Social-Cultural Influences on Work Motivation

Cultural Values That Influence Work Motivation

Western theories have historically dominated the field of work motivation, often neglecting the influence of cultural factors.
Globalization has led to attempts to apply Western motivational approaches in non-Western cultures, frequently resulting in failure.
Examples of failures include:
- Monetary rewards being ineffective in reducing turnover in Mexico.
- Western managerial practices failing to enhance performance quality in Morocco.
- Empowerment not motivating employees in India due to traditional hierarchical structures.
- Merit-based performance not being well-received in Japan, where seniority is valued for promotions.
These failures underscore the importance of considering cultural factors in motivational approaches, in line with the person-by-situation interaction model (Lewin, 1951; Mischel, 1977, 1986).
Culture is defined as a shared meaning system where group members have common assumptions about adapting to the environment (Erez & Earley, 1993).
Culture influences core values and norms, which are transmitted across generations through social learning, modeling, observation, and personal experiences (Bandura, 1986).
Hofstede’s value typology is widely used to explain differences in work behaviors across cultures including individualism versus collectivism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity versus femininity, and future time orientation (Hofstede, 1980, 2001).
- Individualism vs. Collectivism:
- Individualism emphasizes individual autonomy, self-fulfillment, and separation from others (common in Western cultures).
- Collectivism emphasizes social embeddedness, interdependence, and concern for the group over the self (common in Eastern cultures).
- Individualistic values shape the independent self, while collectivistic values shape the interdependent self (Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Oyserman, Coon, & Kemmelmeier, 2002).
- Power Distance: the acceptance of unequal power distribution in society.
- Uncertainty Avoidance: the comfort level with uncertainty and ambiguity.
- Masculinity/Femininity: the extent to which a society minimizes gender role differences.
- Future Orientation: the degree to which a society engages in future-oriented behaviors.
The GLOBE study by House et al. (2004) expanded Hofstede’s typology to include performance-oriented values and humane orientation. It also distinguished between societal and group collectivism, and gender egalitarianism and assertiveness.
Social psychology identifies 10 core cultural values, represented by three bipolar dimensions (Schwartz, 1992, 1994; Licht, Goldschmidt, & Schwartz, 2005):
- Embeddedness/Autonomy: Embeddedness emphasizes maintaining the status quo and restraining disruptive actions; autonomy pertains to cultures valuing individual uniqueness.
- Hierarchy/Egalitarianism: Hierarchy emphasizes role obligations within an unequal power distribution; egalitarianism emphasizes voluntary commitment to promoting the welfare of others.
- Mastery/Harmony: Mastery emphasizes self-assertion to get ahead; harmony emphasizes fitting into the social and natural environment.
The key cultural values that are found across these typologies includes collectivism-individualism, power distance, and uncertainty avoidance.
These cultural values are integrated into one's self throughout the process of socialization and serve as criteria for evaluating motivational approaches (Erez, 1997; Erez & Earley, 1993).
People across cultures differ in their dominant facet of the self, varying between the independent self (shaped by individualistic values) and the interdependent self (shaped by collectivistic values).
The independent self is self-contained and autonomous; behavior is regulated by one’s internal thoughts and feelings.
The interdependent self is defined by its relationships within reference groups; behavior is directed toward fitting in with others’ expectations.
Motivational approaches and rewards that are used to satisfy the interdependent self differ from those used to satisfy the independent self (Erez & Earley, 1993; Hambrick, Davison, Snell, & Snow, 1998; Hofstede, 1980; Thomas, 1999).

Culture, Self-Motives, and Motivational Dispositions

Individuals are motivated to maintain a positive self-view and experience self-worth (Bandura, 2001).
Self-worth is achieved by satisfying self-derived motives like self-enhancement, self-efficacy, and self-consistency (Erez, 1997; Erez & Earley, 1993).
- Self-enhancement seeks a positive self-view by seeking positive information, interpreting events favorably, and using self-serving attributes (Kunda, 1999; Kurman & Sriram, 1997).
- Self-efficacy is one’s perceived capability to perform tasks (Bandura, 1986).
- Self-consistency maintains a coherent self-view to effectively operate in the environment (Epstein, 1973). It motivates behavior aligned with one's values and norms.
Managerial practices consistent with cultural values are more likely to be accepted (Erez, 1997; Erez & Earley, 1993).
Self-concordance, or consistency between self-awareness and personal goals, is important for people's well-being across cultures (Sheldon et al., 2004).
Cultural dimensions, especially collectivism vs. individualism, explain differences in personal motivation (Triandis, 1995).
Individualistic cultures emphasize personal autonomy and accomplishment, while collectivistic cultures emphasize concern for the group and collective identity.

