behave in particular ways by external prods and pressures. While such regulation can motivate specific behaviors at least temporarily, related costs to the firm are significant—both in providing financial resources for rewards and in putting systems in place to monitor behavior.

On the other hand, with autonomous motivation, rather than an external source constantly being required to feed behavior, the draw to act is self-determined based on intrinsic reasons. Specifically, intrinsic motivation means that actions stem from the task itself being inherently interesting or satisfying (Deci & Ryan, 2008). According to SDT, intrinsic motivation results from having a sense of autonomy, competence, and relatedness (Deci & Ryan, 1985). Within the context of sales, autonomy has been described as allowing salespeople to determine the nature of the sales task or problem and to arrive at a course of action (Rapp et al., 2015; Wang & Netemeyer, 2002). Competence or self-efficacy includes having the skills, know-how, and ability to perform a job (Fu et al., 2010). Finally, a sense of belonging, relatedness, or connection is the notion that even when work is not fascinating on its own, many times individuals are willing to do the job because they are valued by significant others to whom they feel (or would like to feel) connected (Deci et al., 2001).

Importantly, recent research suggests that a dramatic change in the demographic makeup of the sales workforce is currently taking place (Khusainova et al., 2018). Specifically, as older generations continue to retire, new salespeople are increasingly being recruited from the ranks of the millennial generation. In fact, millennials (approximated to be 75 million+ in the U.S. alone) now make up the largest generation in the American workforce and will continue to be at the top for some time (Goleman, 2020). Past research has shown that millennials and Generation Z “Zoomers” are likely motivated significantly differently from earlier generations such as Baby Boomers and Generation X, and successful organizations will need to have a better understanding of what motivates these younger generations and adapt accordingly (Khusainova et al., 2018). Several popular press articles have suggested that younger salespeople are seeking jobs where they can make a difference (e.g., Debevoise, 2019; Goleman, 2020). However, with a continued assumption that salespeople are motivated primarily by money, significantly fewer studies have examined intrinsic sources of motivation in sales, particularly recently, and unfortunately have neglected generational differences in salesperson motivation.

To address this important gap, we conducted three separate studies. Following a theories-in-use approach (Zeithaml et al. 2020), in the first study we conducted qualitative interviews in which we asked salespeople what motivated them in general at work, what motivated them to go the extra mile on a Friday afternoon, and what motivated them when times were tough. The findings from this initial study reveal a missing construct in the literature, which is the idea of a sense of purpose. We define sense of purpose as “the belief that one is making a contribution to a cause greater and more enduring than oneself,” and this belief may be particularly motivating to a generation of salespeople who have never experienced poverty and may have a different worldview from those who preceded them (Pink, 2011). Hence, in the second study we developed a measure for the construct sense of purpose and demonstrated its reliability and validity using a sample of 199 salespeople recruited from an online panel company from a variety of industries. Finally, in the third study, to test the importance of sense of purpose as an antecedent to intrinsic motivation and salesperson performance, we partnered with a U.S.-based sales firm in the financial services industry to gather both salesperson survey responses and objective longitudinal effort and performance data from company records (n = 114 salespeople, t = 4 sales cycles, total = 456 observations). Using time-varying covariate analysis, our results reveal that sense of purpose is another driver of intrinsic motivation beyond the other three established antecedents, and that intrinsic motivation is more positively associated with both working hard (effort) and working smart (adaptive selling) than extrinsic motivation on average over time. The effect is even more pronounced for younger salespeople.

Research on salesperson motivation over the past five years has primarily focused on monetary incentives as controls, as we show in Table 1. Even though recent literature has clearly emphasized the importance of financial incentives, our study reveals that intrinsic motivation is more positively related to salesperson effort and adaptivity than a desire for financial rewards, even in this modern era. This has important implications for the effective management of a new generation of salespeople. Moreover, not only is the sales force demographic changing, the sales role itself has been shifting toward service-oriented, helping, and customer-focused approaches (Hughes & Ogilvie, 2020) alongside a shift in the U.S. toward more meaningful work (Barrick et al., 2013). A key contribution of our study lies in developing a measure to examine a salesperson’s sense of purpose and explicating how it leads to increased intrinsic motivation, effort, adaptivity, and performance. This construct is not just important for managing millennials but also impacts the new sales world that will continue to exist in the foreseeable future.Footnote 1

Table 1 Literature review 2016–present
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While some have argued that intrinsic motivation is an inalterable trait, like personality, there is evidence that contextual aspects of motivation can be altered by job design and managerial practices that make work more inherently enjoyable and satisfying (Barrick et al., 2015). Thus, studying intrinsic motivation—both its antecedents and outcomes—remains important for both researchers and practitioners. The rest of this paper is organized as follows. First, we detail the qualitative study that serves as the foundation for the second study (construct development) and third study (impact on objective salesperson performance over time). We finish by discussing the findings of the research and, given the importance of our findings, we offer suggestions for future research.

Study 1: Qualitative study

Although recent research on salesperson motivation has primarily focused on monetary incentives as controls, both management and psychology literatures—including studies on sense-giving and sensemaking (e.g., Weick et al., 2005; Maitlis, 2005; Gioia & Chittipeddi, 1991)—offer a hint that a sense of purpose may be an important motivator to employees. However, this construct is currently missing from academic marketing literature.

Importantly, salespeople are frontline employees who are the conduit for translating organizational promises into reality. In being the face of the organization, salespeople have a role in translating organizational vision into action—where the rubber meets the road—that may not inherently exist in other organizational roles. Thus, while management and psychology offer strong theoretical perspectives on motivation, the sales role may require a different lens specific to the marketing discipline that addresses the notion of being customer-facing and impacting constituents external to the firm (i.e., society). Hence, to better understand the nuances of salesperson motivation, we adopted a theories-in-use approach, which blends the use of in-depth interviews with extant literature as a means to develop conceptual themes prior to the construction of the proposed conceptual model (Zeithaml et al. 2020; Challagalla, Murtha, and Jaworski 2014).

Methodology

The lead author conducted a total of 18 interviews using an iterative process with salespeople from a variety of industries, both B2B and direct to consumer. Previous literature has recommended the use of purposive sampling for obtaining a knowledgeable sample that can provide rich insights into an emerging construct (Challagalla et al., 2014). In this regard, we connected with salespeople from companies affiliated with a sales center of a well-known university. The purpose of the interviews was to uncover what motivates salespeople at work. Interviews, which ranged from 25 to 55 minutes long, were conducted in person, by phone, or via video conference. The interview protocol (c.f., St. Clair et al., 2018) and sample characteristics are available in Web Appendix A. Each interview started in a grand tour manner with general questions about the salesperson’s current industry and sales responsibilities (including product/service line). Thereafter, participants were asked specifically about what motivates them at work in general, what motivates them to “go the extra mile” on a Friday afternoon, and what motivates them when they are experiencing challenges. We allowed each salesperson to talk freely and asked them to expand on or clarify their answers as needed, being careful not to introduce interviewer bias (Zeithaml et al. 2020).

