Effects of employees' motivation on
marketing performance
1. Introduction
The aim of every organisation is to remain viable and key players in the market. The
organisations strive for more resources as resource input has been traditionally
associated with effectiveness since efficiency is largely a function of the amount and
type of resources available to the organisation (Muhammadin et al., 2020). To be
viable, organizations use marketing as a tool to fight and withstand their
competitors. This makes marketing to be a vital part of the total strategy of the
organizations especially when viewed from the organisational output perspective.
Based on this however, marketing performance continues to remain a phenomenon
especially when the level and trend of customers' loyalty continue to fall resulting in
a reduction in organizations' market share since these are both critical elements of
marketing performance (Yang et al., 2024).
However, there is a dearth of research in the Nigerian environment linking
employees' motivation, on one hand, and organization's marketing performance, on
the other hand, especially where the term "marketing performance" is used to
represent the growth in market share, improvement in organisations' brand image,
increasing trend in customers' loyalty and the high level of the organizations'
marketing objectives and goals. According to Marshall et al. , marketing objectives
are those collective statements that are operational periodically, leading to the
achievement of the organization's marketing goals including its socio-affective and
psychomotor objectives. Marketing performance is also represented by the
marketer's orientation (Homburg & M. Wielgos, 2022).
1.1. Background of the study
It is, therefore, essential to pass through the minds of those who correctly know
these demands and how these goods can be made available to attain their
expectations. The staff of an organization has the principal contribution to the
accomplishment of objectives. In particular, it is necessary information and
expertise for the accomplishment of the company’s objectives. The organization’s
objectives will be obtained if the employees are appropriately functioning at the
expected level. Some organizations have been efficient in producing the optimal
performances of their employees to make the organization more productive,
whereas others have not been successful.
Advertising is significant in creating demand for merchandise and solutions in the
market, subsequently producing marketing performance. Marketing is a procedure
that results in new, significant solutions to customer desires and the setting up a
strong relationship in providing these solutions. Right here advertising would be
carried out with the consumer becoming the endpoint. However, it has been
observed that a business organization does not carry out according to the
managerial expectations in the marketing and advertising of the typical commodity,
the management of more consumer-oriented items supplied by the company is
necessary. Continuous innovation of goods and services that satisfy the changing
needs of consumers and subsequent marketing of these goods in society is therefore
necessary.
1.2. Research objectives
Based on the review of articles available within the library of Pearson College, the
research contributes to the academia by evaluating the relationship between
marketing-related performance outcomes and psychological concepts (employees'
motivation). The importance of all the three dimensions, not only the motivation
from the individual perspective is establishing "because many individuals still
consider that motivation represents increase of employees' interest concerning the
work performed by the organisation or the family" (in the personal life). The
research methodology used within the thesis brought a series of implications both
in terms of theoretical and practical marketing. The lessons learned during the
literature and data gathering process could help a marketing researcher interested
on a topic to select a research methodology based on the interaction of a group of
employees and customers belonging of companies from the same sector using an
identical marketing technique. In terms of the practical implications of the findings
obtained with the marketing research methodology, it is worth mentioning that
even if the development of the employees' motivation in parallel with the increase
of the organisation performance can be perceived only in the long-term, no previous
empirical study evaluated the relationship between these two concepts by taking as
subjects executive employees.
This PhD thesis is focusing on the relationship between employees' motivation and
marketing outcomes (in terms of performance-related objectives). The fact that
employees' motivation generated the interest of many researchers in various fields
of study such as marketing, human resources management or economics is another
reason for choosing this topic. The purpose of the research was to identify the way
in which employees' motivation could influence (based on the marketing, cognitive,
behavioural, emotional components) department or organisation performance from
a sales perspective: personal, divisional or the performance of marketing function.
Trying to determine if other elements or dimensions could moderate the
relationship between employees' motivation at work and organisational
performance from marketing perspective is another objective addressed to MA in
Marketing Research.
1.3. Scope of the study
The study included only employees of the selected five microfinance institutions in
Hawassa city. The cross-sectional survey data collection was carried out in 2015.
Research was performed using respondent employees in client service and
marketing departments who have different regular working experiences in the
organization. Employees who are working in credit and finance department were
also involved in the research since they are intermediary between client service and
financial department. For the research qualitative and quantitative research
techniques were used. A sample size of 84 employees was selected by using simple
random sampling technique. Mitarbeitermotivationsskala questionnaire was used
as primary data collection instrument to measure employees’ motivation
constitutions with their effects on the marketing performance of MSIs. Secondary
data was collected from MFI’s reports, strategy and guidance documents on
performance of marketing indicators and interviews were conducted with branch
department managers of each MFI. Data analysis was conducted after data collection
and the research hypothesizes, data were tested using the analysis of Structural
Equation Model (SEM).
Previous research studies on the relationship between employees' motivation and
marketing performance were based on different types of organizations which
included both government and private owned sectors. This study extended the
research which was previously done by considering microfinance institutions as the
cases. Microfinance institutions are independent legal bodies with their own
governing boards and employ workers on contract basis. Employees' motivation is
one factor that influences on the marketing performance of a microfinance
organization. According to the promotional literature of Pro-credit saving and loans
limited, they recruit, develop and introduce continuously motivated, disciplined,
honest, productive and innovative best employees facing customer needs to make
our market stand number one. If employees were well motivated, that will be
reflected on the institution's marketing performance. Thus the main concern of this
research was to explore the effect of employees' motivation on marketing
performance carried out by microfinance institutions in Hawass City.