Self-Enhancement

Research on the universality of self-enhancement shows mixed results (Heine, Lehman, Markus, & Kitayama, 1999).
Some argue it is a universal motive for job and life satisfaction (Piccolo, Judge, Takahashi, Watanabe, & Locke, 2005), but others find less evidence outside Western cultures (Kitayama et al., 1997).
People in individualistic cultures have a higher sense of self-esteem than those in East Asia and Japan (Heine et al., 1999; Lehman, Chiu, & Schaller, 2004).
Self-enhancement tactics vary:
- Americans self-enhance on individualistic attributes like independence.
- Japanese self-enhance on collectivistic attributes like community involvement (Sedikides, Gaertner, & Toguchi, 2003).
Modesty in Far Eastern cultures restricts the expression of self-enhancement (Kurman, 2001, 2003; Kurman & Sriram, 1997, 2002).
Even Japanese implicitly show positive self-regard, similar to Americans (Kitayama & Uchida, 2003).
Western cultures use self-protective mechanisms like self-serving bias (attributing positive outcomes to oneself and negative to others) (Fiske & Taylor, 1984).
Self-serving bias is common in individualistic cultures, whereas collectivistic cultures are less likely to demonstrate self-protection.
Both culture-level values and individual-level self-construal influence these differences (Brockner & Chen, 1996).
Members of Far Eastern cultures are less likely to show self-enhancing biases, and as a result Japanese are more likely to detect negative information than Americans (Heine & Lehman, 1997).
When Japanese fail, they persist more, focusing on shortcomings for self-improvement, while North Americans focus on strengths (Heine et al., 2001).

Self- and Collective efficacy

Self-efficacy is considered universally central to self-worth (Schwarzer, Babler, Kwiatek, Schroder, & Zhang, 1997).
Self-efficacy differs across cultures and is influenced by individualism vs. collectivism.
In collectivistic cultures, self-concept is heavily shaped by being part of a group. Therefore, efficacy perceptions are more associated with a group than an individual.
Collective efficacy (shared belief in team accomplishment) is important in collectivistic cultures, whereas self-efficacy is prevalent in individualistic cultures (Brewer & Chen, 2007; Eby & Dobbins, 1997).
Individualists are influenced by personal feedback, while collectivists are influenced by personal and group feedback (Earley, Gibson, & Chen, 1999).
Power distance influences collective efficacy. In high-power-distance cultures, high-status members shape collective efficacy perceptions (Earley, 1999).
Strong self-efficacy beliefs correlate with mitigated psychological health symptoms (Schaubroeck, Xie, & Lam, 2000).

Achievement Motivation

Achievement motivation is considered universal (McClelland, 1961) but exhibits stronger influence in individualistic cultures.
High achievers in individualistic cultures are motivated to reach better individual performance levels (Sagie, Elizur, & Yamauchi, 1996).
Collectivistic cultures believe consequences occur as a result of a collective effort and not of an individual effort (Niles, 1998).
Individualists attribute success to abilities, collectivists attribute it to effort exertion (Chang, Arkin, Leong, Chan, & Leung, 2004).

Self-Consistency

Little research exists on the effect of culture on self-consistency.
Cultures with high uncertainty avoidance and harmony likely value self-consistency more.
Self-consistency may relate to the concept of face which dominates Far Eastern cultures (Earley, 1997; Hwang, Francesco, & Kessler, 2003).
- Face includes Lian (concern with moral character) and Mianzi (concern with status).
Face saving is a strong motivator in collectivistic societies, due to fear of losing group belongingness.

Culture, Goals, Goal Orientation, and Self-Regulatory Focus

People in individualistic cultures seek challenging goals for individual accomplishment (Locke & Latham, 2002).
In collectivistic cultures, people are motivated to set moderate goals (Kurman, 2001).
Individuals with strong independent selves regulate their behavior using a promotion focus towards personal aspirations (Forster, Higgins, & Taylor Bianco, 2003).
Individuals with strong interdependent selves regulate their behaviors using a prevention focus to satisfy obligations (Forster, Higgins, & Taylor Bianco, 2003).
Promotion vs. prevention focus influences attention allocated to information (Aaker & Lee, 2001; Lee, Aaker, & Gardner, 2000).
Collectivistic cultures more likely adopt a prevention focus, individualistic cultures a promotion focus.
Western cultures distinguish between performance goals and learning goals (VandeWalle, Cron, & Slocum, 1997), while in Chinese culture, learning includes cognition, morality, behavior, and affect.
In the Chinese culture performing and learning orientations are highly interrelated (Lee, Tinsley, & Bobko, 2003; Li, 2002).

