Representative put in cracking suite, as an incentive (7)
I believe the answer is:
impetus
'an incentive' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'representative put in cracking suite' is the wordplay.
'representative' becomes 'mp'.
'put in' is an insertion indicator.
'cracking' indicates an anagram.
'suite' is an anagram of 'ietus'.
'mp' inserted into 'ietus' is 'IMPETUS'.
'as' is the link.
(Other definitions for impetus that I've seen before include "Drive" , "Driving force, momentum" , "influence" , "Incentive, stimulus" , "Driving force, forward movement" .)