2. Literature Review
On the other side, the need for achievement, the need for power, and the need for
affiliation were three that individuals of different professional backgrounds have
different levels of the three motivational factors, which may lead to inconsistent
findings of employee motivation within an organization. In many management
systems, the success for those organizations that have the best talented workers and
are highly motivated will be the leaders in the markets. This will be determined by
the empowerment management system. The employee from all industries has
realized the importance of training, career development, and empowerment;
however, these factors do impact the performance of the employee in terms of goal
setting, role perception, feedback, reinforcement, etc. Therefore, the current era
belongs to the majority of the individuals who work for a long time in their
organization not only as an option for them but also as they are satisfied and
motivated within the organization.
Several research studies have been conducted in the area of marketing and sales
industry. However, the majority of them have been focusing on how marketing
strategies have influence on employees, but less has been done on how the
employees’ motivation can affect positively the company. According to the content
theories and Maslow’s hierarchy theory, employees have a passion to do work, sales,
and financial targets. From the theories, once an individual becomes motivated,
he/she can become instrumental, dynamic, and proactive in any situation. It has
been noted that whether it is a small company, medium, or large, the company
achieves its substantial value and outperforms its competitors only when the
employees are motivated. This leads to productivity, effectiveness, and efficiency in
production. Quality human resources were seen as important in the determinant of
business firm performance and that quality human resources are those who were
motivated to produce efficient and effective processes. Other human resource
factors related to compensation, benefits, job security, training and development,
teamwork adoption, and workplace conducive environment have been believed to
have an effect on effective processes.
2.1. Theoretical framework
This above proposition actually mirrors the one of conducting an action itself. When
a person feels strongly motivated to invest striking resources into the action, the
person is more likely to exert the maximum effort into the action. As to why the
marketing actions are described to motivate employees, the answers can be
searched from several perspectives. High competition is one common answer.
Marketers, especially in the service sector organizations, are aware that satisfied
employees lead to satisfied customers. The satisfied customers, in turn, are
profitable to the firms and enhance firms' performances given that high corporate
commitment from employees' attitude that pushes employees to deliver a better
service to the customer, hence the customer service gets superior cumulative
advantage. This has led to service theorization outlining employees and the service
familiarity providing businesses with enormous benefits. Providing a good service is
a win-win solution in the matter of the customers are delivered with the service and
at the same time internal organizational efficiency is tested in service indicated
education provided by the marketing-oriented firms.
Effects of employees' motivation on marketing performance. Most of the marketing
actions have been recognized as driven by employees and employees' motivation,
which is widely agreed upon as a critical element in marketing actions. Specifically,
these actions include the provision of customer service, the implementation of
marketing research, management and sales activities, product development and
B2B marketing. Employees' motivation is a broad concept related to the
psychological needs and a range of external and internal factors capable of
providing personal satisfaction with work. External and internal factors can be
distinctly distinguished as rewards for a position and work scope. Firms, in
particular the providers of services, that work toward developing a higher
motivation of their employees are expected to yield better performance. Hence,
there has been growing management interest in employees' motivation. By putting
forward that motivated employees are willing to exert effort on marketing actions,
firms, managers, and organizational scholars are able to realize the importance of
employees' motivation in marketing.
2.2. Motivation theories
The work of Mayo in addition to being a turn in the management of the
organizations at that time appeared another need to ask employees about the needs
and morale. Scientists, who have done significant work in this regard, are Abraham
Maslow and Douglas McGregor. Maslow created a hierarchy pyramid to define the
needs of workers, stating that to the extent that a need is satisfied, another takes its
place in the pyramid. More enlightened workers give people the power to achieve
results. On a list of five needs identified in the pyramid, Maslow argues that the first
two are satisfied through financial means, while the third, social desires, is met
through complementary factors such as affinity between departments, group and
targets well defined, in the sense of creating stimuli for workers to perform their
tasks. This fact allows the group to act in an autonomous way.
When defining motivation there are terms that are hard to explain. It is an
important variable for organizational performance and is essential to understand
and measure motivation to obtain positive performance. Many research
contributions have been made to understand what workers need to be motivated,
and recovery, what motivates a worker to put effort into a well-defined objective
(Kalogiannidis2021). Both needs and motives are truly ambiguous when we talk
about motivation. At the beginning of the 20th century, George Elton Mayo and his
colleagues made the discovery that workers are not only motivated by money. In
fact, how workers were motivated had little to do with the management system.
Workers are truly motivated by the fact that they are working. Thus, the main factor
for a worker to be satisfied and to seek increased productivity is the way they are
treated by the organization and colleagues.
2.3. Marketing performance concepts
Stevens and Cherington determine advertising effectiveness from four aspects,
namely: (1) consumer cantril scale - the overall measure of a product's acceptance
in the market place; (2) awareness level - the extent to which a product is known by
consumers; (3) retention - recall of the advertisement; and (4) brand preference the overall view that consumers have about a product. Marketing effectiveness is
used as a multiplier. It is adjusted according to two factors; i.e. environmental
uncertainty and organizational integration. While there are different names to
measure marketing results, specifically: effectiveness, financial performance,
efficiency, return on investments and productivity level. This is a definition of
marketing performance that is coherent with the conceptual definition of strategic
marketing activity.
Several studies on marketing performance use different measuring indicators which
have led to the lack of understanding of the concepts, which also leads to the lack of
consensus about how to define marketing performance. Some studies have used
"marketing performance" and "marketing effectiveness" interchangeably and the
only difference in their definitions is that the performance represents short-term
accomplishment, while effectiveness is longer-term. Le Meunier-FitzHugh and
Piercy also define performance and effectiveness using the terms interchangeably.