We then conducted a qualitative content analysis on responses, using deductive and inductive reasoning, and constructing coding families based on our literature review and the participants’ responses (Kassarjian, 1977; Krippendorff, 2019). This approach allowed us to both build upon current literature and discover new themes. We stopped interviews when we sensed theoretical saturation had been achieved (i.e., themes were being repeated) (Zeithaml et al. 2020). We used these results as part of a mixed methods approach (Davis et al., 2011) to inform our sense of purpose scale items in Study 2 and develop the quantitative model in Study 3.

Results and discussion

Our final coding schema included the constructs from SDT—autonomy, self-efficacy, and connection—along with extrinsic motivation, job meaningfulness, customer orientation, and a new construct, sense of purpose. In fact, sense of purpose emerged as an unexpectedly strong and frequently mentioned motivator that is deserving of more exploration. We find many people long to be part of a greater good, contribute to society through their work, and leave behind a legacy. We also find many salespeople choose the profession because they want to help others and make a difference in the lives of customers. In an interview conducted with the top salesman for a wheel manufacturer, he conveyed,

Every morning I go into my home office and get right on the phone because I know how important my sales are not just to my buyers but to society. When tractor trailers travel at high rates of speed and hit a pot hole, for example, an inferior wheel will bend and even crack, causing the truck driver to lose control… and people in the other vehicles they collide with don’t walk away from those types of accidents. I work hard because I know that moms and dads are returning safely home to their families when I make sales.

This salesman was not only the top salesman in his firm, he literally outsold the production capabilities of the firm within the first three months of that year. Another respondent noted that she was motivated to keep working on a Friday afternoon by realizing she was making a “lasting impact” while another explained, “What makes me successful is when... I realize I’m doing something bigger than myself.”

Another respondent who had received the “salesperson of the year” award at her firm noted how important it was to her that she was helping small businesses through her sales:

I always wanted to help people… Now, I get to help businesses when they are struggling with their taxes and accounting. Nothing motivates me more than hearing a customer call me and say, “you saved my [small] business.”

However, having a sense of purpose is not just about pleasing customers or being customer-oriented (Brown et al., 2002; Saxe & Weitz, 1982). Being customer-oriented means trying to please customers whereas having a sense of purpose may make a salesperson advocate for something that may be less pleasing to the customer in the short-term but truly beneficial to customers or society in the longer-term. One salesman selling adhesives explained that he sold high-quality chemical bonding in a B2B environment. While the purchasing agents would have been happy to get a cheaper adhesive, he advocated for what he believed to be important for the safety of customers downstream. He said,

To give you a prime example, one time a person had his windshield replaced and within half an hour was in an accident that totaled his car. Isn’t that crazy?! But, the windshield adhesive held, and he walked away from the crash because of it. So, I sell to customers who will either use the product or re-sell it downstream and tell them that they are getting not only glue but security and peace of mind. It’s important to me that even though I’m not selling something like medical devices, I really am making an impact on others.

Moreover, sense of purpose is not just the overarching vision of the company or mission statement but rather an internal sense of contributing to customer or societal well-being. As another respondent explained, “For me, while I’m passionate about our company’s mission statement and what we do, I care more about how I’m personally making a difference.”

Figure 1 demonstrates each coding theme, providing several quotes for each construct. Overall and importantly for this research, evidence from respondents provides support for the differential impact of sense of purpose beyond constructs currently available in the literature. The findings of this initial study also demonstrate that there is a need to better understand how particularly motivating a sense of purpose can be for salespeople.

Fig. 1
figure 1

Constructs with representative quotes (Study 1)

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Study 2: Item development and pretesting

Given the perceived importance of sense of purpose demonstrated in the qualitative study, we moved forward to a second study with the objective of developing a reliable and valid measure for sense of purpose, following generally recommended scale development procedures (e.g., Churchill Jr, 1979; Hinkin, 1995; Raykov & Marcoulides, 2011). We first conducted an extensive search of the literature using databases such as Business Source Complete (EBSCO) and ProQuest PsycTESTS, which produced no existing scales for the construct. Thus, we wrote a total of 18 items relating to the conceptual definition of sense of purpose, which is “the belief that one is making a contribution to a cause greater and more enduring than oneself.” We chose a 7-point response format for items, anchored by “strongly disagree” and “strongly agree,” (Hinkin, 1995). Reverse-coded items were excluded based on published recommendations that such items can be untrustworthy as they incite respondent confusion, systematic error, and artificial response factors (e.g., DeVellis, 2003; Edwards, 2001; Hinkin, 1995).

Thereafter, we sought feedback from subject matter experts, including faculty and doctoral students with interest or experience in the area, on the items (DeVellis, 2003; Rossiter, 2002). Based on the recommendations provided, we adapted the test battery, deleting inferior items and improving item wording as necessary. This process resulted in a reduced set of eight items to tap the construct domain for sense of purpose, which is available in Appendix A. The scale includes items such as “my work allows me to make a contribution to society,” “the work I do on my job impacts the lives of others,” and “I give back to society through the work I do on my job.”

Construct validation hypotheses

In a theories-in-use approach, distinctiveness is critical. Hence, in this study we test whether or not sense of purpose is “indeed novel and not simply a reflection of some other variable” (Churchill Jr, 1979, p. 70). Research on employee engagement within management and psychology literature has highlighted how work design can enrich employees’ job meaningfulness to increase their motivation (Barrick et al., 2013; Carton, 2018; Humphrey et al., 2007). For example, Barrick et al. (2015) asserts that “the primary link between motivating work design and key outcomes such as employee motivation and performance is experienced meaningfulness” (p. 116).

However, job meaningfulness is largely influenced by employees’ task and role characteristics and work interactions (Barrick et al., 2015). Indeed, by definition, job meaningfulness results from doing an identifiable piece of work, feeling responsible for it, feeling like the tasks have company impact, and getting supervisor feedback (Barrick et al., 2015; Hackman & Oldham, 1976). While prior research shows that job meaningfulness is based on the salesperson’s work having significance to co-workers or the company itself (George, 1992; Hackman & Oldham, 1976)—or “the extent to which the person feels the job makes a meaningful contribution and is important to the organization,” (Tyagi, 1985, p. 77, emphasis added)—sense of purpose relates to benefitting society, or making a contribution that is greater and more enduring than oneself.

Moreover, while job meaningfulness is focused on the task itself, the focus of sense of purpose is on the outcomes of performing the task, or the contribution to society. Sense of purpose highlights that people want to feel like what they do matters, that their work has significance beyond themselves, their paycheck, or their company. Hence, we maintain that sense of purpose is fundamentally different than job meaningfulness and that the two are independent constructs.

The following hypotheses help test the predictive or criterion-related validity by examining the degree to which our measure for sense of purpose correlates with specified established measures in anticipated directions. Predictable correlations provide discriminant validity evidence. Generally speaking, if Construct A and Construct C are related significantly differently than Construct B and Construct C, then Constructs A and B are not the same.

