Work Motivation in the Context of A Globalizing Economy

Miriam Erez, Uwe Kleinbeck, Henk Thierry, Miriam Erez, Uwe Kleinbeck, Henk Thierry

• Éditeur: Psychology Press
• Année: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781135681531
• Édition: 1
• Sujet: Psychology
• Sous-sujet: History & Theory in Psychology

Work Motivation in the Context of a Globalizing Economy evolved from a work motivation conference held in Israel, attended by a group of internationally renowned scholars. These scholars were given the charge of creating a vision of motivation research for the 21st century. Coming from different parts of the world, the scholars represent a wide range of perspectives from the very micro focus on the individual level of motivation, through the meso level of groups and organizations, and up to the macro level of culture. The authors provide an entry to the book by summarizing several mega-trends manifest across all of the chapters and identifying several emerging trends that are left for future research.

1

Introduction—Trends Reflected in Work Motivation

Miriam Erez and Dov Eden

THE MEANING OF WORK MOTIVATION

It is no coincidence that, as we enter the new millennium, questions regarding the meaning of human life and self-identity, the impact of the changing environment, and the role of work in these issues are arousing intense discussion. The first issue of the American Psychologist in the year 2000 was dedicated to “Happiness, Excellence, and Optimal Human Functioning.” Twentieth-century psychology was focused mainly on healing illness and repairing dysfunction, based on a disease model of human behavior (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). Much less attention was given to understanding human life in normal, everyday circumstances. Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi have proposed a major shift of attention toward “positive psychology” in order to learn more about happiness, excellence, and ordinary human functioning.

Work motivation, on the other hand, is perhaps one of the few areas in psychology that has always been driven by the positive approach of humanizing the workplace and finding ways to help working people satisfy their needs for self-worth and well-being. Theories of motivation explore the sources of pleasure that people experience when they maintain equilibrium and preserve homeostasis by avoiding pain and overstimulation. Other motivational theories focus on the enjoyment people experience when they break through the boundaries of homeostasis and stretch their limits. The sources of pleasure and enjoyment are seen as residing in the individual, in the work environment, and in the fit between the two.

As we enter the 21st century such theories are being expanded to incorporate changes occurring in work tasks, in organizations, and in the globe at large. First, task design is shifting from the individual to teams. Consequently, the impact of teams on work motivation at both the individual and team level is coming under more scrutiny. Second, organizations are becoming less centralistic, more diffuse, and more multinational as they globalize. These changes have implications for the levels of autonomy and responsibility vested in employees, as well as for leadership. Finally, multinational corporations, international mergers and acquisitions, and international joint ventures and alliances are becoming the rule rather than the exception, infusing cultural pluralism into the workplace. Clearly, all these trends reflect an enormous amount of change occurring in today’s workplace.

The dynamic process of change in and of itself has important implications for employees in modern organizations. In particular, it affects their basic need to know who they are as a secure anchor amid incessant change. Frequent changes in organizations and in technology influence the power structure, the skills needed to excel on the job, an organization’s values, and its managerial philosophy. More people are encountering new cultures as multinational firms span geographical, political, and cultural boundaries. In response to such changes, the authors of the first issue of the Academy of Management Review in the year 2000 struggled with the need to redefine the meaning of one’s identity. Among the many creative ideas proposed were for the individual to develop multiple identities (Pratt & Foreman, 2000) or to keep one’s identity more fluid to help adapt it to the changing work environment (Gioia, Schultz, & Corley, 2000).

This volume reflects these changes in the work environment and integrates them into the new models of work motivation. The organization of the book represents the multilevel approach, and its chapters are integrated accordingly into four parts that present the individual, group, organizational, and cultural levels.

FROM THE INDIVIDUAL TO THE GLOBAL CONTEXT

Work motivation research began, as did the psychology of motivation in general, as a branch of individual psychology. However, more than theories of personality and human abilities, theories of work motivation traditionally have encompassed both individual and situational characteristics. Among the individual-based theories are Maslow’s need hierarchy, Atkinson and McClelland’s needs for achievement, affiliation, and power, Vroom’s Expectancy—Valence theory, Locke’s goal-setting theory, Higgins’s theory of prevention—promotion motivation, and Dweck’s theory of goal orientation. Part 1 of this book represents this approach.

Furthermore, other theories of work motivation have brought contextual factors into focus. These are instantiated by Herzberg’s Hygiene—Motivation theory, which postulated differential effects of extrinsic and intrinsic factors on work motivation, Hackman and Oldham’s job-design model, Adams’ equity theory, and theories that examined the effects of the social environment, including groups and organizations. Other theories advocated person—situation fit as the determinant of employee work behavior and satisfaction (Schneider, 1975). However, these theories were still mostly explicated at the individual level of analysis.