Market performance hides reflection in the internal vitality of organizations that is
critical to the overall performance of every organization.
2.4. Previous studies on the topic
Employees who have greater job involvement and commitment are more centered,
have better operational status, and are more cohesive among them. Therefore,
employee job satisfaction has always been considered one of the most relevant
internal issues to set the level of the market performance. Employees with a high
level of satisfaction are also more committed to ensuring that customers are treated
with due consideration and that their needs are understood and satisfied. Therefore,
their performance is strongly related to the perception of the service by the
customers, including the recognition of the technical aspects of the service and the
interpersonal relationship with the operator personnel. All employees make a
crucial contribution to the customer's perception of the service that is being
provided. For instance, some jobs may have a direct impact on the customer
experience and others may have an indirect effect on the way the service is
provided. In general, the people who play a leading role tend to be considered by the
user as more influential and more responsible for the service received.
Most of the studies carried out on the topic have noted that motivated employees
perform better in their tasks than those who are not motivated. The relationship
between human resource management and employee motivation is well
documented. Indeed, human resource management practices can serve to increase
employee motivation, which in turn leads to increased sales, superior customer
service, and ultimately improved financial performance (Anwar & Abdullah2021).
These practices may take many forms and vary in focus. It is general awareness
among practitioners that competitive advantage from marketing emerges from
better coordination between customers and employees. The relationship between
motivation and coordination is well established in the employee motivation
literature.
3. Methodology
Given the essential role of employees' motivation in delivering good work
performance, the next question is if better performance in marketing activities is
also reflected in better business performance. This idea of the work by Hoy et al. is
firmly rooted in the expectancy theory. The expectancy theory suggests that
motivation is the key mediator between work environment, employees' personal
characteristics, and their work results. The research on work performance reviews
evidence that well-motivated employees show better job performance. The research
on work results and rewards provides evidence that better performance can lead to
better results. Studies by the Institute for Employment Research, Coyle, and Kyndt
and Baert provide evidence that better results can lead to material rewards and
promotions. In the setting of the excellent performance of employees drawing
attention to retain core talents and increase employees' commitment, Gasson
highlights the example of Nissan Motors in developing a comprehensive motivation
project in line with its principle that it is the quality and the motivation of the staff
that is the company's greatest asset.
The value of well-motivated employees for delivering successful marketing
strategies and activities has been well documented. Kumar brings evidence from
cross-functional work team members in the United States. The study explores
interconnections among employee motivation, attitudes, and work performance.
The results show that both employees' intrinsic and extrinsic motivation are
positively linked to their perceived job satisfaction. This, in turn, results in better job
performance through better work quality and higher work commitment of the
individual.
3.1. Research design
The sample size representing the firms was determined from the study’s population
(125 gasoline stations) using the formula developed by Yamane, 1967. For this
study, the number of samples was determined using a 95 confidence level or Z=
1.96. In this case, Z=1.96 was used because 95% is the confidence level in a simple
random sampling distribution and at 0.05 alpha level. This represents the chance of
rejecting the null hypothesis while it is actually true. The proportion of the response
distribution was set at 0.5, and the margin of error was fixed at 5% or e = 0.05.
Finally, after the computation was done, determining the number of gasoline
stations to be used in collecting data for the study, the sample size of 80
representing of the firm was identified. Then, the firm’s respondents (employees)
who will fill out the questionnaires were met physically for convenience in data
collection.
The research was based on the positivism approach, which argues that the world
has a reality which is objective and can be observed and understood. In this
research, primary data were used. Primary data are data collected by the researcher
to address the research problem at hand. They are new data that have been
generated by the researcher and have been collected for the first time. The
questionnaire method was used for data collection. The method was selected for its
reliability, clarity, and organizational straightforwardness. The questionnaires were
divided into three sections that corresponded with the literature review; employees’
motivation, marketing performance, and general information of the gasoline firms.
Finalization of the questionnaire was made after pre-testing or pilot testing was
done to refine the questions (instrument) used in it.
3.2. Data collection methods
For the purpose of the present study, the questionnaire was prepared based on the
suggested theoretical background aiming to collect the data from workers in smallscale businesses that are established in Bugesera with the aim of: How motivational
factors can influence the small-scale enterprise’s marketing performances. The
research questionnaire was distributed to a farmer at the established level of
business. The questionnaire was distributed to the workers of small businesses in
different locations in the district. All of the questionnaires were self-administered to
minimize any misinterpretation of the context of the questions to the workers.
According to the nature of the concept, the instrument was mostly closed-end
questions, whereby a distinction in answers was requested. A quantitative research
method was employed in the study. The data coding method identical to the one
used by Hamisi (1982) was also applied in the present research. Most factors
discussed in the present study were adopted from past research. Therefore, the
method of quantifying the results reported in the literature was employed.
In order to know the effect of employees' motivation on marketing performance,
questionnaires as a method were used in data collection. The target group for this
study comprises small-scale businesses that are available in Bugesera. The target
population in this study comprised all small-scale business employees. Multi-stage
cluster sampling technique was used. According to the 2019 ELA report, there are
78 registered small businesses in Bugesera with 1462 workers, where 978 are
males and 484 are females. The researcher used a sample size of 105 under the
Yamane formula with a margin of error of 5%.