Because meaningfulness is related to work design and job tasks (having significant variety and responsibility), we conclude that meaningfulness will be correlated to performance orientation, which has been shown to be focused on task performance. On the other hand, because sense of purpose relates to making a contribution to a cause greater and more enduring than oneself, we conclude that this construct will be positively correlated with customer orientation rather than task or performance orientation. Thus, we formally hypothesize,

H1

Meaningfulness is positively associated with performance orientation

H2

Sense of purpose is positively associated with customer orientation

H3

The positive association between meaningfulness and performance orientation is significantly stronger than the positive association between sense of purpose and performance orientation

H4

The positive association between sense of purpose and customer orientation is significantly stronger than the positive association between meaningfulness and customer orientation

In addition, based on the definition of meaningfulness being inferred based on job design and feedback, we predict that meaningfulness will be positively correlated with a sense of belonging or connection with others within the company. Reasonably, if a salesperson feels connected with co-workers, the job itself may feel more meaningful overall. On the other hand, with sense of purpose relating to making a contribution to a “greater cause,” there is no reason to speculate that this construct would necessarily be strongly positively correlated to a connection with co-workers.

H5

The positive association between meaningfulness and connection is significantly stronger than the positive association between sense of purpose and connection

Methodology

Sample

To demonstrate construct reliability and validity, the test battery was shared with a sample of 199 salespeople recruited from a reputable panel data provider via an online survey. Approximately 61% of these salespeople work in a business-to-business context with the other 39% working in a business-to-consumer setting such as insurance, financial services, or real estate. The mean age for respondents was 30 years old, with the oldest respondent being just shy of 70. Overall, the average experience in sales was 5.5 years with these salespeople reporting the average tenure at their current job being closer to three years. Approximately 36% of this sample was female. These “target raters” are representative of the population to which findings based on the scale are expected to generalize (Rossiter, 2002).

Measures

For Study 2, all measures are self-report and measured on a Likert Scale with anchors 1_strongly disagree to 7_strongly agree. In addition, except for the new measure of sense of purpose, all measures have been published in reputable scholarly research journals. Scales are listed in Appendix B. We measured connection with an eight-item scale from Deci et al. (2001). One item was dropped from the analysis due to poor loading, which was “I pretty much keep to myself at work.” The composite reliability for this measure with seven items is .897. We measured customer orientation using five items from the Saxe and Weitz (1982) scale. The composite reliability for this measure is .877. We measured extrinsic motivation with a three-item scale from Oliver and Anderson (1994), including items such as “I sell because I get paid to sell.” The composite reliability for this measure is .821. We measured job meaningfulness with a seven-item scale from Thakor and Joshi (2005), which includes items such as “my job lets me make full use of my abilities” and “my job gives me a feeling of accomplishment.” The composite reliability for this measure is .895. Finally, we measured performance orientation with a six-item scale from Sujan et al. (1994). The composite reliability for this measure is .868.

Analysis

First, we performed a point and interval estimate of composite reliability to ensure it surpassed the suggested threshold of .70 (Bagozzi & Yi, 2012; Raykov & Marcoulides, 2011). Next, we used factor analysis for our test construction and development, as this technique renders the underlying dimensionality of a considered test of measures. We performed a split sample exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis using MPLUS to verify if the scale created for sense of purpose can be considered unidimensional. Both model fit statistics and eigen values greater than one substantiate the number of factors in the data. Likewise, factor loading coefficients provide evidence for both the nature of the latent construct and its relationship with other constructs in our model. Items that load significantly on the same factor—for example, questions specifically related to sense of purpose—are indicators of the same latent construct, providing convergent validity evidence. Items that load on different factors—for example, test items related to performance orientation and connection—can be viewed as indicators of different latent constructs, providing discriminant validity evidence. Importantly, as we conducted the factor analysis, we followed the suggested guidelines that oblique rotation is “more meaningful” than orthogonal rotation, since latent constructs or factors in behavioral sciences tend to be related to one another (Raykov & Marcoulides, 2011). We also tested rival models and compared fit statistics using the chi-square difference test for the paired nested models to provide further evidence for the solution proposed (Anderson & Gerbing, 1988).

To establish the discriminant validity of our measures, we computed the AVE-SV comparison, in which the square root of the average variance extracted (AVE) is greater than the correlation between constructs, meaning each latent variable shares greater variance with its indicators than with other latent variables (Fornell & Larcker, 1981). We likewise examined the Heterotrait-monotrait (HTMT) ratio—which is the calculation of a ratio of the average correlations between constructs to the geometric mean of the average correlations within items of the same constructs (Henseler et al., 2015)—to see if any measures breached the suggested cutoff of .85 (Voorhees et al., 2016). Our hypothesis testing also provides evidence of predictive or criterion-related validity by examining the degree to which our measure for sense of purpose correlates with our hypothesized constructs in the anticipated direction.

Results and discussion

In this data, composite reliability for the sense of purpose measure is estimated at .879, with a standard error of .014. The 95%-confidence interval for this reliability coefficient is (.851, .903). Next, using just the items for sense of purpose, we ran a split-sample EFA and CFA in MPLUS (principal component analysis, oblique rotation), which showed only one eigen value greater than one. Likewise, the fit statistics for this unidimensional model show a reasonable fit to the data (χ2 = 187.461, 6d.f.; CFI =1.00; RMSEA = 0.000; SRMR = .009). In addition, the loadings for each factor are significant and above the suggested .70 cutoff. Thus, the scale created for sense of purpose can be considered congeneric (Raykov & Marcoulides, 2011).

Thereafter, we performed confirmatory factor analysis using the scale items for sense of purpose and job meaningfulness, testing rival models to provide evidence for discriminant validity. Results show that a two-factor solution is preferred (two eigen values greater than one), and the model fit statistics for the two-factor solution show a reasonable fit to the data (χ2 = 46.193, 34d.f.; CFI = .986; SRMR = .025; RMSEA = 0.043). All items loaded on intended constructs, and there were no significant cross-loadings. Next, we constrained the model to a single-factor solution and ran a chi-square difference test on the paired nested models. Model fit statistics for the single-factor model were not acceptable (χ2 = 250.356, 44d.f.; CFI = .759; RMSEA = .155; SRMR = .107), and a chi-square difference test revealed that the hypothesized two-factor model fit the data significantly better than the alternative single-factor model (χ2diff = 204.163, p < .05). Thus, we provide empirical support that sense of purpose is indeed “novel” and distinct from job meaningfulness.

Next, we added the rest of the constructs to our model to test our hypotheses. The average variances extracted for the constructs were once again all greater than the recommended threshold of .50 (Bagozzi & Yi, 2012), indicating that our measures are reliable and that the latent constructs account for more than 50% of variance in the items. In Table 2, the diagonal values represent the square roots of AVE values, which are greater than all the off-diagonal correlation values, meaning items created to measure sense of purpose share more variance with this latent construct than with other latent variables (Fornell & Larcker, 1981). In addition, none of the HTMT ratios breached the suggested cutoff of .85 (Voorhees et al., 2016), and no significant cross-loadings were found (see Table 3).

