Cultures with Different Motivational Styles

Motivation, Culture, Workforce

Cultures with Different Motivational Styles

• Identify two cultures that have distinctly different motivational styles and compare the motivational styles. Provide resources to support your analysis.
• Describe an example that illustrates how each motivational style influences an individual’s behavior in the workplace.
• Take a position on which style makes for a “better” workforce, and explain your reasoning.
• Explain insights you have gained about how culture influences motivation and work behavior that can help you be more understanding of, and work more effectively with, fellow employees, now or in the future.

The Motivation Dimension: How Different Cultures Inspire High Performance

Today, almost all business is global business. Cultural awareness is core for successful businesspeople today. This post is part in an ongoing series to help readers leverage insights into the eight dimensions of culturally based work style differences, so you can raise your own global business productivity.

Motivation is a primary Dimension in the CultureWizard Intercultural Model®. It is critically important to understand the nuances of work-life balance and motivation because it’s the key to comprehending what inspires people and encourages top performance.

Yet, it’s a great challenge for multi-cultural teams and, in fact, all facets of intercultural communication: Motivation is one of those subtle cultural dimensions that can take you by surprise. It’s not only influenced by culture and personal work styles, but it’s also impacted by generational expectations. And, if misunderstood, it can cause you to make erroneous assumptions – leading to sometimes stunning repercussions.

Conflicting Motivations in a Cross-Cultural Team

I saw this first hand when I was in Genoa, Italy, working on my thesis project in a collaboration between the University of Genova and New York University, where I was completing a Master’s degree in Music Technology. The program culminated in a collaborative performance that included teams from dance, music and interactive technology majors.

Throughout the preparation process, all the teams worked to overcome various language and cultural barriers to focus on their common goals. I found great satisfaction in discovering that while most of my Italian counterparts spoke very limited English, we spoke the same technical language and also found a great deal of understanding and camaraderie in our work.

By the end of the program, the class was singularly focused on preparing for the culmination performance and the entire group was excited and nervous in anticipation. Due to several last-minute delays, the technology team had not successfully tested all of our final programs in the main concert venue, so we needed to use the dress rehearsal as our final test before showtime.

I arrived 30 minutes early in order to set up for the dress rehearsal, but was disappointed to see that none of my Italian colleagues arrived until after the time we had discussed the night before. As is often the case with complex technology, unforeseen challenges did arise, and seemed to multiply with each passing minute. At the time the dress rehearsal was scheduled to begin, there were still a number of problems and I was frantically working in the control room on a particularly pressing issue, assuming that the rest of my technology team was in the main performance hall working on the problems that had arisen there.

If you’re from a work/status-focused culture, you might imagine my surprise when I looked up and saw my American program director standing over me, demanding with panic in her voice to know where the rest of my team was. When she told me that the hall was empty except for the musicians and dancers who were waiting on us, I began to panic as well.

I could find no one from my team. Had they seen the scope of the problems facing us and decided to quit at the last minute? I took a deep breath, looked at my watch, and a thought that was previously inconceivable began to dawn on me.

I ran out the door and up a steep and winding alley to a nearby café, where I found my entire team of technologists sitting at a table with the remains of a sumptuous Italian lunch. When they saw me plunge through the doorway, sweating and panting, they were probably as shocked to see me as I was to see them. As I asked them incredulously why they were not fixing the last bugs to get us ready for the performance, they insisted that the espressos had just come out and that they would be able to help out again as soon as coffee was finished…

ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS

Discussion Questions (DQ)

• Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words.
• Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source.
• One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words.
• I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses.

Weekly Participation

• Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately.
• In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies.
• Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work).
• Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week.

APA Format and Writing Quality

• Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required).
• Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation.
• I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition.

Use of Direct Quotes

• I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly.
• As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content.
• It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source.

LopesWrite Policy

• For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
• Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.
• Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
• Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.

Late Policy

• The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
• Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
• If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
• I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
• As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.

Communication

• Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me:
• Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.
• Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.

Cultures with Different Motivational Styles

Cultures with Different Motivational Styles