Motivational Theories and Their Generalizability Across Cultures

meaning and provide them with rules for behavior in their organization, however culture does not necessarily imply uniformity of values. Often different values can be displayed by people of the same culture.

Culture is an observable, powerful force in any organization. “Made up of its members’ shared values, beliefs, symbols, and behaviors, culture guides individual decisions and actions at the unconscious level. As a result, it can have a potent effect on a company’s well-being and success” (One Page, n.d.).

“Organizational culture consists of a set of shared meanings and values held by a set of members in an organization that distinguish the organization from other organizations” (Baack, 2012). These shared values have a strong influence on the people in the organization and dictate how they dress, act, and perform their jobs. Culture plays a huge role in the guiding of the behaviors of employees of an organization. There are three stages of culture that interact with one another to influence the behaviors in the organization. These stages are: observable artifacts, espoused values, and enacted values.

Culture within an organisation is a system of shared values, beliefs and norms of individuals in the organisation and how the value consensus creates a way in which people behave. The shared values have a strong influence on the individuals in the organisation and dictates how a person acts, dresses and performs in their job. A unique culture is developed and maintained by an organisation which provides guidelines and boundaries, through informal means, for the behaviour of the people within the organisation.

Hofstede defined the culture as “the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one group from that another”. His five types of cultural dimensions are the most popular in many cultural area studies, include: (1) power distance; (2) individualism vs. collectivism; (3) uncertainty avoidance; (4) masculinity vs. femininity; and (5) long-term vs. short-term orientation. These dimensions offer an insight towards behaviors and standards in the cultural context which are useful for many motivators to explore the people in different culture. The text suggested that countries with high uncertainty avoidance will lead to more job security, whereas people with low uncertainty avoidance (for example, U.S.) are motivated by new ideas and innovation. People with high power distance are motivated by relationships between subordinates and their boss, while people with low power distance are motivated by team work and relationships with their peers. On the other hand, individuals from high individualism are motivated by opportunities and autonomy; collectivism (for example, Japan) suggests that motivation should be done with group goals and support. Individuals from high masculine culture are comfortable with the tradition and division of works and roles; in a feminine culture, the motivators help people through flexible roles and work

According to Greenwood (1957), culture is defined as "The interactions of social roles required by these formal and informal groups generate a social configuration unique to the profession" (p. 52). In any profession, it is important to respect others cultures, beliefs, and values.

The Hofstede Centre (n.d.) defines culture as the “collective mental programming of the human mind which distinguishes one group of people from another.” Chipulu, Ojiako, Gardiner, Williams, Mota, Maguire, Shou, Stamai, and Marshall (2014), note that “culture can be at once tangible and observable; latent and unobservable; or even an abstraction altogether” (p. 367). Culture therefore has many dimensions. Some aspects of culture can be observed by analyzing symbols, ceremonies, dress, and other aspects. On the other hand, some aspects are not observable from the outside, but have to be experienced. Looking only from the outside gives us only a glimpse into the culture values. A large part of culture is the unwritten rules of how things are done. This part of culture is not necessarily observable to an outsider. To fully understand the cultural values of an organization, you need to be inside the organization with access to those with years of work experiences.

Cultural values can be defined as standards that are considered acceptable or unacceptable to a particular culture. I examined two research articles, one comparing the cultural values of Polish and Turkish employees and the other comparing Indian and U.S. value orientations. I choose these articles because they gave a good representation of almost all our global business cultures. India with its Asian influence; the U.S., which is distinctly western; Poland with its European influence; and Turkey with its Middle Eastern influence. These two articles come together nicely to give an accurate representation of what’s important to the culture and how those characteristics influence employees in the work place and how managers can better communicate with their global employees. Furthermore, I choose this topic out of personal interest and from my experience working in an international department this past year.

Culture can be defined into many definitions and it also can be separated into different types, all so that we can better understand it. Hofstede claimed that culture was the mind 's way of separating one group of people from another (Kawar, 2012). Due to the technological advancements in the world people from all over are working together with new ways of communication. Though we must know the diversities of each culture in order to avoid being offensive, the same principles we use in communicating with different cultures is no different to what we would use in the workplace. When working in an organization you must motivate the employees, all while setting a structure for their policies and guidelines. Also, developing

Human Resources is dependent on the success, happiness, and contentment of employees that keep the business on course. Motivation is one of the best ways to push employees forward while making sure everyone is in a comfortable position in their job. Motivational theories just attempt to explain what motivates or makes people act the way that they do. The goal of understanding these theories and their outcomes is to ensure a better performance from each employee, and to give each of those employees the best situation they can have in the workplace. Visionaries such as Abraham Maslow, Frederick Herzberg, and Henry A. Landsberger also brought forward new ways of management and ways to handle internal situations that changed the landscape of human resources as a whole. Motivational theories instituted in the workplace have a commonly positive effect on both employees and management, showing that it is important to strive for proven motivational practices.

Motivations are the forces within individuals that account for the direction, level, and persistence of a person’s efforts expended at work. The research of motivational theories is fascinating as it explores the cognitive processes that warp our minds to behave in ways conducive to our motivations. Our motivations affect our personal lives, our professional lives, and even our inner selves. This essay is going to explore motivational theories through a case analysis by investigating the various content and process theories that can explain attitudes, perceive current actions, and speculate on future ones.

During my four years in college, the word culture has been expressed multiple times. It has been apparent in multiple test; yet, not a fully coherent meaning has been express. Explained in the book, culture is the most important aspect for a successful company to flourish. The culture inspires

The most recent studies in cross-cultural management reveal that the culture is a very expansive subject for organizations to study, especially for organizations, which hire the most diverse workforce. One definition of a diverse workforce could be as the one, which comes from different ethnic and demographic backgrounds (Plessis, 2011). For studying culture of the diverse workforce, there are two parts to study, the implicit and the explicit culture. The explicit culture includes behavior while the implicit part involves norms and values of individuals (Guang & Trotter, 2012). The explicit culture is already known when workers stay and work in a firm for a length of time, but the most difficult is to understand the implicit culture which is obscured in form of norms and values of the workers. Due to the differences of cultures, workers hold a great potential of variance, variety in terms of their explicit and implicit parts of the culture. The

Hofstede conducted research on IBM employees in 40 countries and discovered that the cultural values strongly influenced relationships both within and between organisational divisions. Four of the significant cultural dimensions that Hofstede defined have been examined by many researchers. Understanding the way these dimensions influence culture is of increasing importance for both global leaders and those managing a diverse workforce.

Baron (1983) says that “motivation is a set of process concerned with a kind of force that energizes behavior and directs it towards achieving some specific goals” (Baron, 1983, p. xxx). According to Kreitner and Kinicki (2001, p.162) motivation represents “those psychological processes that cause the stimulation, persistence of voluntary actions that are goal directed”. Consequently, these definitions lead to the assumption that motivation is something evolving from within an individual as well as the individual being influenced by external factors.