Motivating industrial salesforce with sales control systems: An interactive perspective

This research examines the interactive effects on industrial salespeopleʹs intrinsic and extrinsic (I/E) motivation of outcome control, activity control, and capability control above and beyond their main effects. I/E motivation are disaggregated into their cognitive and affective dimensions. Moderated regressions using a sample of industrial salespeople find that (1) outcome control and capability control have positive interactive effects on task enjoyment and recognition seeking, (2) outcome control and activity control have a positive interactive effect on compensation seeking but a negative interactive effect on task enjoyment, and (3) activity control and capability control have a negative interactive effect on recognition seeking. Moreover, we find that compensation seeking has a stronger positive effect on sales performance when salespeople deal with more new customers whereas the opposite is true for challenge seeking; compensation seeking appears to elevate job satisfaction only when there is a lower percentage of new customers but the positive effect of recognition seeking on job satisfaction is enhanced when salespeople handle a higher number of new accounts. These findings offer important theoretical and managerial implications by providing compelling evidence that sales control interactive effects should be considered when studying relationships among sales control systems, salesperson motivation, and job outcomes.