Only recently have cross-level and multiple-level theories begun to analyze work motivation at the meso- and macro-levels of groups, organizations, and cultures. If in the past a researcher who had sampled, say, 100 workers in each of 30 factories in each of 10 countries had to decide whether to regard this as a sample of 10 countries, of 300 factories, or of 3,000 workers, the dilemma no longer exists; the data can be analyzed simultaneously as originating from 3,000 workers grouped into 30 factories and further grouped into 10 countries without violating the integrity of any of the three levels. We thus gain the added knowledge of how country-and organization-level variables influence individuals as well as how individuals influence higher-level variables, and begin to achieve understanding of phenomena that are emergent at the group, organization, and country levels, an impossible mission a few years ago. Indeed, this shift towards cross-level analysis is beginning to be evident in numerous areas of organizational psychology (e.g., leadership; see Dansereau & Yammarino, 1998).

The trend toward higher levels of analysis is reflected in the ordering of the parts of this volume as well as in its title. The chapters are arranged in a progression from the individual level through the group and organizational levels, culminating in the cross-cultural level. The individual level still gets the largest number of chapters—10—in the book. Moreover, although the chapters devoted to higher levels of theory and analysis together outnumber these, most of the “higher-level” chapters are still focused on the effect of the higher-level context on individual motivation. Only a few chapters focus on a higher level entity per se. We believe that this reflects where the field is moving, gradually supplementing the individual level with higher levels of theory and analysis as researchers contemplate why people exert effort at work from ever-broader perspectives. This process is facilitated by the emergence of more elaborate cross-level theoretical frameworks (e.g., Klein & Kozlowsky, 2000) and the recent development of cross-level analytical tools such as hierarchical linear modeling. The various contributions display some of the new insights gained by recent use of new cross-level tools. This broad vista is likely to continue, as a retreat to an exclusive—or even dominant—focus on the individual appears unlikely due to inexorable processes set in motion by globalization, requiring a broader perspective to understand the forces impinging upon individuals at work and affecting their motivation.

FROM MONOCULTURAL TO MULTICULTURAL MOTIVATION RESEARCH

The apex of levels originating with the individual and extending through the group and the organization is the cultural level. In the past, motivation was studied at the individual level and within one cultural milieu. As this was expanding to the group level and then to the organizational level, other branches of psychology were exploring cross-cultural issues. Organizational psychology became cross-cultural as business began to globalize. We now live in a cross-cultural age dominated by a cross-cultural Zeitgeist. We witness Europe’s Gastarbeiter taking advantage of higher-paying industrial production jobs than those available back in their native countries, as well as expatriate executives sent all over the world to manage their multinational concerns’ overseas subsidiaries. If in the past it was relatively rare in most countries for indigenous employees to work alongside “foreigners,” the phenomenon has become so commonplace and normative that the very words “foreigner” and “alien” have assumed pejorative meaning. The global movement of workers has become so massive that it is not only the individual crossing into a new culture that must adapt to unfamiliar customs and mores, but also the indigenous workers who must accommodate large numbers of new managers and coworkers, who bring with them unfamiliar ways of doing things.

Thus, globalization has brought with it mass movement of workers and unprecedented cross mingling of persons from different cultures. Unlike residential neighborhoods, which usually are ethnically and culturally segregated, the workplace is the meeting ground of these diverse cultures, and management has to see to their smooth meshing. When successful, the synergistic outcome can be extraordinarily productive and profitable. The cross-cultural perspective is reflected in the varied countries of origin of the authors of this volume, as well as in its contents.

Cross-cultural theory and research are the productive academic response to this aspect of globalization. Erez and Earley (1993) incorporated culture and organizational behavior into their model of cultural self-representation. Their model bridges culture—a macro-level factor—managerial practices in organizations at the meso level, and the individual self and behavior—micro-level factors. According to this model, cultural values are represented in the self. These values serve as criteria for evaluating the meaning of management practices for a person’s self-worth and wellbeing. Positive evaluations result in positive work attitudes and high performance, whereas negative evaluations lead to negative attitudes and low performance.

The cross-level perspective dominates this volume. Reading through the book from chapter to chapter reveals a progression leading up to a cross-cultural pinnacle that is based on everything that preceded it. So long as globalization and international open-borders policies prevail, the cross-cultural perspective will be indispensable for understanding work motivation at any level.

TRENDS NOT REFLECTED IN THIS VOLUME

No work is complete. There are important repercussions of globalization and modernization that are not discussed in this collection. We mention them briefly in the hope that they get addressed in future work.

