What motivates Lebanese salespeople?

Abstract

Work motivation has long been discussed in literature, and many theories have been presented in order to better understand it and the factors surrounding it. We have used a number of these theories in our research in an attempt to study salespeople’s motivation in particular, while mainly focusing on the goal setting theory, and to a lesser extent, the expectancy theory. We have also used several points and ideas from other motivation theories and literature to help us study the salespeople’s intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in addition to their satisfaction while also covering the different points surrounding this satisfaction. For this purpose, we have had very detailed interviews with five individuals including two current salespeople, two ex-employees in the domain, and a current corporate head of sales. We concluded that no theory can accurately explain motivation as it is subjected to several constantly changing variables that can result in the same individual not getting motivated by the same factors that motivated him previously, or in extreme cases, getting demotivated by the same factors that motivated him previously. This, along with other discussed factors, highlighted the importance of proper communication and transparency in motivation.