Relationships among perceptions of organizational politics (POPs), work motivation and salesperson performance

Salespersons differ from office workers in office time, work pressure and salary structure, thus their perceptions of organizational politics (POPs) and work motivations may also differ. Based on literature review and the expectancy theory of motivation, this study proposes three hypotheses: (1) POPs is positively related to salesperson performance, (2) POPs is positively related to salesperson work motivation and (3) there is mediator effect for work motivation in the relationship between POPs and salesperson performance. A questionnaire survey was conducted on four representative companies from the list of product manufacturers and service providers in Taiwan. The POPs and work motivation questions were answered by the salespersons, whereas the salespersons’ performance questions were assessed by the sales managers. A total of 850 questionnaires were distributed with 510 valid responses returned for hypotheses testing. The results support the three hypotheses, suggesting POPs can lead to improved salesperson performance, and this effect is mediated through work motivation. This new finding disagrees with the orthodox finding within the literature, which states that POPs and job performance for office workers are negatively correlated. The inconsistency may be ascribed to different work motivations between two groups of organizational members.