Stretching Beyond Sensible Limits—Is There a Dark Side of Motivation?

The notion of “super motivation” has become a popular topic in recent years. The mass media (e.g., Tolson, 2000) and best-selling trade books (e.g., Loehr, 1998) have popularized motivational concepts taken from sports psychology and applied them to life in general, and to work and management in particular. Readers are advised how to enter an “ideal performance state,” to develop “mental toughness,” to “focus,” to put themselves in a state of “flow,” and to be “in the zone,” all in order to achieve “learned effectiveness.” The aim is to become a champion and achieve supreme success in whatever realm of endeavor the individual is pursuing.

Our chapters do not deal with super motivation. Many of these concepts have a folkloric flavor, and as of yet, lack sound scientific basis. To be sure, there are people who push themselves beyond reasonable limits and achieve great things. Yet, many others end up paying a tragic toll in terms of health and well-being. Job stress and the work-family interface are beyond the scope of the present volume. However, as a counterweight to the potential payoff that may be reaped by exerting superhuman effort at work, the inevitable costs that must be factored in make may render the outcome of dubious value. It seems likely that the inverted-U-shaped relationship between stress and performance proved valid also for motivation and performance, for we should then find ourselves advising management how to reduce overmotivation among those afflicted by it. To the extent that globalization of high-tech industries is enticing greater numbers of workers into super motivation, the process and its results are worthy of future research attention.

Money—The Prime Mover

Nations rich and poor are witnessing escalation of the number of new millionaires. The high-tech industry worldwide is attracting growing numbers of ambitious entrepreneurs who have the dream of being successful and getting rich fast. Seeing the increasing number of individuals who have succeeded in this race energizes newcomers to take the risk and intensify their efforts. The media bombard the public with colorful stories of young people working 80- and 90-hour weeks for months and years in the hope of breaking through to the ranks of the mega-wealthy. It is as though “economic man,” the straw man of work-motivation theory of the 1950s and 1960s, is resurrected.

As industrial psychology and social psychology were hybridizing into social-industrial and organizational psychology, work motivation theory abandoned economic need as the sole or even major source of employees’ willingness to exert effort and embraced the higher motives postulated by Maslow’s need. The result was a new genre of work motivation theories emphasizing “higher” ego needs and intrinsic motivation over economic drive. This tradition of minimizing money as an important motivator is clearly reflected in this collection of papers. The only chapter devoted to a new way of thinking about compensation is Thierry’s, in which he identifies four meanings of money and discusses how they relate to the individual’s self-identity. We hope future volumes expand our understanding of the complexity of money as a motivator. For example, one interesting question is how the meaning of money may differ across cultures. To what extent does globalization create clash or convergence of values in regard to money?

Left Out—The Uneducated Masses

Largely ignored in this volume, as well as in work motivation research in general, are the countless millions who toil in return for subsistence wages to make the products we consume. The flow of capital to the less developed parts of the globe, where abundant uneducated masses make labor “competitive” (i.e., cheap), has accelerated to the point that few of the manufactured products purchased and consumed in the industrialized countries are made domestically. International tensions are rising in face of the uneasy contrast between the small proportion of wealthy nations and wealthy individuals within those nations, who are high up on the need hierarchy, and the toiling millions who are barely subsisting. This stark reality is all around us to see, and is constantly exposed in the media. Its threatening implications make it easy to ignore or to relegate to that pile of “facts of life” that are immutable. Moreover, international and intranational inequality is increasing, not decreasing.

As these words are being written, memories are still fresh of the thousands who took to the streets recently in violent protest against the globalization policies embodied in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) during the meeting of the World Trade Organization in Seattle in 1999, during the meeting of the Joint Development Committee of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank in Washington, D.C., and again on the occasion of the annual meeting of the World Bank and the IMF in Prague, in 2000. Obviously, globalization is not universally regarded as a blessing, and it may be implicated in exacerbating inequality. International bodies could doubtless do more to promote faster mobility and less inequality in and between the countries in which they operate.

The work motivational implications are unclear. Those at the very top, the affluent in the middle clawing to advance toward the top, and those at the bottom struggling to avoid hunger, are all motivated to earn more money. But is it the same? Saying that everybody wants a bigger piece of the pie does ...

Table des matières

• Cover
• Half Title
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• 1 Introduction: Trends Reflected in Work Motivation
• I WORK MOTIVATION-THE INDIVIDUAL LEVEL
• II THE GROUP LEVEL
• III THE ORGANIZATIONAL LEVEL
• IV THE CULTURAL LEVEL
• Author Index
• Subject Index