3.3. Sampling techniques
Early sampling of this research using purposive sampling technique. This is done by
reason of large population and time are not possible to use population sampling, so
the total sampling determines a national company in Indonesia. The literature states
that the sample number should be based on research purpose, and is divided into
two principles in determining the number of samples: based on the volume of data
and based on saturation. With the use of these principles, the number of samples
used is around 200 people. The number of the full sample and valid returned
questionnaires was 135 respondents. Before collecting the data, the research tool
was tested first in a pilot study. The preliminary trials were carried out in 20 of 85
employees who were not included in the main sample. All the scales used in this
study have been proven to be reliable and valid, because between the test and posttest scores have been measured.
The research design is exploratory, since this type of research is needed because
both employees' motivation as well as marketing performance are conceptual terms
and have an impact on each other. It is therefore important and necessary to
interact between these concepts. To achieve the research objectives, I used two
survey methods, namely questionnaire survey and interviews. Interview
questionnaire of the HRD manages employees' activities. The questionnaire is given
to: communication satisfaction to the media part of orientation, job satisfaction,
training and development facilities, employee's participation, motivation, and
performance.
4. Theoretical Framework
Employee motivation is one of the most significant and often studied factors for
organizational efficiency and the field of specialized managerial theory focused on
all leadership forms, motivational practices, and internal marketing known from the
60s. The terms “job satisfaction”, “organizational life quality”, and others emphasize
the subjective appropriation of work as a criteria for the success of personnel
management. Specifically, the success of using internal, or personnel marketing, as a
distinct incentive leading to excellence in work, should represent a discrepancy
(hence extra-work producing new areas of non-work). Motivation results from a
discrepancy between the obtained reward and the one that could be obtained
elsewhere for the same effort, that is, the “unpaid” (or unpaid) part that remains for
the action. Hence different similar artifacts produced by competing enterprises in
conditions of quantitative and qualitative differences existing (Martinr &
Uribe2021). It depends not on the nature of the offer (e.g. the existence of
supplementary bonuses) but on the potential or reached rewards. Hence, it cannot
be a fixed number but should depend on the complexity of incorrectly finding the
work organizations as a person’s comparative possibilities of acquiring system
accompanies such results and combines the implications of different policies and
promotional activities in the field of commercial departments or enterprises
(Olokundun et al., 2018).
All commercial virtual values formulated by the company are brought to physical
reality through the behavior of employees. Sales (and marketing) performance
finally depend on motivation and other psychological and sociological aspects of the
behavior of the commercial personnel of the enterprise (Nguyen et al.2020). The
role of these factors is particularly important in sales of complex products or
services, closer to objects of professional deception, because in such difficult to
verify the properties of the object, the manipulation of information becomes more
prevalent, and the fear of such manipulation – more intensive (Tang et al., 2022).
Effective market coverage implies not only volumetric products or the number of
market niches covered by the enterprise but also high visibility and availability of
products or services for their potential consumers. The ability to promote products
in conditions of high competition directly depends on how intensively customers
are aware, informed, interested, convinced of the benefits of the offer, desire to
purchase the goods, and find opportunities to do so. This requires, in addition to an
appropriate product itself and the physical promotion of a product through sales
networks (distribution), to have a well-designed and well realized promotion that
can activate the intention of various consumer social groups to involve in buying
and to involve many different categories of consumers (main potential, and also
interested, accessible and even trapped). The ability to do an effective incentive is
directly related to human resources; and the theoretical (b. point) assumptions in
this area should be presented first (Nieżurawska et al., 2022).
4.1. Employee motivation factors
The factors relating to a worker’s needs, the motivation level of an individual may
determine the employee’s performance. Similarly, the job security and the working
conditions will also determine the employee’s job satisfaction and his performance
in the context of the whole study, it is expected that the different types of motivator
would lead for the enhancement of employee’s motivation and hence efficiency and
performance in context of different types of non-monetary incentive. It is anticipates
that the Employee’s motivation would be highly affected by the job security and due
importance of compensation at job, i.e. using non-monetary and monetary benefit at
the work place. The employee’s opinion about his own significance and importance
also influences on his motivation at the workplace and ultimately the there
performance (Tumi et al.2022).
Motivation is a powerful tool which plays, crucial role in the achievement of goals
and aims of the Organization. Organizations have realized that money alone is
unable to capture employees’ motivation and industrial relations. Therefore,
employers are focusing their attention towards non-monetary incentives to
motivate employees. A research study on the automotive industry that nonmonetary
incentives enhance the moral of employees’ to work and gain maximum level of
productivity(Tang et al., 2022). Based on the findings it is realized that the monetary
rewards could cause some inappropriate behavior among employ’s, including to
take leaves which are not favorable for the organization and during the nonmonetary rewards will enhance the performance..
The motivational factors for the employees play very significant role in different
aspects including to maximize their performance. Another experiment in the food
industry met out that monetary compensations have more significant effect over the
employee’s performance (Nguyen et al.2020)include job satisfaction, recognition,
career advancement, and work-life balance. But still the non-monetary incentives
and supportive work climate have also their significant role in enhancing the
employee’s motivation. The study met out that there may be any type of nonmonetary incentives to impassion the employee’s more toward their goals and to
maximize their productivity(Nieżurawska et al., 2022).
4.2. Marketing performance indicators
The construction must evolve elaborate schemes to draw, hire, and preserve
productive workers to meet this argument. The responsibilities are commonly
assessed by the corporate workplace. It is a devoted drive to keep going and make
the stuff better are further possibly be glad, happy workers. The operating tasks are
also a function of the personnel department (Girdwichai & Sriviboon2020). Each
year, representations of query wise, the workers are cast and ranked, wages are
released in line with the results. Speaking generally, people are better compensated
and have further improvement in their opportunities for promotion recognized
workers and get larger incentives supporting firms to attain their target granting
gaps and deliver bonuses. Organizational performance indicators are the assets and
performance gauges recognised above. Specifically, sales, market share, and
customer attention.
