Cross cultural employee motivation in international companies

WHICH of the three volunteer jobs below would you prefer?

The first job involves making wooden rocking horses for children from underprivileged backgrounds. You are solely responsible for the design of the rocking horse, sourcing the materials, shaping the wood, assembling the horse, painting the horse and testing its quality and function.

The second job involves working with a group of volunteers to prepare hampers of food for needy families. Your group is responsible for selecting the items to include in the hamper and allocating roles (shopping, packing, delivery) among group members.

The third job involves working with a group of volunteers to suggest a charity fundraising event for approval by the charity’s board of directors. If your group’s recommendation is approved, your group will work on the event under the supervision of the managing director.

When I pose those options in my cultural intelligence workshops, preferences typically vary by cultural orientation. Members of low power distance, individualistic cultures prefer to work alone building rocking horses. Members of low power distance, collectivistic cultures prefer to work as an autonomous group assembling food hampers. Members of high power distance, collectivist cultures prefer to work as a group on a charity event under the supervision of the charity’s managing director.

The three hypothetical charity jobs above mirror different approaches to job design that emerged in different cultures during the late 1970s to 1980s.

Job Enrichment Model

In the US, the job enrichment approach advocated by Hackman and Oldham focused on enhancing the intrinsic motivation of jobs by including the following five characteristics in job design:

• Skill variety—a variety of different activities and skills required to successfully complete a task or perform a role relieves boredom and enhances self-competence.
• Task identity–performing a task from start to finish enables workers to identify a tangible product or service, which supports a sense of personal achievement.
• Task significance–jobs that have a positive impact on the lives of others, either internal or external to the organisation, enhance the meaningfulness of one’s work.
• Autonomy–control or discretion over work, such as what methods or tools to use and scheduling of work, fosters a sense of personal responsibility for outcomes.
• Feedback—the receipt of timely and clear information about their performance enables employees to monitor, evaluate and regulate their efforts towards improvement.

Hackman and Oldham’s model was robustly supported by empirical research in the US, where job enrichment provided employees with an opportunity to achieve individual success and distinctiveness while exercising personal control, congruent with cultural values of high individualism and low power distance.

Socio-technical Model

In Northern Europe, the socio-technical model approached job design differently to job enrichment programs in the US, integrating the technical and social aspects of the workplace. Central to the socio- techno approach was the autonomous work group. Work groups were responsible for the planning, scheduling and task allocation for completion of whole sub-systems of a car like the brakes, electronics, etc.

A group-level focus is congruent with Northern European collectivist values. When work is organised in groups, workers with an interdependent self-concept have greater opportunity for meeting their needs for close interpersonal relationships and group belonging. The best-known examples of the socio-technical approach were at Volvo plants in Sweden. Sweden ranks highest for societal level collectivism in Western Europe.

Work-group autonomy is also congruent with the low power distance orientation of Northern Europe. Low power distance cultures exhibit a preference for employee empowerment and participation in decision-making, whereas high power distance cultures have an emotional need for tight supervision of worker activities by management.

Quality Circles

In Japan, the quality circle approach to job design has remained popular since its introduction in the 1960s. A quality circle is a small group of front-line employees who work together to improve the quality of their outputs. Although this approach was originally designed by an American, it had limited success in the US where the group-based approach conflicted with individualistic values. Quality circles were enthusiastically adopted in collectivistic Japan, however, where they were successful in improving quality and enhancing the psychological well-being of workers.

The quality circle approach to job design was similar to the socio- technical approach adopted in Northern Europe in that it employed the use of work groups. However, whereas the Northern European model involved self-managed groups, congruent with low power distance values, quality circles were nested within an organisation’s hierarchy and a national quality circle system, congruent with Japan’s high power distance orientation. The initiatives suggested by quality circles needed to be approved by management before they could be implemented, and the day-to-day activities of workers were closely supervised by managers.

WORK MOTIVATION

Work motivation refers to the forces that initiate, direct and sustain employee work behaviour. Motivated employees apply effort and commit mental resources towards the achievement of organisational goals. In contrast, employees who lack motivation do not apply effort or apply less effort in their assigned tasks, might display withdrawal behaviours like absenteeism, tardiness, or turnover, and might even engage in sabotaging behaviours such as theft or vandalism.

Organisations can employ either intrinsic or extrinsic factors to motivate employees. Intrinsic motivational practices involve attempts to enhance the satisfaction that workers derive from doing their jobs, per se, rather than the satisfaction that they might experience from any rewards they earn in return for their efforts. Intrinsic motivational practices typically involve the design of jobs so that they provide workers with an opportunity for satisfying their higher-order needs, such as self-esteem, interpersonal relatedness, meaningfulness, personal growth, power and achievement. Higher-order needs are assumed to be motivating when lower-order survival needs like financial security and physical safety have already been met.

