Study on Employee Motivation in Indonesia: Does culture really matter?

Abstract

The objective of the study is to investigate and analyze the influence of culture on motivation. The research is expected to answer the importance question: Are motivations influenced by national culture? It is generally accepted that motivation is considered to be universal until Hofstede (1980:42) published the seminal work: Culture’s Consequences: International Differences in Work Related Value in 1980. Hofstede’s work is the most popular in cross culture management studies so that his framework in national culture will be used in this research. The study is completed by using survey method. The respondents are 108 managers of HRM from the listed companies of Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) 2008/2009. Modified Value Survey Module (VSM) 1994 developed by Hofstede is used to analyze the new scores of culture’ dimension comparing the scores done by Hofstede almost 30 years ago. The results indicate that the national culture dimensions tend higher for masculinity (74), lower for power distance (66), lower for collectivism (27) and low on uncertainty avoidance. When the results are compared to Hofstede’s findings in 1983, they indicate those two dimensions i.e. collectivism and power distance is relatively unchanged (stable). However, masculinity-feminity and uncertainty avoidance dimension tend to change toward higher score. By using the new scores of dimension of national culture, some proposition on motivation is developed.