The performance of firms can be appraised from various perspectives
(Gopalakrishnan et al., 2021). Shared interests are when firms earn money, satisfy
clients by continuously improving their final goods and facilities, and keep
employees delighted by promoting development, cater to their requirements, giving
them a secure work atmosphere (Mousa et al., 2021). Marketing function is
responsible for establishing a corporate reputation, engaging customers, and
maintaining and reinforcing ties with them. In addition, sales function is aimed at
extracting money from customers as soon as possible for given or not-given value
(Muhammadin et al., 2020). All these responsibilities are naturally relaxing to
payroll customers as the operations are strikers. The achievement at sales duties is
against the satisfaction of consumers. If the corporate conveys the message to its
clients that a whole amount of value will be delivered for a minimal sum of the deal,
the purchasers may be able to irritant producers in extended negotiations to get the
guaranteed worth. Accordingly, clients negotiate organizations. The emblem
becomes even fewer successful in the development of a protected job atmosphere.
5. Data Analysis
When the employee responds optimally to all the tasks that are entrusted to him, he
adds value to both internal and external clients, allowing a greater marketing
orientation of the employee, which will consequently have positive effects on the
company's performance. It is considered important to discover the strengths and
weaknesses of different theories (Al-kharabsheh et al.2022). Within the complexity
of the social development of the person; different factors related to the internal and
external environment of the company, which influence this development. Since the
satisfaction of any requirement, demand or need is the beginning of each person's
development; the more motivated the workers are, the more they develop in any
area in which they are immersed. Therefore, knowing in advance the behaviors,
attitudes and expected performance by employees will allow managers, in a more
convenient way, to have successful marketing actions.
As it is the main objective of this research, we have created three analyzing models,
which are focused on different types of employee behaviors, in order to confirm our
three hypotheses. Firstly, before performing any statistical analysis or prior tests
related to the effect that employees' motivation makes on the proper performance
of their tasks, three models have been raised to confirm the three main hypotheses
of paper, which will serve as a starting point to confirm or refute the statistical
evidence using parametric or non-parammetric tests.
5.1 Introduction. It is very important to determine the effect that employees'
motivation makes on the proper performance of their roles in the enterprise. For
this reason, we have included tasks in questionnaires related to aspects that have an
influence on the motivation of employees. With this information, company
managers can implement actions that help to achieve superior results in marketing
activities because, when the employee responds optimally to all the tasks that are
entrusted to him, he adds value, both to clients and to the employer (Bastari et
al.2020).
5.1. Quantitative analysis
This is the first study to illuminate the effect of overall employee motivation on
service quality, marketing learning, innovative decision, and marketing performance
of employees. Although it is stated as a significant link in earlier studies, the
influence of overall employee motivation on overall marketing performance. These
have not been empirically proven. Additionally, it clarifies the mediation role of
these factors toward the relationship between motivation and marketing
performance, which is also not clear in prior literature. The existence of such
mediating effects provides a deeper understanding of the underpinning roles of
specific attitudes that contribute to the overall employee motivation/marketing
performance relationship.
The study is employed to examine the employee behaviors' effect on marketing of
insurance companies in a developing country Vietnam. This is an exciting
extrapolation on other contexts of the expectation-disconfirmation theory model
using a sample of employees in insurance companies and focusing on the
relationships between employees' motivation and multiple dimensions, including:
service quality, marketing learning, innovative decision and marketing performance
of employees in insurance companies in the context of the developing country,
Vietnam. The models used in this study expand the extant theory, which offered
interesting implications for insurance companies.
To prove the given research model, we make a survey of 140 employees in
insurance companies. According to the result of our survey, overall motivation of
employees has strong effects on service quality, innovation, marketing learning of
employees. These effects also are an important mediator between employee
motivation and marketing performance. Based on the results, we have some
suggestions which could be used as references by insurance companies in Vietnam
to improve the overall employee motivation.
5.2. Qualitative analysis
The aim of the reported interviews was first to present the results of our sampling
and finally to underline the main theoretical and practical indications in detail.
Interviews were conducted in different geographical regions of Greece. Regarding
the structure of our interviews, they followed a well-planned and flexible structure
in order to facilitate the communication process and to cover all factors that were
considered to influence marketing performance. The flexibility contributed to the
substance and had the capability to assist us to personalize the direction of each
conversation to the informants individually. Each face-to-face interview was
completed during a single session with the duration that varied from 45 to 90
minutes. Each informant was asked to comment on his own views and experiences.
Of course, all the informants saved the absolute personal and company privacy, any
logos, identification, and any commercially sensitive information so each interview
was numbered. Finally, an inductive approach was adopted on the basis of literature
review in the above areas. Clearly, 17 original factors which are considered as HR
practices that are affecting the motivation of employees were identified, displayed
in Table 6. According to a marketing manager that we interviewed: “The reward
systems linked with performance are able to improve employees’ motivation and
through it our sales performance. Particularly, the financial ones assist the
salesperson to think differently in respect to the company’s profitability. Of course,
the financial incentives were always the most appealing motivation factor.”
The second phase of our investigation involved ten semi-structured interviews with
a number of marketing employees of ten different Greek private companies who are
considered to be persons with a deep knowledge of their field. Care was taken to
present only high-quality companies to obtain our sample in a systematic manner.