Table 2 Latent variable correlations and AVE-SQ (Study 2)
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Table 3 HTMT Ratios (Study 2)
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In examining criterion validity, our predictions were confirmed. In the first hypothesis, we predicted that meaningfulness is positively associated with performance orientation. This hypothesis was supported (r = .455, p < .01). In the second hypothesis, we predicted that sense of purpose is positively associated with customer orientation, which was also confirmed (r = .327, p < .01). In the third hypothesis, we predicted that the positive association between meaningfulness and performance orientation is significantly stronger than the positive association between sense of purpose and performance orientation. To test this hypothesis, we used a Fisher transformation of the correlation and z-test statistic, a procedure available on the quantpsy.org web utility (Preacher, 2002). In support of H3, our analyses show that the correlation between job meaningfulness and performance orientation (r = .455, p < .01) and the correlation between sense of purpose and performance orientation (r = .198, p < .01) are significantly different (z = 2.874, p < .01), with the correlation being significantly more positive for job meaningfulness. In the fourth hypothesis, we predicted that the positive association between sense of purpose and customer orientation is significantly stronger than the positive association between meaningfulness and customer orientation. This hypothesis remains unsupported (z = .565, n.s.). In retrospect, an inclination toward pleasing customers can provide a sense of meaningfulness for salespeople. So this finding that a salesperson’s customer orientation is positively associated with both a sense of purpose and job meaningfulness is not necessarily shocking or cause for alarm.

In the fifth hypothesis, we predicted that the positive association between meaningfulness and connection is significantly stronger than the positive association between sense of purpose and connection. This hypothesis was confirmed. Results show that the correlation between job meaningfulness and connection (r = .429, p < .01) and the correlation between sense of purpose and connection (r = .254, p < .01) are significantly different (z = 1.97, p < .05), with the relationship being significantly more positive for job meaningfulness.

The results of the factor analysis suggest that the measure developed for sense of purpose is both unidimensional and reliable. Likewise, we provide evidence supporting both convergent and discriminant validity. Altogether, the results of this study provide us with a useful tool to measure the belief that one is making a contribution to a cause greater and enduring than oneself.

Study 3: Quantitative study

With the measure for sense of purpose developed in Study 2, the goal for Study 3 is to test its importance to the sales profession by demonstrating its impact on intrinsic motivation, salesperson behavior, and objective performance. We developed our conceptual model based on both the findings of our qualitative study and SDT (Deci & Ryan, 1985, 2008; Rockmann & Ballinger, 2017).

While SDT draws intrinsic and extrinsic motivation on opposite ends of a continuum, Rockmann and Ballinger (2017) advocate that intrinsic and extrinsic motivations are independent, each with unique antecedents and outcomes: “in organizations, because financial incentives exist alongside interesting tasks, individuals can simultaneously experience extrinsic and intrinsic motivation for doing their work” (p. 11). A sales context especially offers unique opportunities to gain financial rewards while also helping others (i.e., the more businesses the salesperson helps, the more rewards earned) so this is an especially interesting context to examine the effects of both types of motivation.

When intrinsically motivated, individual find themselves naturally drawn to tasks (Grant, 2007) and look at the completion of the work as the goal in and of itself (Rockmann & Ballinger, 2017). Beyond the three known antecedents (autonomy, self-efficacy, and connection) from SDT, sense of purpose ought to be positively associated with intrinsic motivation because it means performing tasks because they are inherently interesting (cognitively) or internally satisfying (affectively). Contributing to something greater and more enduring than oneself can bring immense internal satisfaction and add a dimension of interest to the job. Yet, this notion has not been empirically tested. Thus, we formally hypothesize:

H6

Sense of purpose is positively associated with intrinsic motivation, net the effects of autonomy, self-efficacy, and connection

Working hard

Katsikeas et al. (2018) highlight that although cognitive and attitudinal change can lead to performance change, without change in action, the change may be “modest or short lived at best” (p. 6). According to Sujan et al. (1994), working hard is equivalent to the overall effort salespeople devote to their work. Effort is one of the ultimate predictors of salesperson performance and one of the best ways to infer that a salesperson was motivated to act (Hughes & Ahearne, 2010). In other words, effort demonstrates that salespeople were motivated to spend their time at work making calls, advancing leads, problem solving, and developing strategic customer solutions.

Effort has been operationalized a number of ways in past research, including anticipated effort, intensity of effort, and hours spent working (e.g., Brown & Peterson, 1994; Hughes, 2013). Looking at each driver of intrinsic motivation—autonomy, self-efficacy, connection, and sense of purpose—helps build the case for the importance of intrinsic motivation to predict effort. Studies have demonstrated—albeit separately—that autonomy (Christen et al., 2006; Rapp et al., 2015; Wang & Netemeyer, 2002), self-efficacy (Ahearne et al., 2005; Fu et al., 2010; Sujan et al., 1994), and intrafirm relationships (Bolander et al., 2015; Nowlin et al., 2018) increase salesperson effort and performance. Beyond these constructs, having a sense of purpose should motivate salespeople to work harder. If the salesperson recognizes the positive impact a sale will have on customers’ lives and/or on society at large, that sense of importance should drive effort to make more sales. Moreover, if the customer initially objects to the purchase, trying again no longer feels like selfish ambition with a true sense of purpose for the work. As the tractor-trailer wheel salesman conveyed in the qualitative study, he immediately starts contacting customers and expending effort at work each morning because he recognizes the importance of his sales to society. Thus, we predict:

H7a

Intrinsic motivation is positively associated with working hard on average over time

Extrinsic motivation refers to doing something because it leads to a separable outcome (Deci & Ryan, 2008). Although some scholars have broken down extrinsic motivation into a cognitive orientation called “compensation seeking,” and affective orientation called “recognition seeking,” (e.g., Miao et al., 2007), the latter has been questioned as partially belonging to intrinsic motivation (Deci, 1972). Truly, recognition and esteem are higher level needs that lie within a person. According to Deci (1972), “verbal rewards may not be phenomenologically distinguishable from the feelings of satisfaction which the person gets for doing the activity. Hence, the verbal reinforcements strengthen his intrinsic motivation because they provide additional positive value which becomes associated with the activity…by strengthening the person’s sense of competence and self-determination” (p. 224). Thus, depending on how the salesperson receives feedback and interprets it, the draw could be due to the source and desire to please others (extrinsic) or from the perception of how good he or she is at the task and feelings of esteem (intrinsic). For these reasons, in this study we focus on the compensation-seeking aspect of extrinsic motivation.

Katsikeas et al. (2018) highlight that prior research has attempted to show “the performance impact of sales control indirectly through changes in job engagement (e.g., adaptive selling and sales effort)” with “limited success” (p. 7). Are financial rewards more important for salesperson effort over time, or would intrinsic motivation—including having a sense of purpose—lead to working harder? We predict the latter. Although extant literature shows a strong relationship between extrinsic (controlled) motivation and performance, we predict that those who sell for more noble reasons will overtime outperform those focused on meeting quotas and making money (c.f., McLeod, 2020). If salespeople feel that they are competent in their job, connected with their coworkers, have great freedom in their position, and a sense of purpose that what they do really matters to society, we predict that they will strive to make sales even during difficult situations when others may give up. This theme emerged during our qualitative interviews. Moreover, SDT predicts that while external regulation can powerfully motivate specific behaviors, it often comes with “collateral damage” in the form of long-term detriment to autonomous motivation (Deci et al., 2017, p. 21). Hence, though this notion runs somewhat counter to current literature in salesperson motivation, we formally hypothesize:

H7b

Intrinsic motivation is more positively associated with working hard than extrinsic motivation on average over time

Working smart

While working hard has been described as effort, working smart concerns the strategic direction of effort (Sujan, 1986). In his seminal paper, Sujan (1986) indicated that those who were intrinsically motivated attributed failure to not working smart enough while those who were extrinsically motivated attributed failure to not working hard enough—but perhaps in the wrong direction. While working hard is often discussed as effort intensity, working smart most often signifies effort direction. Ogilvie et al. (2017) describes working smart as “the use of knowledge to direct effort” (p. 101).