Intrinsic Motivation, Self-Determination, Variety Seeking, and Uniqueness

Western motivation theories emphasize self-determination, personal choice, intrinsic motivation, and uniqueness (Ryan & Deci, 2000; Gelfand, Erez, & Aycan, 2007).
Extrinsic rewards have not usually been considered to be related to a person’s subjective well-being.
While intrinsic motivation is associated with the subjective well-being of Anglo Americans, it was not related to the subjective well-being of Asian Americans.
Extrinsic rewards serve as motivators in non-Western cultures. For example, Romanians perceived financial success as an indicator of self-direction (Frost & Frost, 2000).
Variety seeking is valued in Western cultures but not in collectivistic cultures (Kim & Drolet, 2003).
Collectivists respect conformity and reliance on groups and authority figures more (Shuper, Sorrentino, Otsubo, Hodson, & Walker, 2004).
Personal initiative, affected by cultural values and institutions, varies even within seemingly the same country (East and West Germany) (Frese, Kring, Soose, & Zempel, 1996; House et al., 2004).
Changes in job characteristics can mitigate cultural differences (Frese et al., 1996).

Summary

The hardware of one's self is universal (self-awareness, self-worth, well-being, enhancement, efficacy, consistency), but dominating and satisfying factors differ across cultures.
Culture shapes self-derived motives, positive self-evaluation, goal choice, self-expression, and whether to be motivated by promotion or prevention focus.
Individual differences exist within cultures: individuals with dominant interdependent selves exist in individualistic cultures and vice versa.
Factors at individual and societal levels should be considered when evaluating the motivation profile of members of different cultures.
Work motivation theories highlight the importance of situational factors.

Culture, Situational Factors, and Work Motivation

Motivation involves the interaction between motivational dispositions and situational factors (Lewin, 1951; Mischel, 1977, 1986).
Cultural values influence how people interpret situational factors (Erez & Earley, 1993). What is a motivator in some cultures may be a de-motivator in other cultures.

Externally Set Goals and Feedback

Goal-setting theory suggests that specific and difficult goals lead to high performance with high goal acceptance and feedback (Locke & Latham, 2002).
Self-set goals are more important in individualistic cultures; externally set goals are more important in collectivistic cultures (Radhakrishnan & Chan, 1997).
Power distance influences motivational practices and performance. Participation in goal setting has a positive effect for low-power-distance individuals (Sue-Chan & Ong, 2002).
The goal specificity effect on performance is moderated by cultural values.
High-context cultures (collectivistic) are field-dependent, while low-context cultures (individualistic) focus on communicated information (Fang, Palmatier, & Evans, 2004).
Feedback preferences differ: explicit in Western cultures; implicit in Far Eastern cultures. Four cultural dimensions influence feedback giving and feedback seeking (De Luque & Sommer, 2000):
- Specific vs. holistic orientation
- Tolerance for ambiguity
- Individualism-collectivism
- Power distance and status identity
Feedback aligned with cultural values is perceived as high quality (Van de Vliert, Shi, Sanders, Wang, & Huang, 2004).

Rewards

Rewards are a strong motivation to work, but what is considered a desirable reward may differ across cultures.
Motivation depends on the congruence of reward systems with cultural values.
Reward allocation is guided by equity, equality, and need rules (Erez, 1997).
Power distance and hierarchy best account for cross-cultural differences in reward allocation (Fischer & Smith, 2003).
Pay for performance is common in the United States, it is aligned with individualistic values, but it is also inconsistent with collectivism and high power distance.
Performance is the major criterion for rewards in Western cultures (Zhou & Martocchio, 2001).
The effectiveness of individual- vs. team-based rewards differs. In Japan: team-based; in the United States: individual-based (Allen, Helms, Tekda, & White, 2004).
The preference for good pay versus promotion varies by culture (Corney & Richards, 2005; King & Bu, 2005). Those preferences reflect the socioeconomic conditions in those economies (Hofstede, 1980).
There are some similarities between employees in developed versus developing countries with respect to whether work is mostly a means for obtaining monetary rewards or meaningful for its own sake indicating that work is a value in and of itself (Adigun, 1997).
CEO compensation is related to power distance, individualism, and uncertainty avoidance (Tosi & Greckhamer, 2004).

Job and Organizational Characteristics

Jobs can be described along psychological demands, decision latitude, social support, physical demands, and job insecurity (Karasek et al., 1998).
The motivational forces associated with job characteristics vary across cultures (Huang & Van de Vliert 2003).
Power-distance and collectivism-individualism moderated the effect of intrinsic and extrinsic job characteristics on work satisfaction (Huang & Van de Vliert, 2003).
Extrinsic job characteristics are positively related to work satisfaction in all cultures (Huang & Van de Vliert, 2003).
Autonomy reduces work stress in East European countries (Deci et al., 2001).
Empowerment, a motivator in Western cultures, is not always effective in high-power-distance cultures (Eylon & Au, 1999).
Excessive job demands affect stress and anxiety in all cultures (Glazer & Beehr, 2005; Xie, 1996).
American employees, unlike those in Japan, Sweden, and Germany, preferred longer work hours, whereas those in Sweden preferred shorter work hours (Reynolds, 2004).

