Country-Compatible Incentive Design
A Comparision of Employees' Performance Reward Preferences in Germany and the USA
Erschienen am 10. Dezember 2007
XXI, 189 Seiten
978-3-8350-9214-3 (ISBN)
Beschreibung
Dr. Marjaana Gunkel's book opens a series of works published in cooperation with Deutscher Universit/ats-Verlag and Gabler. Ute Wrasmann and Claudia Splittgerber were very helpful initiating and organizing the series on the publisher's side. Anita Wilke was in charge of Marjaana Gunkel's book. Their support and cooperation is highly appreciated. The series ,,International Management Studies" aims at circulating insights from - search projects on international corporations. Most of the contributions published here will be characterized by the following features: The New Institutional Economics p- vides the theoretical framework, there is some empirical analysis - mostly based on primary data generated for the respective research project-, and the language of pub- cation can be English. All the contributions published in this series will be written in such a way that not only peers and experts in narrowly defined research fields can be reached but everybody who might be interested in learning about the topic at stake. Readers from other academic disciplines and practitioners are welcome contributors to a discourse that we want to share broadly. Also, the submission of publishable works that could contribute to this series is more than welcome.
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Marjaana Gunkel
Country-Compatible Incentive Design
A Comparision of Employees' Performance Reward Preferences in Germany and the USA
Buch
07/2006
1. Auflage
Deutscher Universitätsverlag
53,49 €
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Personen
Dr. Marjaana Gunkel ist wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin von Prof. Dr. Birgitta Wolff am Lehrstuhl für Betriebswirtschaftslehre - Internationales Management - der Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg.
Inhalt
Cross-National Differences in Performance Reward Preferences - An Introduction.- Employee Motivation and Institutional Frameworks-A Literature Review.- Analyzing Incentives in a Multinational Corporation-From Data to Results.- Retaining and Motivating Employees in Germany and the United States -Hypothesis 1.- Diminishing Marginal Utility of Performance Rewards-Hypothesis 2.- An Exploratory Comparison of Performance Reward Preferences in China, Germany, Japan and the USA.- Conclusion and Outlook.
Employee Motivation and Institutional Frameworks- A Literature Review (p. 7-8)
Starting from the 1960s researchers have shown great interest in motivation. Along with research in areas such as Human Resource Management and Organizational Be- havior employee motivation has become a fascinating research topic also for Man- agement academics. The research focus has been placed on the motivation process of employees as well as on the rewards which individuals find motivating. Further, some research has been conducted on finding out the differences in employee motivation in different countries. The following subsections cover some major motivation theories and their applicability in different countries as well as discuss the existing cross- national studies on employee motivation.
2.1 Motivation Theories and their Country-Compatibility
Prominent motivation theorists, such as Abraham Maslow (1968), Frederick Herzberg (1966), and David McClelland (1987) explain motivation through different models. Their theories, so called content theories, are concemed with identifying factors within the individuals, which energize, direct, and sustain behavior 15. Process theories, such as presented by Victor Vroom (1964) concentrate on how employee behavior is initi- ated, redirected and halted.
Such theories focus on certain psychological processes underlying actions, in particular how individuals make decisions that are related to their behavior. 16 Many of the motivation theories are not country-compatible which means that these theories do not necessarily work in different institutional frameworks, in other words, in different countries. Most of the theories were developed in the Anglo-Saxon coun- tries, and therefore, focused on motivating employees in the Anglo-Saxon environ- ment.
Various studies, from which some will be introduced in this chapter, have exam- ined the most prominent motivation theories and their country-compatibility. Never- theless, these studies often merely conclude that the motivation theories are not appli- cable in all countries without providing any further insight on what then actually moti- vates the employees in those countries where the motivation theories do not apply. The following subsections cover the main content of some classic motivation theories and the critique that they have received with respect to their insufficient country- compatibility.
Maslows Hierarchy of Needs Maslows hierarchy of needs attempts to explain motivation in general through the assumption that each individual has five basic needs: physiological, safety, social, es- teem and self-actualization. These needs guide the behavior of indi- viduals until the respective needs have been satisfied. The various needs appear in a hierarchical fashion, meaning that the lower level needs have to be satisfied first. A higher level need is not activated before the lower level needs are satisfied. Also, the theory states that offering a higher level of satisfaction with respect to a need that has already been satisfied does not affect the behavior of individuals any more. Once a need is satisfied, it has no motivational effects anymore.
Starting from the 1960s researchers have shown great interest in motivation. Along with research in areas such as Human Resource Management and Organizational Be- havior employee motivation has become a fascinating research topic also for Man- agement academics. The research focus has been placed on the motivation process of employees as well as on the rewards which individuals find motivating. Further, some research has been conducted on finding out the differences in employee motivation in different countries. The following subsections cover some major motivation theories and their applicability in different countries as well as discuss the existing cross- national studies on employee motivation.
2.1 Motivation Theories and their Country-Compatibility
Prominent motivation theorists, such as Abraham Maslow (1968), Frederick Herzberg (1966), and David McClelland (1987) explain motivation through different models. Their theories, so called content theories, are concemed with identifying factors within the individuals, which energize, direct, and sustain behavior 15. Process theories, such as presented by Victor Vroom (1964) concentrate on how employee behavior is initi- ated, redirected and halted.
Such theories focus on certain psychological processes underlying actions, in particular how individuals make decisions that are related to their behavior. 16 Many of the motivation theories are not country-compatible which means that these theories do not necessarily work in different institutional frameworks, in other words, in different countries. Most of the theories were developed in the Anglo-Saxon coun- tries, and therefore, focused on motivating employees in the Anglo-Saxon environ- ment.
Various studies, from which some will be introduced in this chapter, have exam- ined the most prominent motivation theories and their country-compatibility. Never- theless, these studies often merely conclude that the motivation theories are not appli- cable in all countries without providing any further insight on what then actually moti- vates the employees in those countries where the motivation theories do not apply. The following subsections cover the main content of some classic motivation theories and the critique that they have received with respect to their insufficient country- compatibility.
Maslows Hierarchy of Needs Maslows hierarchy of needs attempts to explain motivation in general through the assumption that each individual has five basic needs: physiological, safety, social, es- teem and self-actualization. These needs guide the behavior of indi- viduals until the respective needs have been satisfied. The various needs appear in a hierarchical fashion, meaning that the lower level needs have to be satisfied first. A higher level need is not activated before the lower level needs are satisfied. Also, the theory states that offering a higher level of satisfaction with respect to a need that has already been satisfied does not affect the behavior of individuals any more. Once a need is satisfied, it has no motivational effects anymore.
