Page 362 - Cultures and Organizations

Pyramids, Machines, Markets, and Families: Organizing Across Nations 327

a fixation on growth opposed a sense of responsibility toward society in
general. Nothing can grow forever—management is the art of balancing.
Different national business goals limit the exportability of “agency
theory.” Agency refers to the delegation of discretionary power by a princi-
pal to an agent, and since the 1980s the term has in particular been applied
to the delegation by owners to managers. Agency theories are based on
implicit assumptions about societal order, contractual relationships, and
motivation. Such assumptions are bounded by national borders.

Motivation Theories and Practices

Motivation is an assumed force operating inside an individual, inducing
him or her to choose one action over another. Culture as collective pro-
gramming of the mind thus plays an obvious role in motivation. Culture
influences not only our behaviors but also the explanations we give for our

behaviors. As a result, an American may explain putting in extra effort on
the job by the money received, a French person by personal honor, a Chi-
nese person by mutual obligations, and a Dane by collegiality.
Different assumptions about motivation lead to different motivation
theories. The founding father of motivation theory was the Austrian Sig-
mund Freud, but ironically he is rarely quoted in relation to management. 41
The classic motivation theorists in a management context are Americans.
We met Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs in Chapters 4 and
6, and in Chapter 6 we also encountered David McClelland’s theory of
the achievement motive. A third popular theory about work motivation

that reflects its U.S. origin is Frederick Herzberg’s motivation versus
hygiene.
In 1959 Herzberg and two coworkers published a now-classic study, 42

which argued that the work situation contains elements with a positive
motivation potential (the real motivators) and elements with a negative
potential (the hygiene factors). The motivators are the work itself, achieve-
ment, recognition, responsibility, and advancement. These were labeled the
intrinsic elements of the job. The hygiene factors, which must be present in
order to prevent a lack of motivation but cannot motivate by themselves,
are company policy and administration, supervision, salary, and working
conditions: extrinsic elements of the job. Herzberg assumed this distinction
to be a universal characteristic of human motivation. He proposed that it is
the job content, not the job context, that makes people act.