Lecture 7 Flashcards
How do organizations motivate employees and managers?
have developed various ways of motivating their employees due to:
As boarders between/among many countries are fading away, organizations are looking for universal theories of leadership that explain how to motivate employees.
Good Leadership requires skill to inspire others and to
influence the way employees think and make decisions.
Many theorists including McGregor, Hofstede, Laurent and Adler believe that leaders should use their cultural background to
influence and motivate their subordinates.
Understanding motivation:
It is a process that energizes workers to behave in a productive way.
It is a mechanism which helps organizations maintain the desired behavior.
Following are some of the known theories that explain what motivates people in different cultures:
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
McClenland’s Three Motives Herzberg’s Two Factor Theory Vroom’s Expectancy Theory Hofstede’s Five Cultural Dimensions
Maslow suggests that the needs of people can
determine the ways to motivate them.
It becomes a challenge to motivate individuals who are in
the lower level of the hierarchy of needs by motivational tools that serves to individuals who have already realized upper level of their needs.
Hofstede and Trompenaars believe that people who live in weak uncertainty avoidance culture are
more motivated to work harder and take risk than people who live in strong uncertainty avoidance and collective societies.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Top to Bottom:
Self Actualization Esteem Social Safety Physiological Needs
Can Maslow’s theory, which is based on America socio-economic environment, be applicable to other countries of different cultural background?
In general it is suggested that developing counties often exhibit high uncertainty avoidance, low individualism, high power distant and a low emphasis career success
Job security is more important in countries such as
Japan and Greece.
Quality of life is more important in
Scandinavian countries than job securities.
In-group’s welfare is more important than individual interest in countries which manifest
collectivist behavior (Pakistan)
In traditional societies, communal responsibility is more valued than
individual drive.
East African culture suppresses self-seeking individualism
Two Steps of Motivating Individuals from Various Countries:
Understand where the individual’s cultural background is located on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
Consider the individual’s personal drive and how his/life style deviates from the commonly accepted cultural background.
David McClenland, an American theorist claims that workers can be motivated in the context of understanding “three motives” :
The individual’s need for achievement
The individual’s need for Power
The individual’s need for affiliation to a group or an organization
McLenland focuses on the need for power in motivating people to produce, however later on he found that
the need for achievement was the main reason why some nations are motivated to produce more than others. His latest assertion was based on his research of Indian entrepreneurs trained in the need for achievement.
Hofstede questions the universality of
McClenland’s motivators.
Hofstede doubts that the word “achievement” which is understood in the context of western culture will
have the same meaning in other countries.
Furthermore, Hofstede thinks that achievement might be realized by factors other than
need driven objectives.
