Exam 11: Motivating and Rewarding Employees

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Maslow's need hierarchy argues that people start at the physiological level and then move progressively up the hierarchy in order.This hierarchy, if it has any application at all, aligns well with American culture.In countries like Japan, Greece, and Mexico, where uncertainty avoidance characteristics are strong, security needs would be on top of the need hierarchy.Countries that score high on nurturing characteristics-Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, and Finland-would have social needs on top.
Another motivation concept that clearly has an American slant is the achievement need.The view that a high achievement need acts as an internal motivator presupposes two cultural characteristics-a willingness to accept a moderate degree of risk (which excludes countries with strong uncertainty avoidance characteristics)and a concern with performance (which applies almost singularly to countries with strong achievement characteristics).This combination is found in Anglo-American countries like the United States, Canada, and Great Britain.
Equity theory has a relatively strong following in the United States.In the United States, equity is meant to closely link pay to performance.However, in collectivist cultures, especially in the former socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe, employees expect rewards to reflect their individual needs as well as their performance.Moreover, consistent with a legacy of communism and centrally planned economies, employees exhibit a greater "entitlement" attitude-that is, they expect outcomes to be greater than their inputs.