Only companies that invested significantly in marketing and were considered to
have achieved a satisfactory marketing performance due to their motivated
employees were selected for interviews. The experiences, conversations, and
opinions given in these interviews were very important to the results of the present
study and were used in the process of more detailed interpretation of data collected
in the first phase of the research.
5.3. Data interpretation
When the effect level of different demographic properties on the opinions of the
employees with respect to the subscale averages was examined, it was realized that
the mean analysis gave many different results for all of the questions in the
efficiency dimension of the motivation scale. The level of education of the employees
working in hotel enterprises operates is not significant in terms of motivation. The
enterprise, department, length of enterprise, extreme point of business life and
educational status did not reveal differences in addition to the department in terms
of motivation ratios in the efficacy dimension. Since each result is different in terms
of motivation scale efficiency, the motivation level of employees; enterprise,
department, position, etc. It is seen that factors have not been separated. This
should be considered as one of the limitations of this research. It can be said that the
hotel organizations focus on increasing employee motivation which makes it
difficult to discriminate in terms of factors. Decreasing the level of education of the
employees reduces the motivation of employees. There is no significant difference in
terms of the effect of the demographic variables of the employees' age on
motivation. The motivation level of the employees in the position of manager shows
a higher level. Employees working at the same job for a long period of time and
human resources for this endeavor can help to increase the satisfaction and
motivation of employees.
The research was conducted with the managers and employees of the large-sized
and medium-sized local and foreign 4- and 5-star hotels in Turkey. 400
questionnaires were sent to the departments regarded to play a prominent role in
marketing activities (marketing, sales, front office, housekeeping, catering, and
purchasing). In consideration of the response rate, 80% of the questionnaire forms
were used as valid. First, it was explained in the survey that the purpose of the
research was to measure the opinions of employees who played a role in service
delivery in 4-and-5-star properties and managers of those properties in relation to
the purpose variable. The information was provided to fill in the survey form and it
was requested to remain confidentially and honestly to answer the questions. If
necessary, those completing the survey were asked to consult the researchers. At
this stage, there was no such need as the surveys were completed satisfactorily.
Finally, thanks were made to the hotel persons participating in the surveys.
6. Results
This research showed that managers who effectively set employee goals and
rewards, as well as listen to their collective capabilities, better motivate their staff to
promote higher levels of marketing performance. This study also indicated that
complex constructs like work motivation need to be modeled with equally complex
relationships to marketing performance to better estimate their relationship. The
theoretical implication of the findings is threefold. First, this study adds to the
literature on local employees' motivation. The results for frequent interactions
among employees, lower-order constructs and between work motivation
dimensions support the MLSP model of Spector et al. Second, work motivation subcomponents can be used to better capture the true ontology and character of both
earned and expected motivation. Thus, shrewd managers are better served that
motivated employees are not simply motivated but that specific components of
work motivation should be promoted, venerated and boosted (Ndou, 2023). Third,
Guinean firms are called to desist from the FORPER model described by the Sanger
et al. authors in their quest for improved marketing performance.
This study examined Guinean employees' work motivation, and its effects on five
marketing performance proxies. To fill the gap in marketing literature, we proposed
and tested an original research model. We used cross-sectional data from 126
Guinean marketing managers and employees of five commercial companies. We
found that the SISM, which has four first-order components, is the best model fit in
Guinean marketing companies. In model testing, results from SEM analysis favored
goal-setting as stylized and self-efficacy as main components that explain work
motivation and marketing performance. In addition, work motivation as multidimensional constructs help to model more accurately how motivation affects
marketing performance. We also provide theoretical, practical and policy
implications, and future research directions.
6.1. Findings related to employee motivation
In this context, it is seen that employees can be affected by intrinsic, extrinsic,
rational, and emotional parameters. Autonomy, ability, and sense of meaning are
among the intrinsic motivating factors involved in individual and emotional
structures, while rewards, career development, relationship with supervisor, work
environment and salary are in the extrinsic structure (Muzafary et al.2021).
Additionally, the general motivational factors which is related to employee
motivation is defined as the motivation mechanism involving the provision of
company benefits such as the employees’ health and job satisfaction. It is evident
that the studies that make up the studies are multidimensional and these motivating
factors are influent and endogenous and when they are implemented effectively,
increase employee motivation in general. Throughout the course of history, the
determinants that give a direction to and guidance to the topic in question have
been researched and discussed according to the socio-economic conditions of
different periods. In parallel with the changes in the context, the studies that carry
out the determinants that guide this process have also come to the fore and have
drawn different paths. In this context, it has been stated that intrinsic motivating
factors meet organizational goals more successfully.
Based on the analysis, the motivating factors of the employees included in different
studies have taken enormous numbers of different dimensions and have been
discussed from different aspects such as leadership styles and employee
motivations, employee engagement and motivation, job satisfaction, motivation and
leadership, job characteristics and motivation, motivation and job duty, motivation
inside and outside the organization, brand ambassadors and volunteering in the
organization, motivation and work performance. Thus, it was realized that
limitations would be more observable. Therefore, it was decided to make more
limitations at this stage of the study. The first limitation of the study is that studies
were scanned in the Web of Science and ProQuest databases, and those not
contained in these databases were excluded from the study. The second limitation of
the study is the language limitation. The presented articles in the literature reviews
were French, German, English and Spanish were included; While there is a wealth of
knowledge in many fields of the world, limiting the literature review to three
languages seen as an important problem in this area. On the other hand, it has been
observed that employee motivation has a multidimensional structure that is affected
by individual, organizational, general motivational factors and is associated with
work behaviors and outcomes.
