Intrapreneurial Behaviour of Salespeople - Drivers and impact on performance

Abstract

IIn the last decades, the profession of selling has gone through a number of changes prompted by external phenomena, such as globalization, ever-increasing technology and high availability of information. As a result of this transformation, the figure of the salesperson has also been shifting to be able to overcome the current challenges and adapt to this new framework. For the salespeople to thrive and be successful in their job, they need to have characteristics and skills which closely resemble those of an entrepreneur. The concept of an employee adopting an entrepreneurial mindset while performing his activities inside of a corporate environment came forth fairly recently under the name of “intrapreneurial behaviour”. Starting from extant literature about this subject matter, this study aims at adapting this idea to salespeople through an exploratory model that strives to uncover which drivers might spark intrapreneurial behaviour in the salesperson (both at an individual and organizational level) and to find out whether it increases sales performance. Moreover, the model assesses whether factors such as competitive intensity and relative product advantage might mediate this correlation. In order to pre-test the model, a survey has been administered to the sales department of a global company; an analysis of the pre-test will lead to considerations about its reliability and what it might suggest. This research ends with a number of considerations about what the theorized hypotheses in the model might entail for employees and managers of a sales department.