PMGM7002 Chap.4 Motivation Across Cultures: Needs and Expectancy
Motivation Across Cultures: Needs and Expectancy
What motivation is, and two questions about it
The course defines motivation as an internal state that activates behaviour and directs it toward a task, and splits it into direction, intensity and persistence. It then separates two questions. What motivates people is the territory of content theories, and cultural values shape the answer.
How people choose among actions is the territory of process theories, and culture shapes that choice too.
Content theories and their cultural limits
Maslow's hierarchy, Alderfer's existence, relatedness and growth, Herzberg's hygiene factors and motivators, and McClelland's learned needs for achievement, power and affiliation are laid side by side.
The chapter's warning is that a ranked list of needs invites the assumption that the ranking is universal, when the course lists social and cultural background among the things that shape how much a reward is valued.
Reinforcement
Reinforcement theory holds that behaviour is a function of its consequences.
The chapter sets out the four types of consequence, from positive reinforcement to removal punishment, and the course's comparison of leader reward and punishment across the United States, Mainland China and Taiwan, where the pattern of what helps is not the same.
Expectancy theory as a checklist
Effort leads to performance, performance leads to outcomes, and outcomes are valued or not.
Expectancy, instrumentality and valence each have common obstacles and cultural influences, from internal against external attribution to resource allocation under power distance and the security of a guaranteed job. Because motivation is zero if any link is zero, the chapter teaches you to find the weak link before recommending a bigger reward.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Direction, intensity and persistence
- 02
Content theories and process theories
- 03
Four content theories compared
- 04
Reinforcement, punishment and their cultural reading
- 05
Expectancy, instrumentality and valence
- 06
Obstacles to each link
- 07
Cultural influences on each link
Worked example · free
Find the broken link in a sales bonus
- 2Test expectancy and instrumentality against the facts.
- 2Identify the failing link and explain it culturally.
- 2Propose a redesign that repairs that link.
Key terms
- Motivation
- An internal state that activates a person's behaviour and directs it toward accomplishing a task, varying in direction, intensity and persistence.
- Content Theories
- Theories that explain what motivates people, such as the need hierarchies of Maslow and Alderfer.
- Hygiene Factors
- In Herzberg's theory, conditions such as pay and working conditions that prevent dissatisfaction without creating motivation.
- Negative Reinforcement
- Removing an unpleasant stimulus after a behaviour so that the behaviour becomes more likely.
- Expectancy
- The belief that exerting effort will lead to good performance.
- Instrumentality
- The belief that good performance will lead to the promised outcome.
- Valence
- How satisfying or attractive an outcome is to the person receiving it.
Motivation Across Cultures: Needs and Expectancy FAQ
Is negative reinforcement the same as punishment?
No. Negative reinforcement removes something unpleasant so that a behaviour increases, for example dropping a reporting requirement for staff who hit targets. Punishment aims to decrease a behaviour, either by adding something unpleasant or by taking away something valued. Mixing them up reverses the prediction you make about behaviour.
Why can a generous reward fail to motivate?
Expectancy theory multiplies three beliefs, so a large reward cannot compensate if staff think their effort will not produce performance or that performance will not actually be rewarded. It also fails when the reward carries little value for the recipient, which the course links to cultural background as well as to individual needs.
How does culture affect whether effort seems worthwhile?
The course notes that expectancy theory works best where people attribute results to their own effort. Where outcomes are attributed to luck, fate or powerful others, or where efficacy is felt collectively rather than individually, the belief that personal effort leads to performance is weaker, so incentives aimed at individual effort lose force.
Assessment move
Pick a reward you have received, at work or in study, and score it on expectancy, instrumentality and valence. Then imagine the same reward offered in a culture with different values and rescore it. Two scenarios compared this way teach the multiplication rule better than rereading the definitions.
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