Working smart has been conceptualized in marketing literature as adaptive selling behavior, or using sales knowledge to adjust the approach to fit customer needs within various customer interactions (Alavi et al., 2019; Fang et al., 2004; Spiro & Weitz, 1990). Adaptive selling is defined as “engaging in planning to determine the suitability of sales behaviors and activities that will be undertaken, the capacity to engage in a wide range of selling behaviors and activities, and the alteration of sales behaviors and activities in keeping with situational considerations” (Sujan et al., 1994, p. 40). Previous studies have demonstrated that intrinsically motivated salespeople are more likely to practice adaptive selling, which leads to enhanced performance (Jaramillo et al., 2007; Miao & Evans, 2012; Román & Iacobucci, 2010).

From its earliest inception, theories on motivation were based on need fulfilment. People behave to solve problems such as hunger, loneliness, self-esteem, and so forth. Maslow (1943), arguably the most widely cited and misunderstood motivational theorist, asserted that once basic, lower-level needs were at least partially filled (i.e., there was at least something in a man’s belly), higher level needs would emerge as strong motivators, such as the need for routine, human connection, and doing what one was fitted for, or self-actualization. McGregor (1960) similarly described lower-level and higher-level needs of workers with his Theory X (focused on micro-management with punishments and rewards, or “carrots and sticks”) and Theory Y (driven by limited supervision and greater emphasis on worker engagement and motivation). Importantly, within the context of employment, pay and working conditions have been equated to “hygiene factors,” which are expected by present-day employees, while true motivators are based on higher level needs like achievement, recognition and growth (Herzberg, 1968).

Extrinsic motivation has been regarded as meeting lower level needs of workers (i.e., compensation) while intrinsic motivation has been viewed as meeting higher level needs. Monetary rewards may not be truly motivating to people who have never experienced genuine hunger or poverty (Herzberg, 1968). Present-day workers have a sense of entitlement to fair wages and decent working conditions, and thus they are only really noticed if they are missing or fall beyond an expected distribution (on either side—far greater or far less than expectations). Consequently, intrinsic motivation should be more positively associated with working not only harder but also smarter than extrinsic motivation. Hence, we hypothesize,

H8

Intrinsic motivation is more positively associated with working smart than extrinsic motivation on average over time

The moderating effect of age

Recent research highlights that a dramatic change in the demographic makeup of the sales workforce is taking place as older salespeople are retiring and younger salespeople are being heavily recruited (Khusainova et al., 2018). Younger salespeople are predicted to be motivated differently than their predecessors yet little empirical research has investigated this notion (Khusainova et al., 2018). Miao et al. (2009) found decreases in the challenge-seeking aspect of intrinsic motivation as salespeople had more job experience, which may be correlated with age but is not equivalent. A more recent study suggests the desire to learn new tasks declines as workers age, as does their self-rated task enjoyment motivation (Calo et al., 2014).

In addition, recent popular press articles have suggested that younger salespeople are seeking jobs where they can make a difference (e.g., Debevoise, 2019; Goleman, 2020). Over 60% of millennials say businesses should be “improving society” instead of “generating profit” (Goldman 2020). In another national poll of young adults, 79% of 18–29-year-olds agreed that “it is more important to enjoy my job than to make a lot of money” (Pratt-Kelly 2020). With less experience in the real world, young adults are filled with dreams and aspirations and are still searching for how they personally can make a difference in the world. As they are making sense of their jobs and their role in society, intrinsic sources of motivation like self-efficacy, belongingness, autonomy, and sense of purpose may be more important to them as such information helps shape their worldview. Hence, we formally predict,

H9a

Age moderates the relationship between intrinsic motivation and working hard such that the impact is strengthened when salespeople are younger

H9b

Age moderates the relationship between intrinsic motivation and working smart such that the impact is strengthened when salespeople are younger

Sales performance

Our conceptual model is displayed in Fig. 2. Ultimately, what most companies are concerned with is salesperson performance. We do not formally hypothesize for a relationship between working hard and working smart and salesperson performance because these relationships have been well-documented in the literature (Fang et al., 2004; Jaramillo & Mulki, 2008; Ogilvie et al., 2017). However, we do include objective performance in our model as we test our hypothesized relationships to show their overall importance.

Fig. 2
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Conceptual model (Study 3)

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Methodology

Sample

A U.S.-based sales firm in the financial services industry provided us with the contact information for 522 salespeople within its main office. All sales are done over the phone (with no in-person meetings); while the company does not consider itself to be a call center, it operates very similarly. Salespeople have individual goals and sell individually, and their compensation is a mix of base pay plus commission based on the percentage of their quota that they attain. The company provided objective longitudinal effort and performance data for each salesperson in the sample both prior to and after the survey (four points in time, representing four consecutive sales cycles). Before the voluntary surveys were sent to the sales force, a company Vice President’s secretary communicated with all employees via email, encouraging each salesperson to take the anonymous survey.

After receiving the survey responses, an outlier analysis revealed that 20 responders served the company in other capacities than strictly a salesperson during at least one sales cycle of the investigation period, such as being promoted to leadership or participating in an initial onboarding time rather than the typical selling role. Thus, our final sample size was 114 salespeople (n = 456 total observations), which was a 21.84% response rate. On average, respondents were 29 years old, worked at the company 2.5 years, and had an average work experience in sales of six years. Approximately 78% of the sample was male, which aligns with the company’s workforce make-up.

Measures

All scales used in this study are contained in Appendix A. We measured sense of purpose using the new tool developed in the second study. The composite reliability for this measure in the current data is .922. We measured autonomy using a three-item scale from Zhang and Bartol (2010), including items such as “I can decide on my own how to go about doing my work.” The composite reliability for this measure is .944. We measured competence, which is synonymous for self-efficacy, with a seven-item scale from Sujan et al. (1994). The composite reliability for this measure is .935. We measured connection with the eight-item scale for sense of belonging from Deci et al. (2001). A confirmatory factory analysis on this data revealed that four items loaded on a single factor, which is considered ideal for survey research (c.f. Raykov & Marcoulides, 2011), so we chose to maintain just those items. (We recognize it is quite possible that salespeople working in this call-center type of environment like their co-workers and yet still keep to themselves for the most part at work.) The composite reliability for this measure is .905. We measured extrinsic motivation with a three-item scale from Oliver and Anderson (1994) that included items focused on the desire for monetary compensation. The composite reliability for this scale is .898. We measured intrinsic motivation using a five-item scale from Oliver and Anderson (1994). The composite reliability for this measure is .868.

Salesperson performance is an objective measure obtained from company archival data as “percentage of goal.” Using percentage of goal or quota, i.e., total sales divided by the expected sales target, has been deemed a “strong indicator of salesperson performance” and is common practice in sales research because it controls for potential contaminating factors such as territory size (Ahearne et al., 2005). We measured working smart with a seven-item scale for selling adaptivity from Spiro and Weitz (1990). The composite reliability for this measure is .922. Working hard, or effort, is an objective measure the company provided from archival data on the exact number of calls per month made by the salesperson, which we log-transformed.

