Paper info

What does stimulate business actors to promote others' business without monetary rewards? Exploratory narrative research on motivation factors

Leena Aarikka-Stenroos

The paper was published at the 25th IMP-conference in Marseille, France in 2009.

Business actors can promote others' business by offering introductions, by providing positive word-of mouth and referrals, by building positive reputation and being as reference customers. The existing literature does not discuss why these 'promoters' facilitate others' business without monetary incentives. The scattered prior literature suggests some motivation factors such as reciprocity, social controlling and self involvement. In this paper we identify and analyze various motivation factors that explain why 'promoters' facilitate business between other business actors. The study presents a data-driven categorization on motivation factors on the basis of exploratory narrative research. The study contributes by identifying four motivation factor categories and numerous subcategories. The data-driven findings are related to motivation and social psychology, word-of-mouth literature, reference literature, and social and industrial network literature. The study offers a basis for further research in the area.