6.2. Impact of motivation on marketing performance
Volkan Yilmaz and Hatice Arzap (2017) studied the effect of motivation on
marketing performance. Descriptive design was used in the study. The population of
the study is the students who continue their education in the faculty of economics
and administrative sciences. According to the direction of the study, the faculty
students are students of business administration, marketing, and international trade
departments. Students who participated in the survey were students of Universities
in Adana, Afyon, Aksaray, Ankara, Bolu, and Istanbul. They submitted the survey via
the internet. The sample is random sampling (simple random sampling). The
method applied to randomly select individuals from the population is the lottery
method. In total, 741 completed questionnaires were obtained from students
attending different universities. The number of participants who filled out their
gender information is 320. As for the questionnaire in the study, the validity and
reliability studies of Hierarchical-Extrinsic Motivation Scale and Marketing
Performance Scale were used. Each questionnaire consisting of two parts is
composed of the scale used in the research, questions about personal information,
and the source a scale adopted from the literature. According to the source, some
questions in the questionnaire were replaced with the phrases of "faculty student"
and "faculty" to ensure that those who use the questionnaires are able to benefit.
Impact of motivation on marketing performance: Cigdem Isık (2011) explored the
impact of employees' motivational factors on marketing performance in 131
tourism enterprises in Antalya, Turkey. The study focuses on two dimensions of
employees' motivation as intrinsic and extrinsic factors, and, by using perceptions of
marketing executives, marketing performance was evaluated in only four areas like
customer satisfaction, customer acquisition, customer retention, and market
expansion. The results suggest that employees' intrinsic and extrinsic motivation
factors have a significant impact on marketing performance in all investigated areas
(Good et al.2022). Customer satisfaction and market expansion are the areas most
affected by employees' motivation. Based on the findings of the study, firms can
enhance employees' motivation in marketing activities by using strategic
approaches and improve their marketing performance.
7. Discussion
In today’s rapidly changing business environment and intense competition,
organizations that can use their resources effectively can achieve this either
individually or organizationally. In order for individuals in the organization to
achieve their goals, it is important that they carry their personal goals towards the
organization. According to Kanungo, internal marketing is to meet the needs of staff
to motivate them to do their part, to ensure that they have the durability to respond
to customers' requests and to perform effectively and contribute to the overall
performance of the firm. As a result, the expected performance comes out as a
requirement of organizational behavior. It is obvious where all these employees are
the main element that steers the company and differentiates and companies'
resources are the most valuable competitive advantage. The environment where
employees can exhibit the highest possible performance is the intramural
environment that will occur if they are loyal, satisfied and motivated by the
company.
The aim of this research was to investigate the effects of employees’ motivation on
marketing performance. For this purpose, the relationships with certain variables in
a company that has been operating in Turkey were researched. Employees’
motivation levels were investigated using financial and non-financial motivation
methods. The effects of these motivation types on marketing dimensions were also
examined. The marketing performance dimensions and variables indicate whether
the company’s current strategies will provide future financial advantages and the
relation between the company’s financial and non-financial motivations was
investigated. The results of the study showed that some performance dimensions of
the marketing performance are affected by the employees’ motivations and there is
a relation between the financial and non-financial motivation types.
7.1. Implications of the findings
This study also examines the interrelationships between motivation and each aspect
of marketing. The findings suggest that three marketing activities include learningoriented marketing Salesforce behaviors and promotion-oriented marketing role of
employees activities, account manager new customer-related ability and previous
relationship, and in marketing interdepartmental network strength affect marketing
role of employees. By knowing these effects on each type of marketing interaction,
related stakeholder in SMEs can assign employees better so as to achieve the
company's marketing objectives, make better decisions or policies, and implement
management-related practices. As a result, companies can activate more clearly and
precisely the hypothesized path to increase marketing performance. This study also
finds affected interrelationships with adjusting for different covariates included
individual- and corporate-level variables.
This study finds that all types of employees' motivation examined affect SME
marketing performance. Concerned stakeholders in SMEs, academics, and
practitioners could find implications from the findings to operational activities. The
findings of this study offer SMEs to manage employees properly in order to
stimulate their marketing efforts. Employers have to first attempt to stimulate needs
that have not been well fulfilled including basic needs, higher-order needs, and
autonomy. This study also finds that better SMEs planning and having good
interdepartmental communication helps employees to stimulate needs and
performance. Employers should thus always enter two activities as principal aspects
to maintain employees' motivation and engagement. Planning activities for
monitoring employees' adaptation to the current COVID-19 business environment
became considerably important.
7.2. Theoretical and practical contributions
In addition to the theoretical contributions that proposed a potential model used for
analyzing the relationships among hotel employees' motivation, adaptive strategy,
flexible strategy, technological innovation, services innovation, the findings also
provided several implications for hotel business operation. First of all, in order to
facilitate hotel service innovation, hotel managers should pay more attention to
employees' motivation. When the employees have high motivation, they can deliver
better services, lower employees’ management costs, and simultaneously, innovate
the services and create a positive influence on customer behavior. Second, since
engaging in a flexible strategy and a technological innovation can help hotels survive
and develop in an adaptive environment, hotel managers should generate a related
policy to equip the regional hotels for the two strategies. Third, adaptive strategy
plays an intermediary role between employees' motivation and services
technological innovation. This suggested that, not only hotels but also the industries
needed an adaptive strategy. Finally, hotel business should consider service
flexibility to achieve better service outcomes and fascinating customer impressions.