Analysis

While a recent trend has been to model longitudinal data with linear growth curve models, this type of approach would not be appropriate given this data and our research questions (Xu et al., 2020). When researchers estimate a growth curve and argue for a positive linear trend, they are mathematically implying that the trajectory continues to increase, even if this is not their intended argument. It seems unreasonable to expect unbounded growth for performance, and prior research has shown that performance converges to stability after either an initial spike (Thoresen et al., 2004) or among newcomers once volatile socializing experiences have settled (Boswell et al., 2005). We would expect general stability of performance across time for employees not experiencing drastic external changes (i.e., not newcomers or employees going through a large organizational change). Based on the mathematics of dynamic systems, we expect performance to be stable across time, and in the current paper we define stable as meaning that the statistical characteristics of the variable (e.g., mean and variance) do not demonstrate vast changes at successive time points (Jebb & Tay, 2017). Salesperson performance may fluctuate month to month, and it may even increase steadily when an individual first starts working in a sales role or for a new company, but it is unlikely that it will continue to consistently increase or decrease after the person has gained experience in the role.

Since the company provided multiple time points of data for each salesperson on effort and performance (n > 1, t ≥ 3), we employed a dynamic modeling approach—specifically, time varying covariate analysis—to account for the non-independence of observations over time within salespeople (Bollen & Brand, 2010). To infer meaning from this type of data requires assessing how constructs such as effort and performance move through time as functions of themselves and each other, noting how the past constrains the future. Dynamics is a specific branch of mechanics/mathematics, but in organizational literature it refers to an approach that describes how the variables in a system move from a given state at time t to another state at time t + 1 as governed by the transition rules and external inputs (Wang et al., 2016; Xu et al., 2020). Instead of a growth curve model, the time varying covariate analysis allows us to answer if a salesperson’s motivation is associated with his or her effort over time and if changes in effort relate to changes in the salesperson’s subsequent performance. Using a dynamic model with reciprocal influence and constraints allows for boundaries within the dynamic system. In other words, rather than assessing a general trend pattern, this lens emphasizes how states update from one moment to the next, fluctuating across time but bounded by where the state was at the immediately prior time point.

Dynamic modeling offers a more accurate inference than other approaches on whether a construct like individual effort displays a similar pattern with an individual’s performance over time—i.e., they “dance” together—if effort goes down, subsequent performance goes down; if effort rises in the next month, performance will subsequently rise, and so on. Statistically, we specific the following dynamic model as the following equation:

$$ {y}_{it}=\rho {y}_{it-1}+{\boldsymbol{B}}_{yzt}{\boldsymbol{Z}}_i+{\eta}_i+{\uplambda}_i+{\varepsilon}_{it} $$
(1)

where yit is the value of the dependent variable for the ith salesperson at time t; ρ is the autoregressive coefficient of the effect of yit − 1 on yit. Zi is a vector of independent variables and control variable for the ith salesperson; Byzt is a vector of coefficients at time t that give the impact of the vector Zi on the dependent variable yit; ηi represents the unobserved heterogeneity that has a coefficient of 1 to the dependent variable, and it is allowed to correlate with exogenous variables and the dependent variable at the initial time point; λi is the inverse Mills ratio of the ith salesperson from the eq. (A2); εit is the random disturbance of the ith salesperson at time t. While we describe the general model specification in eq. 1, we also provide additional details about our dynamic modeling approach in Web Appendix B.

Correcting endogeneity, selection bias, and unobserved heterogeneity

Prior to testing our hypotheses, we corrected for potential self-selection bias in the non-random sample. Before we statistically control for possible sample induced endogeneity, we conducted T-tests on mean scores of demographic variables for early and late responders, which were not significantly different, indicating that nonresponse bias was not a problem. Next, we used Heckman (1979) two-step control function approach to account for sample-induced endogeneity. We first fit a probit regression model that estimates the probability of a salesperson answering the survey using information from company records. The independent variables used in the first stage equation are related to the selection but not included in the second stage model. The first stage model generates the inverse Mills ratios. We then included ratios in the hypothesis testing models to control for potential sample induced endogeneity. We report the full selection equations and the first-stage model results in Web Appendix B.

Also, in estimating dynamic panel models, researchers commonly use the generalized method of moments using instrumental variables (GMM-IV) approach to control potential bias and Type I error rates. However, we intentionally selected Bollen and Brand (2010)‘s dynamic modeling approach over the GMM-IV approach because GMM-IV approach requires a larger sample size (Ahn & Schmidt, 1995) and tends to yield greater bias in small samples, particularly when the autoregressive effect is large (Kiviet & Phillips, 2014).

Within dynamic modeling, unobserved heterogeneity represents unmeasured variables in aggregate that are stable over time within units (i.e., time-invariant for each unit) but vary across units (Xu et al., 2020). If unobserved heterogeneity is ignored, then serial correlation will be introduced into the errors. We controlled for unobserved heterogeneity because if it is modeled as independent but in fact correlates with other predictors in the model, then omitted variables bias is introduced into the parameter estimates (Wooldridge, 2010). The modeling technique we chose (a) conditions on the first observation of the outcome variable(s) to mitigate the initial condition problem, (b) explicitly incorporates unobserved heterogeneity and contains the freedom to model it in a fixed or random effects approach, and (c) is amenable to a variety of lag structures (Bollen & Brand, 2010). Xu et al. (2020) report that Bollen and Brand (2010)‘s dynamic modeling approach yields less biased estimates than the GMM-IV approach. Therefore, we treated the time-invariant, between-individual unobserved heterogeneity as a latent variable and allowed it to correlate with the lagged dependent variable and time-varying covariates.

Common method variance and multicollinearity

Common method variance (CMV) could be a potential source of bias in survey-based results. To minimize the potential impact of CMV, we combined data from different sources (i.e., we relied on key informants for the independent variables and archival sources for the performance criterion) and reduced survey length. Next, we assessed the presence of CMV using partial correlation procedures. We also conducted confirmatory factor analyses to examine the factor structure of the survey measures. Finally, we estimated an alternative model to rule out the possibility that common method effects account for the variance in responses. While prior studies have used participant’s age as the marker variable (e.g., Griffith & Lusch, 2007), age is not appropriate in the current research context since age is included in our research framework. Thus, we selected participant’s gender as the marker variable. Gender is an appropriate marker variable because it fits the standard procedure—i.e., it is not theoretically or statistically related to a least one other variable in the study (Lindell & Whitney, 2001). The results suggest that CMV may not be an important issue in this study. The adjusted correlations demonstrate a similar significance structure of the original correlations. In addition, multicollinearity is not detected since the variance inflation factors are all in the range of 1.5 to 2.1.

