MOTİVASYON ÜZERİNDE ULUSAL KÜLTÜR ETKİSİ

Management can be defined as a process of motivation directing people to certain objectives. Some questions can be derived from this definition. For example why people make an effort to achieve some objectives determined by management? Furthermore, is there a universal answer to this question? When theorists make an effort to exhibit some motivation techniques that can be applied in different cultures, Hofstede (1980) claims that people from different cultures can be motivated in different ways. The purpose of the study, which has derived from the idea that different cultural backgrounds have different effects on relative importance of motivational needs, is to examine the relationship between Maslow’s (1943) hierarchy of needs and cultural structures of Turkish employees. Despite the importance of cultural studies to test theories, there is a lack of empirical evidence examining the relationship between dimensions of national culture and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. When the relationship is modeled, researchers will be able to obtain a deeper understanding about whether and how national cultures affect motivational needs. In addition to its theoretical appeal, the findings of this study have some important managerial implications. If managers know more about cultural background of the motivational process, they can exhibit more flexible motivational strategies. In this context, two sets of variables have been used in the study model. Maslow’s (1943) stages of hierarchy of needs are dependent set of variables in the research. The needs were identified in four stages which include security, social, self-esteem, autonomy and self actualization on the basis of Porter’s (1961) model. As for the independent set of variables, they consisted of Hofstede’s (1980b) cultural dimensions. National culture was identified in six dimensions which include uncertainty avoidance, power distance, femininity, masculinity, individualism, collectivism. The next section of the study is intended to establish a theoretical foundation of the relationship. On the basis of the theoretical background, hypothesis is developed and tested. Data were obtained from 200 blue collar employees from big companies which are getting active in Trabzon and have more than 50 employees. A questionnaire method was used in the study as the data collection tool thanks to its capacity to collect standard data and to enable detailed data analysis. The questionnaire developed by Porter to analyze hierarchy of needs was used in the present study. As for the questions of the national culture, the questionnaire was adopted from the studies conducted by Hofstede and Hofstede (2005). Canonical correlation analysis was conducted on the data obtained from 200 employees. The main purpose of using this analysis was to explore whether there is a correlation between national culture and needs and determine which sets of variables contribute the relationship. The results of the analysis supported the hypothesis that there is a relationship between dimensions of national culture and motivation. On the other hand, because of the fact that only one canonical correlation computed between two groups of variables is significant, it is difficult to match sub-dimensions of national culture and hierarchy of needs. In this point, to choose appropriate determinative variables subset which can explain needs which are dependent variables of the study was conducted a stepwise regression analysis on the data set. The results show that our national cultural dimensions of individualism and collectivism are connected with security, esteem and self actualization. The results confirm that motivational content which is lead to higher level performance is shaped under the effect of national culture. Results also have a place in terms of using human resources. Because of the fact that human resources are very important to gain competitive advantage, cultural values of the employees have to be considered.