Extrinsic motivational practices include compensation and promotion systems. The assumption is that workers value monetary rewards and advancement opportunities, and those potential outcomes motivate employees to apply effort towards their assigned tasks.

Work motivation practices have become a critical tool for organisations seeking to enhance employee performance as well as for talent attraction and retention. Studies show that motivational programs can increase performance by 20 to 40 per cent.

Typical of early organisational behavioural research, US-based motivation models ignore the impact of culture and assume that the forces that drive employees are universal. More recently, however, cross-cultural researchers have highlighted the inadequacy of the most widely-cited work motivation models in a global work context, showing how US motivation theories and practices have failed elsewhere:

• In Mexico, offering financial incentives was ineffective in reducing turnover. Also, raising the salary of Mexican workers caused them to work fewer rather than more hours—after the raise, they would not have to work as hard to maintain the same lifestyle.
• Empowerment programs showed positive effects in Mexico, Poland and the US. However, in India, empowerment programs failed to motivate employees who were used to taking instructions from their superiors.
• Merit-based compensation plans were poorly received by Japanese workers who preferred compensation linked to seniority.
• US-style individual incentive reward schemes failed in Denmark, the Netherlands, Indonesia, China, Russia, India and Japan.
• Self-focused training had a greater impact on self-efficacy and performance for US subjects, whereas group-focused training was more effective for workers in Hong Kong and China.
• Implicit and informal feedback provided by Japanese managers frustrated US workers.
• Good pay and bonuses were the most preferred rewards for students in Chile and China, whereas promotion and interesting work were the most preferred rewards for US students.
• Violations of extrinsic contracts like compensation had a greater negative impact on worker attitudes in Hong Kong, whereas violation to intrinsic factors like responsibility had a more negative impact in the US.
• Met expectations about autonomy were more important for perceptions of fairness among US workers, whereas met expectations about advancement were more important for Korean workers.
• Other researchers have noted variations in the effectiveness of different motivational approaches between countries outside of the US:
• Fluid group membership was perceived more negatively by Taiwanese workers, compared with Australian workers.
• British workers were more motivated by intrinsic work factors such as the nature of the task, achievement and recognition, whereas Nigerian workers were more motivated by extrinsic factors like compensation, benefits and working conditions.

MOTIVATIONAL DRIVERS ACROSS CULTURES

All individuals, irrespective or their cultural orientation, seek to maintain a positive view of themselves and to experience a sense of worth and positive well-being. Individuals are motivated to engage in behaviours that lead to the fulfilment of these needs. Actions that the individual perceives will support a positive view of themselves, a sense of worth and positive well-being are more likely to be adopted than behaviours that do not support self-motives.

Differences in cultural values imply that what some individuals may perceive as motivating, others may perceive as demotivating. Consider differences in factors that are motivating for an independent self- construal—characteristic of individualist cultures—compared to an interdependent self-construal—characteristic of collectivist cultures. Independent self-construals value opportunities for self-expression and individual achievement that can distinguish them from others. Interdependent self-construals value opportunities for social interaction, strengthening their social relations and group membership and fulfilling social and role obligations.

Cultural differences can have a profound impact on work motivation. No motivational system is equally effective around the globe. The success of motivational interventions across different cultures rests on matching job design and incentive systems to the motivational drivers of workers, which are in turn, partly reflective of cultural values.

Global managers need to be alert to cultural differences in work motivation. They need to exercise caution when transporting management practices across borders. Understanding how culture shapes the motivating potential of a reward system, job design and work setting helps global managers enhance work motivation and optimise worker performance across different cultural contexts.

THE DANGERS IN STEREOTYPING

The links between cultural values and employee outcomes are greater for older rather than younger workers, males rather than females and higher-educated rather than lower-educated employees, suggesting certain demographics act to amplify the effects of culture on employee outcomes. Also, the effects of national cultural values on employee outcomes are stronger in ‘tighter’ rather than ‘looser’ cultures, reflective of reduced flexibility for norm deviance in tight cultures.

Work values and cultural value orientations can change over time and generations, and across subcultures, industries and organisations. Also, unique experiences and personality contribute to individual differences within national groups. Successful global managers understand that country-based work surveys and cultural value orientations are generalised norms that do not necessarily apply to a specific individual. Culturally intelligent managers make a concerted effort to understand the motivational forces that drive individual employees.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Felicity Menzies is Principal at Culture Plus Consulting, a Sydney-based diversity and inclusion consultancy with expertise in cultural intelligence, unconscious bias, empowering women and global diversity management. Learn more about managing diversity globally at www.cultureplusconsulting.com.

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