Results

Prior to testing our hypotheses, we ran a CFA in MPLUS 8.3 on the measurement model, for which results show reasonable model fit (χ2 = 462.395, 165d.f.; CFI = .95; RMSEA = .07; SRMR = .02). Correlation and descriptive statistics are available in Table 4, and results are listed in Table 5. In the sixth hypothesis, we predicted that sense of purpose is significantly related to intrinsic motivation, net the effects of autonomy, self-efficacy, and connection, or the three known antecedents of SDT. This hypothesis was supported (β = .154, p < .05). In the seventh set of hypotheses, we predicted that intrinsic motivation is not only positively associated with working hard but also more positively associated with working hard than extrinsic motivation on average over time. These hypotheses were supported. The relationship between intrinsic motivation and the number of calls made was significantly positive (β = .018, p < .05) while the relationship between extrinsic motivation and number of calls made was not significant (β = −.001, n.s.). The two are significantly different, with the relationship between intrinsic motivation and working hard being significantly more positive.

Table 4 Descriptive statistics, CORRELATIONS and AVE-SQ (Study 3)
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Table 5 Results (Study 3)
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In the eighth hypothesis, we predicted that intrinsic motivation is more positively associated with working smart than is extrinsic motivation, which was supported. The relationship between intrinsic motivation and adaptive selling was significantly positive (β = .619, p < .01) while the relationship between extrinsic motivation and adaptive selling was not significant (β = .074, n.s.). The two are significantly different, with the relationship between intrinsic motivation and working smart being significantly more positive.

In the ninth set of hypotheses, we predicted that age moderates the impact between intrinsic motivation and working hard (9a) and working smart (9b) such that relationships are stronger when salespeople are younger. These hypotheses were supported: (β = −.0005, p < .05) and (β = −.006, p < .05), respectively. The interactions are shown in Fig. 3a and b.

Fig. 3
figure 3

a and 3b: Interaction plots (Study 3)

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Finally, by modeling the relationship dynamically over time, our analysis shows that effort and subsequent performance follow the same pattern over time (β = .381, p < .05). On the other hand, the relationship between working smart and performance did not reach statistical significance (β = .023, n.s.).

We also separately tested the direct effect of sense of purpose on salesperson performance since this is a new construct we introduce to the literature. We find that sense of purpose has a significantly positive direct effect on salesperson performance (β = .037, p < .05), whereas the other known antecedents of SDT did not reach statistical significance. Results from these additional analyses are shown in Web Appendix B.

Robustness checks

We examined rival models to gauge if our model was correctly specified. For example, salespeople may monitor their performance and respond to discrepancies between it and their expectations, so we added a path between performance at time t to effort at time t + 1. Results show that the coefficient was not significant nor were model fit statistics improved. Hence, the more parsimonious model was retained. We find that a significant predictor of effort at time t + 1 was effort at time t, which is in line with behavioral consistency theory that suggests one of the best predictors of what someone will do in a given circumstance is what he or she did under similar circumstances in the past (Funder & Colvin, 1991). Likewise, the psychological inertia theorem (Walters, 2018) proposes that individuals often demonstrate behavioral continuity or the expression of similar behavior across time due to recurrent cognitions. Hence, we have some evidence that the model we tested should be retained.

Discussion

A better understanding of motivation—including its antecedents and outcomes—in the modern dynamic environment of personal selling and sales management has been much needed, particularly as a new, younger salesforce is being hired and trained to rise to sales management. We started our quest by interviewing salespeople and asking them what motivated them in general at work, what motivated them to go the extra mile on a Friday afternoon, and what motivated them when times were tough. The findings from our first study revealed that in addition to the constructs found in SDT, sense of purpose was an unexpectedly strong and frequently mentioned motivator deserving of more exploration. Hence, building on this first study, we moved to a second study with the objective of developing a construct to measure sense of purpose and demonstrated that it is distinct from job meaningfulness. Finally, using the tool developed in the second study, we moved forward to a third study to test the importance of this new construct in comparison to existing constructs in the literature by measuring its impact on salesperson outcomes such as objective effort and performance over time. We find that sense of purpose is another antecedent of intrinsic motivation. Moreover, intrinsic motivation was a significant predictor of effort, adaptive selling, and salesperson performance—even more so than extrinsic motivation, despite the latter’s prominence in recent sales literature. Finally, we discovered that intrinsic motivation is even more important for younger salespeople, which has important theoretical and managerial implications.

Theoretical implications

Since young adults are beginning to occupy the sales workforce, understanding what motivates them remains extremely important. Hence, our first contribution is showing that intrinsic motivation leads to greater effort and adaptivity for younger salespeople. While some scholars and practitioners may think that young adults are less concerned with intrinsic motivation until they become more financially stable (i.e., Maslow’s hierarchy of needs), this assumption disregards the fact that modern society has provided young salespeople with credit and a (perhaps false) sense of financial security that makes higher level needs emerge as more salient. Thus, as companies are hiring and training a younger salesforce, focusing on meeting their needs for autonomy, relatedness, competence, and a sense of purpose should be top of mind.

Our second contribution is in providing empirical evidence that intrinsic motivation is more positively associated with critical salesperson behaviors that ultimately lead to salesperson performance over time. While research on extrinsic motivation—including incentives, compensation, and contests—has dominated the literature in recent years, we show that intrinsic motivation is worthy of further attention and research, even in this modern era. Extrinsically motivating salespeople is costly to companies, and stimulating intrinsic motivation may be not only less expensive but also more effective. We acknowledge that hiring and training costs may not differ substantially for intrinsically- versus extrinsically-motivated salespeople; however, intrinsic motivation is “self-generating” as the pull to act comes from the inherent interest and satisfaction in performing the task rather than influenced by additional financial incentives (Deci et al., 2017).

Importantly, these findings do not negate the fact that compensation and financial incentives are necessary within the context of sales; rather, a key takeaway may be that financial compensation has become an expectation of salespeople—a hygiene factor. A desire for money may drive the decision to accept a position within a company and it may drive short-term behaviors, but our findings reveal that compensation-based extrinsic motivation was not significantly related to effort in salespeople over time. While prior cross-sectional studies have shown a lift in performance from extrinsic sources of motivation such as incentives, the results of our qualitative study reveal that perhaps pursuing these rewards is not based on a desire for financial gain but rather fulfilling a need for achievement. Using longitudinal modeling, our empirical results show that the relationship between a desire for money and salesperson effort can diminish over time. As a Forbes article highlights, “Rewards of pay or time off may generate an immediate and short-term improvement in productivity but often backfire” (Debevoise, 2019). Likewise, SDT explains that controlled motivation via extrinsic rewards can be determinantal to autonomous motivation and even salesperson well-being (Deci et al., 2017). Perhaps this is burnout, as a desire for more and more money can never be fully satisfied. Conversely, intrinsic motivation was positively associated with effort, adaptivity, and sales performance.

Our third and main contribution is establishing sense of purpose as an important component of intrinsic motivation in salespeople. We also distinguish sense of purpose—the belief that one is contributing to a cause greater and more enduring than oneself (i.e., benefiting society)—from job meaningfulness, which is the extent to which the person feels the job makes a meaningful contribution to the organization. Recent research has highlighted how many employees struggle to connect their daily work to the overall vision of their company (Barrick et al., 2013; Carton, 2018). We propose this may be the result of both academic studies and sales managers emphasizing how salespeople are benefiting the company or themselves rather than connecting how the salesperson is making a positive impact on constituents external to the firm or society. This nuance is crucial for leaders; it means that telling a salesperson the company is counting on you to hit the numbers is not as effective as emphasizing how his or her sales have a positive and lasting impact on customers and society at large.

