Document Type
Article
Publication Date
4-1-2016
Abstract
A qualitative, grounded theory study uncovers that despite management’s application of incentives and other extrinsic rewards, salespeople are intrinsically motivated when pursuing genuine interpersonal relationships with customers and foster an identity of helping others (customers) by applying “systems-savvy selling.” Through the analysis of lived experiential qualitative data from sales professionals in the B2B industrial fluid handling market at various organizations, this research uncovers the behaviors and practices that best create and hinder the conditions through which motivation occurs. Specifically, this study challenges the dominant logic by revealing that salespeople are not manipulating care and personal relationships to improve business outcomes at the customer level; rather, using care, compassion, openness and altruistic behaviors in their selling approach to the customer in order to improve desired relational dynamics and to fulfill certain psychological needs. Additionally, this research uncovers the paradox selling manager’s face between the seeing of self and the seeing of others (salespeople) and suggests that the duality of motivational meaning is role dependent.
Keywords
interpersonal relations, sales personnel, selling--methodology, Weatherhead School of Management, incentives, motivation, systems thinking, structuration, interpersonal relationships, interpersonal identity, intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation
Rights
© The Author(s). This is an open access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Department/Center
Design & Innovation
Recommended Citation
St. Clair, Donald P., "Systems-Savvy Selling: A Grounded Theory Approach to Understanding What Motivates Contemporary Industrial Salespeople" (2016). Student Scholarship. 417.
https://commons.case.edu/studentworks/417