In multicultural organizational contexts what could be a good strategy to keep people motivated towards a common task?
We have to think that the world is divided in two types of work thinking: individualism and collectivism. Individualism stands for a society in which the ties between individuals are loose: everyone is expected to look after himself or herself and his or her immediate family only[1]. And Collectivism stands for a society in which people from birth onwards are integrated into strong cohesive in-groups, which throughout people’s lifetime continue to protect them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty[2]. These categories influence the way how people works and how they can be motive to reach a better performance, also are included in the characteristics of a national culture, being this one the origin of these categories’ selection. This is the strategy placed, in which the managers have to see the cultural backgrounds of his/her workforce and determine in which category the workforce fit, according to this, he/she select the best option to motivate the crew, if the people came from an individualistic culture, the best ways to motivate them is the individual recognition and promotions, but if the people came from a collective-based culture, the best motivation techniques to be applied are the creation of teamwork and the affiliation among them.
It is also important to remember that in a Multicultural Organization managers cannot assume they understand all employees’ needs. They should recognize the variety of needs that motivate employee behavior and ask employees for input to better understand their needs. Also it is important to have in mind that there is not just one useful or correct motivation theory that is applicable to all organizations. It depends as you say above on the background that employees have.
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