While literature has emphasized enhancing job meaningfulness through work design, recent research has lamented that “evidence on the effectiveness of using the organization’s ultimate aspirations to impart meaningfulness to work is mixed” (Carton, 2018, p. 324). Companies have become more adept at creating vision statements and related branding, and yet a disconnect remains between employees’ feelings toward the ultimate aspirations of the company and their everyday work (Carton, 2018). This disconnect can exist because the vision of the company and a salesperson’s sense of purpose are not synonymous. As a recent Forbes article emphasizes, “organizations can painstakingly craft a compelling purpose statement and print it on every available surface of the organization, physical or virtual, but if employees aren’t guided to connect to that purpose on an individual level, the disconnect between what’s being said and felt by employees creates a sense of dissonance and ultimately skepticism and disengagement” (Debevoise, 2019, emphasis ours). Hence, the disconnect between sense-giving (inspiring/influencing) from leaders and sense-making (understanding/ cognition) from individual salespeople (e.g., Maitlis, 2005; Gioia & Chittipeddi, 1991) continues to plague organizations.

Accordingly, Carton (2018) explains that while having a vision statement that is transcendent and timeless is important, it can make a firm’s aspirations seem far removed from everyday work’s short-term objectives; hence, managers frequently try to focus employee’s attention on a near-term goal such as a sales quota (Carton, 2018). However, this controlled motivation is not necessarily the answer to building engagement (Carton, 2018). Instead, we advocate and empirically demonstrate that improving the sense-making of salespeople to understand how their daily activities make a contribution to a cause greater and more enduring than themselves should lead to greater intrinsic motivation to work harder and smarter and improve overall sales performance. While sense-making has historically been connected with “events that are novel, ambiguous, confusing, or in some other way violate expectations,” (Maitlis & Christianson, 2014, p. 57), we adopt a broader perspective of salespeople “making sense” of their individual impact on society through their job (c.f., Gioia & Chittipeddi, 1991).

Managerial implications

While intrinsic motivation has been likened to the ‘heart and brains’ of a person, management can influence or inspire it. Firms do not have to exclusively look to increasing incentives, contests, and compensation to motivate, thinking they cannot impact the inherent attractiveness of the sales task in the minds of their subordinates. With an enhanced understanding of the drivers and benefits of intrinsic motivation generated by this study, managers may want to think about each antecedent in trying to influence the salesperson’s behavior.

Initially, sales managers should consider their conversations with salespeople. Often company meetings with salespeople focus on quotas, quarterly numbers, and projected forecasts. As McLeod (2020) asserts, “selling is not about numbers but about people – customers and salespeople working together to solve problems.” Based on the results of this study, managers should give ample attention in conversations with salespeople as to how company products and services benefit customers and society as a whole, thereby stimulating a heightened sense of purpose. This notion is critical to the shifting dynamic of sales in customer-centric marketing. Likewise, sales managers can also examine their own sense of purpose in working for the company and lead by example in showing how their work leaves a greater impact on society. Debevoise (2019) articulates that purpose-driven branding can backfire when it is only focused on external, top-down messaging rather than developing an authentic internal purposeful mindset for all employees (i.e., sense-giving). A company’s purpose journey may start at the top, but leaders should help close the gap between the organizational vision and the sense of purpose salespeople feel for making sales. Helping connect the dots between the tasks salespeople complete and how they contribute to a cause greater and more enduring than themselves is a worthy task for leaders. To do so, sales managers should regularly show their subordinates how their work benefits others, help salespeople tie their everyday tasks to a bigger purpose worth committing to, and make contribution goals as or more important than achievement goals. As we show, such efforts should help sales performance and the effective management of a younger workforce, which is becoming increasingly important.

As managers recruit and train new, younger sales employees, focusing on meeting their needs for a sense of purpose, autonomy, relatedness, and competence should be a priority. While intrinsic motivation was more positively associated with effort and performance for salespeople in our sample in general, it was extra important for younger workers. Hence, in addition to the steps to build a sense of purpose mentioned above, managers should provide opportunities for autonomy, offer training and coaching to build a sense of competence, and strive to create a corporate culture conducive to salespeople connecting with their co-workers to influence a sense of belonging.

Limitations and future research

As with any study, there are some limitations that provide fruitful avenues for future research. First, we used a measure for extrinsic motivation that has been widely used in previous studies (c.f., Oliver & Anderson, 1994; Noble, 2008; Rockmann & Ballinger, 2017). However, we did not examine actual increased financial incentives but simply controlled for compensation by surveying salespeople from the same company within the same role over the same period of time. A future study may wish to conduct a field experiment in which intrinsic motivation is measured in addition to financial offerings to see which has a greater effect or how the two combine and interact. We acknowledge the fact that people are likely motivated by both intrinsic and extrinsic rewards to some degree, and thus teasing apart interactions across a response surface would be an interesting future study. Likely, a base level of extrinsic motivation is necessary, but after a certain point (i.e., the salesperson is making a sufficient income), intrinsic motivation would be required to maintain effort and attention, especially over time. This premise warrants future exploration given the types of motivation are not necessarily mutually exclusive.Footnote 2 Along similar lines, we also leave exploring the impact of career stages on the relationship between different types of motivation and subsequent behavior and performance as an opportunity for future exploration.

In addition, we captured motivation as a trait. Future research may wish to employ an experience sampling methodology to see if motivation remains constant within salespeople or if it fluctuates over time. We also measured working smart as adaptive selling (following Fang et al., 2004; Román & Iacobucci, 2010), which surprisingly was not statistically significantly related to salesperson performance. Perhaps this is an issue of statistical power, or perhaps studying working smart with other methods is warranted.

Next, we intentionally sampled salespeople from one company in one industry (which helped us control for compensation effects). However, doing so may limit generalizability. Future research may wish to examine other industries, or other countries, to determine if boundary conditions may exist. As the selling landscape continues to evolve and become more automated, how will motivation and subsequent effort and performance be affected? How important is a salesperson’s sense of purpose in a post-pandemic world with the rise of digital selling and increased frequency of online sales meetings? These questions would also serve as interesting avenues for future research.

Sampling one company and industry also prohibited us from teasing apart variance from self-selecting into companies that align with a salesperson’s own values; however, this issue deserves researchers’ attention. If employees feel a greater sense of alignment between their values, goals, and objectives, and those of the organization, it is likely that a synergistic effect may result. Or, the opposite could be true. For example, if a salesperson is environmentally conscious and the company is not (or vice versa), how does that impact the salesperson’s sense of purpose, motivation, and subsequent behaviors? Such a study could provide useful insights.

Researchers also may want to investigate how much longer intrinsically motivated salespeople stay with their employer, how much more money they generate for the company, and how much they impact customer lifetime value. Future studies may want to explore how a sense of purpose can impact recruiting efforts as well.

Next, future research could examine how leadership behaviors and styles enhance or distract from having a sense of purpose. How does transformational leadership, empowering leadership, or supportive leadership interact with intrinsic and extrinsic motivation? We advocate exploring leadership styles and behaviors and their impact on the relationship between motivation and subsequent behaviors would be an interesting avenue for future research.