- Organizations often do not look at the big picture of their performance system.Thus,
rewards are allocated at subunit levels, with the result that units often com-
pete against each other. - Both management and shareholders often focus on short-term results.They don’t
reward employees for longer-range planning.
Organizations would do well to ensure that they do not send the wrong message
when offering rewards. When organizations outline an organizational objective of “team
performance,” for example, but reward each employee according to individual pro-
ductivity, does this send a message that teams are valued? Or when a retailer tells com-
missioned employees that they are responsible for monitoring and replacing stock as
necessary, are employees more likely to concentrate on making sales or stocking the
floor? Employees motivated by the promise of rewards will do those things that earn
them the rewards they value.
Caveat Emptor: Motivation Theories Are Culture-Bound
Reward strategies that have been used successfully in Canada and the United States do
not always work successfully in other cultures. Take, for instance, a study comparing
sales representatives at a large electronics company in the United States with one in
Japan. The study found that while Rolex watches, expensive dinners, and fancy vaca-
tions were valued rewards for star performers in the United States, taking the whole
sales team bowling was more appreciated in Japan. The study’s authors found that
“being a member of a successful team with shared goals and values, rather than finan-
cial rewards, is what drives Japanese sales representatives to succeed.”^114
Why do our motivation theories perform less well when we look at their use in coun-
tries beyond Canada and the United States? Most current motivation theories were
developed in the United States and so take US cultural norms for granted.11 5That may
account for why Canada and the United States, which have more individualistic cul-
tures, rely more heavily on extrinsic motivating factors than some other countries.11 6
Japanese and German firms rarely make use of individual work incentives because their
cultures are more collectivist.^117
Many of the social-psychological theories of motivation rely heavily on the idea of
motivating the individual through individual rewards. Thus they emphasize, particu-
larly in an organizational context, the meaning of “pay,” and give little attention to
the informal rewards that come from group norms and prestige from peers.11 8Exhibit
4-15 on page 137 presents a quick summary of the cultural differences in motivation
observed by a number of studies.
Motivation theories also assume that needs are similar across societies. For instance,
Maslow’s needs hierarchy argues that people start at the physiological level and then
move progressively up the hierarchy in this order: physiological, safety, social, esteem,
and self-actualization. This hierarchy, if it applies at all, aligns well with American cul-
ture and reasonably well with Canadian culture. However, in countries such as Austria,
Denmark, and Germany, where uncertainty avoidance characteristics are strong, security
needs would be at the top of the needs hierarchy. Countries that score high on humane
orientation characteristics—Indonesia, Egypt, and Malaysia—would have social needs
on top.11 9We would predict, for instance, that group work will motivate employees
more when the country’s culture scores high on the humane orientation criterion.
Equity theory has gained a relatively strong following in Canada and United States. That
is no surprise, since North American reward systems assume that employees are highly sen-
sitive to equity in the granting of rewards, and expect pay to be tied closely to perform-
ance. However, recent evidence suggests that in collectivist cultures, especially in the
former socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe, employees expect rewards to136 Part 2Striving for Performance