The aim of this study was to explore how hotel employees' motivation affects the
adaptive strategy, technological innovation and services innovation, as well as hotel
marketing performance. Therefore, it theoretically extends the field of employees'
motivation, presents a new approach to explore the causal relations among hotel
employees' motivation, adaptive strategy, technological innovation, services
innovation and marketing performance. The empirical findings could offer
comprehensive insights for hotels to enhance employees' motivation levels and to
promote service innovation in practice. Different from previous studies mainly
focusing on whether marketing performance can be affected by marketing
strategies, social media promotion, customer satisfaction, or channel management
strategies. This study investigated all of those variables, including the relations
among motivation, strategy, innovation, and marketing performance.
8. Conclusion
The design of the stimulus is crucial, as well as the integration strategies of the
different elements affiliated in the organization, at the same time as the
approximation to identify the mechanism through which motivation is transpired
and expressed. It is hoped that this research will contribute to a wider range of
theoretical frameworks to create constitutive theories of the mechanisms by which
motivation influences performance, and their moderating factors across multi-level,
inter and intra-organizational, and the different work areas of the employees, as
well as the construction of taxonomies on the results of this relationship. This study
uses an in-sample research design, which provides the opportunity to answer some
of the pending questions on how to maintain and sustain employees’ motivation to
affect their behavior and job performance in the marketing area of a business, as
well as on the development of employee marketing performance.
That intrinsic motivation of employees has a positive influence on the marketing
results of firms. This result is important because it permits to explain why the
marketing employees, with the same training, tools, or salary, produce different
results. As researchers have identified in this study, the job performance of an
employee is driven by their motivation. One weakness of this study is that only
employees who work in the marketing area are considered; however, companies are
composed of employees who work in other areas of the companies and contribute to
achieving the goals of the company through their performance. Therefore, at these
moments, it should be made a priority to understand the effects of motivation and
then analyze the work in other areas of the companies.
8.1. Summary of key findings
Be it service or manufacturing sectors, although it is still highly likely to find a
positive bidirectional relationship between these two important variables, this
study aims to address the missing links in the marketing performance literature.
Firstly, several previous related studies suggest that employees' motivation has a
positive and significant correlation with better marketing performance
measurements such as a high level of service quality, customer satisfaction,
customer loyalty, positive word of mouth. This eventually leads to better customer
relationships, customer patronage, and long-term relationships with prospects
through competitive advantage for the organizations and better enterprise
performance measurements such as sales growth, profitability, competitiveness,
and other measurements of enterprise performance (Kurdi et al.2020). Secondly,
the study tries to address the missing links of the key dependent variables in
marketing performance literature as suggested by previous research. There is
critically a shortage of fully validated items to measure the constructs and the
suggested measurements of employees' motivation construct in the model in the
service sector were suggested by previous research. (Chien et al.2020)
In sum, the impact of employees' motivation on marketing performance is not a new
concept in both the service and manufacturing sectors as substantial research
confirms the theoretical beliefs that a highly motivated workforce tends to have
positive reactions, attitudes, and behaviors towards the organization. This tends to
lead to better marketing performance measurements such as a high level of service
quality, customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, and positive word of mouth.
Eventually, this leads to better customer relationships, customer patronage, and
long-term relationships with prospective customers (Peng et al., 2020). This, in turn,
leads to better enterprise performance measurements such as sales growth,
profitability, competitiveness, and other measurements of enterprise performance.
Unfortunately, despite this pile of confirmatory empirical findings from previous
research, the extent of employees' motivation and the suggested marketing
performance measurements were conducted in different industries and companies
as opposed to the service sector limitations in the scope of previous research. It was
primarily focused on the conceptualization of service quality, customer satisfaction,
customer loyalty, word of mouth, customer relationships, and customer patronage
measurements (Nguyen et al.2020). This tends to lead to the poor testing of
validated instruments through statistical tools and advanced multi-item scales to
measure employees' motivation construct and the suggested marketing
performance measurements identified by previous research. Its generalizability in
terms of the impact of employees' motivation on the measurements of the
aforementioned marketing performance seems in doubt.
8.2. Recommendations for future research
This study combines the theory of work motivation and performance and provides a
comprehensive look at how employee motivation translates to marketing
performance and consumer behavior of retail companies. Additionally, previous
research has used a single source to evaluate marketing performance, while the
operational focus of this study applied mystery shopping, consumer response to
marketing performance, and performance-based pay to test the relationship. The
sampling process can be improved: the questionnaires were filled in during the
work breaks of the respondents, who are mainly part-time workers. Future studies
should be conducted in harmony with the time flexibility of part-time workers in
order to secure larger samples. Furthermore, future research should use
triangulation of the data. Multiple methods and data sources need to be combined.
Moreover, the current study was an ERB study that did not examine the specific
mediation effect. As a result, generalizing and interpreting the relationship results
are recommended with caution.
This article has several implications that we can assume for future scientific
research on intervention strategies with workers in different businesses, behavioral
and organizational environments. From these results, we suggest that there are
other theoretical bases that could be considered in empirical research, both in
studies that address the problem of motivation as well as in those conducted in the
service and marketing area, on the relationship between motivation and
performance either in the organization, in general, or in the worker, particularly.
Employees in retail are facing increasing performance pressure at work due to the
fierce competition in the retail sector. This may lead to decreasing work
performance, ultimately causing high turnover for retail companies (Soelton et
al.2020). Although this topic has been studied for many years, the shortage of
empirical evidence on how and why employee motivation affects marketing
performance is still a challenge.
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