In addition, the challenges and responsibilities of the position (Gagné & Deci, 2005;
James & Jones, 1980; Lawler & Hall, 1970; Piccolo & Colquitt, 2006) also motivated the
managers to accept it and, perhaps even more importantly, remain with the company. Given
that the headquarters are not located in an area with exceptionally high living standards, it is
worth mentioning that not only these managers, but also other high profile employees moved
to be closer to their work place. This is surprising, since one would assume that high profile
employees are more likely to be attracted by a work place in an area with high living
standards. In addition, the parent company only offered salaries in line with market salaries
and not excessive ones. It therefore seems that our case company managed to provide
positions that made high profile employees trade extrinsic rewards for intrinsic motivation. In
other words, our case results indicate that high profile employees seem to prefer companies
that are global players, have an entrepreneurial, experimental culture, but also offer security.
Furthermore, these aspects may outweigh cut backs in extrinsic rewards Consequently,
despite prior literature stating that extrinsic rewards may motivate employees to engage in
intrapreneurship (Hornsby, Kuratko, & Zahra, 2002; Shabana, 2010), we find that intrinsic
motivation is a far more important element that should be considered when setting up a
context in which high profile employees can flourish.