Effects of Job Design and Sales Managers' Behavior on Intrinsic Motivation, Customer Orientation and Performance of Salespeople : - A quantitative study in the Swedish electricity market.

Abstract: The main purpose of this study is to examine the effects of job design and sales managers’ behavior on intrinsic motivation and customer orientation of salespeople. Furthermore, we aim to examine if any of the factors included in our model have an effect on performance of Company X’s salespeople. Thus, our research questions are:  What impacts do job design and sales managers’ behaviors have on intrinsic motivation and customer orientation of salespeople? What kind of differences exist between high- and low performance sales teams considering these factors? Our study has been carried out on commission for Company X where we studied their Customer Service salespeople, which are working in a business to consumer context in the Swedish electricity market. The study makes theoretical contributions to motivation research in the field of Selling and Sales management by developing and testing a conceptual model with a unique combination of motivating variables. Our model was inspired by Hackman and Oldham’s (1980) Job Characteristics Model, but we extended this model and added organizational variables that had not been examined in relation to this model by prior research. Thus, no previous research has, to our knowledge, tested the effects of our chosen variables of job design and sales managers behavior on intrinsic motivation and customer orientation. To deepen our study and our understanding of what effect our variables of job design and sales managers behavior have on performance, we received secondary data from Company X. This additional data analysis enabled us to compare whether there were differences across our key variables between sales teams with high performance and low performance. We adopted a quantitative strategy and data collection method. Thus, we distributed questionnaires to our target population – salespeople working in Company X Customer Service. Both primary and secondary data were entered and processed by the statistical analysis program SPSS. On our primary data we performed Cronbach's alpha tests, cross-tabulations, bivariate regression analysis and multiple regression analysis to test hypothesized effects. Our secondary data in combination with our primary data were analyzed by a two-sample t-test to identify differences between high-, and low performance teams. Our hypotheses were partially supported and findings showed that the critical psychological states: experienced meaningfulness and experienced responsibility had positive effects on intrinsic motivation. Experienced responsibility in combination with role ambiguity had positive effects on customer orientation. Similarly, intrinsic motivation was found to affect customer orientation. The other variables of job design and sales managers’ behavior were not found to have significant effects on intrinsic motivation and customer orientation. Variables affecting performance were coaching; positive behavioral feedback and role ambiguity, and they differed significantly between high-, and low performance teams. Our study provides practical recommendations for Company X and other companies in the electricity market. Our findings can be used to improve marketing strategies and motivation of salespeople in other business to consumer contexts.