What constitutes a reward for the buying or selling company does not equal a reward for their boundary spanning representatives.
Different individuals perceive rewards differently (Berscheid & Walster, 1978),
although certain types of stimuli are rewarding to most people most of the time.
Such a reward is termed a “transsituational” or “generalized” reinforcer, which most people are deprived of most of the time,
and which is capable of reducing a wide variety of needs; money being perhaps the most universal (Homans, 1961; Walster & Abrahams, 1972).