Publications
Publications
- September 12, 2017
- Harvard Business Review (website)
What's the Right Kind of Bonus to Motivate Your Sales Force?
By: Doug J. Chung and Das Narayandas
Abstract
Companies typically compensate their sales force by using some combination of salary, commission, and bonuses, but executives are often unsure which incentives provide the best motivation. Should bonuses be tied to quotas or should they be given unconditionally? Is it better to use bonuses as a reward or as punishment? A randomized field experiment at a large Indian company investigated these questions, finding that conditional bonuses were more than twice as effective as unconditional bonuses. The results have implications for companies trying to use bonuses to more effectively manage their salespeople.
Keywords
Citation
Chung, Doug J., and Das Narayandas. "What's the Right Kind of Bonus to Motivate Your Sales Force?" Harvard Business Review (website) (September 12, 2017).
About The Authors
