A self-determination theory-based meta-analysis on the differential effects of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation on salesperson performance

While companies devote extensive resources to sales force monitoring and compensation, executives continue to puzzle over how to properly motivate their sales personnel to perform more effectively and efficiently. Which matters more for performance-extrinsic incentives or intrinsic motivators-and under what conditions? While motivation has been studied for decades, the phenomenon remains a chief concern facing many organizations today. Findings from 293 effect sizes nested within 127 studies (n = 77,560) demonstrate that motivation is significantly associated with salesperson performance (r = .245, 95% CI = .238 to .252). In addition, the meta-analytic findings indicate that intrinsic motivation is more significantly associated with performance (r = .298, 95% CI = .287 to .308) than extrinsic motivation (r = .176, 95% CI = .166 to .186). The multivariate analyses also confirm that intrinsic motivation has stronger effects than extrinsic motivation on salesperson performance after controlling for sample characteristics such as age, gender, and tenure. Moreover, we find that the relationship between intrinsic motivation and performance is greater than that of extrinsic motivation and performance for both younger and older salespeople, salespeople with longer job tenure and years of sales experience, female salespeople, salespeople selling in a B2B context, and salespeople located within the U.S. We discuss the theoretical importance of these findings, offer practical implications for sales managers, and suggest avenues for future scholarly research.