Teams, Interpersonal Relations, and Work Motivation

Collectivism vs. individualism is relevant for understanding team context (Erez, 1992).
Collectivistic cultures perceive teams as holistic entities, and in instrumental terms, and rely on family/community-based metaphors, whereas individualistic ones perceive them in instrumental terms (Morris, Menon, & Ames, 2001).
Employees in Taiwan prefer stable and long-term teams compared to those in Australia (Harrison, McKinnon, Wu, & Chee, 2000).
Individuals in collectivistic cultures are less likely to engage in social loafing, or demonstrate the sucker effect (Earley, 1989; Erez & Somech, 1996).
Collectivistic team members emphasize relational and socioemotional aspects, individualistic team members emphasize instrumental aspects (Sanchez-Burkes, Nisbett, & Ybarra, 2000).
Collectivists expect self-enhancement when their team does well, individualists from their personal success (Chen, Brockner, and Katz, 1998).
The study by Xie, Song, and Stringfellow (2003) discovered that in all five countries incongruity was found to be the key obstacle to cross-functional integration of shared information.
Employees in Western countries considered internal attributes such as management support, and team performance- based rewards to be the major facilitators of cross-functional integration, whereas employees in Far Eastern countries made external attributions by considering physical proximity and job rotation to be the major facilitators of cross-functional integration.
Collective efficacy is crucial for highly interdependent teams (Gully et al., 2002; Katz & Erez, 2005).
A study by Earley, Gibson, and Chen (2003) in the United States, mainland China, and the Czech Republic revealed that for individualists, only feedback on individual performance influenced their self-efficacy, while for collectivists, both types of feedback on individual and team performance were important for their efficacy perceptions.

Summary

Culture influences the motivational meaning attributed to various situational antecedents of work motivation.
Culture has a main effect on the motivating potential of intrinsic, extrinsic, and social rewards.
Culture moderates the effect of rewards and situational factors on employees’ self-worth, well-being, behaviors, attitudes, and performance.
MNCs face the challenge of balancing global values with local national values (Kostova & Roth, 2002).

Motivation in the Context of the Cultural Interface

Cross-cultural organizational behavior research has focused on intercultural comparisons but failed to capture globalization's effects (Gelfand, Erez, and Aycan, 2007).
International mergers and acquisitions promote intercultural encounters.
Because MNCs faces the challenge of implementing company-wide reward systems, on the one hand, and recognizing the unique values and preferences of their culturally diverse workforce on the other hand, new theories and empirical studies are needed to examine how cultural differences affect intercultural encounters, and how do companies and individuals adapt to this emerging work context (Berson, Erez, and Adler, 2004; Kostova & Roth, 2002).
- Local cultural values influence employee motivation to adopt changes (Harzing & Hofstede, 1996; Inglehart & Baker, 2000).
Global context creates a new layer of culture to which employees need to adjust (Erez & Gati, 2004; Leung et al., 2005).
Globalization raises the question of how multinational companies develop a compensation strategy and a reward system that fit well with all subsidiaries.
Erez and Gati (2004) proposed that adaptation to the global work culture should occur in both directions: top-down and bottom-up.

Culture and Work Satisfaction

Work satisfaction impacts motivating work behavior.
Cultural factors influence the level of work satisfaction (Liu, Ingwer, & Spector, 2004).
A positive self-concept is key to work satisfaction across cultures (Piccolo et al., 2005).
Western cultures have higher work satisfaction (Alas, 2005; Diener, 2000; Spector, Cooper, Sanchez, & O’Driscoll, 2001; Vecernik, 2003).
Warm work groups relate to satisfaction in collectivist cultures, but not in individualist cultures (Hui & Yee, 1999).
Job level relates to satisfaction in individualistic cultures but not in collectivistic ones (Huang & Van de Vliert, 2004).
Higher-income, education, and life expectancy correlate with motivation-satisfaction (Van de Vliert & Janssens, 2002).
Extrinsic job characteristics are positively related to job satisfaction across cultures (Huang & Van de Vliert, 2003).
Culture moderates the impact of job satisfaction on withdrawal behaviors (Posthuma et al., 2005; Thomas & Au, 2002; Thomas & Pekerti, 2003).

Summary

Theories of motivation do not frequently explore culture's effect on motivational practices and employee behavior.
The existing research on culture and motivation views cultures as stable with distinct boundaries.
The globalization of the work culture has created international organizational work dynamics consisting of multiple geographical work sites, multiple cultural workforces (including members of upper management), and culturally diverse customers and stakeholders.
Approaches such as multilevel theories of motivation have been designed to examine complex and diverse work settings to address new issues in the geographically and culturally diverse workplaces.