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ABSTRACT This research effort specifically examines perceptions of workplace motivation in Japan between employees and managers while highlighting results that are somewhat counterintuitive to the traditional western perception of Japanese ethnography. Specifically, we find some evidence for a potentially shifting movement toward a self-orientation with more emphasis on lifetime employability over lifetime employment. During a period when incremental efficiencies are arguably more important than ever for the Japanese economy, practitioners therein stand to maintain the highest level of productivity by better understanding exactly how workforce motivation is currently evolving rather than relying on potentially dated assumptions. Specifically this effort advances cross cultural management studies by blending insight from past American research and theory with current research on Japan - which allows the additional benefit of comparing traditional Japanese cultural platforms to potentially more modern, dynamic realities. In partnership with PricewaterhouseCoopers Global Human Resource Solutions, a survey was undertaken in the metropolitan Tokyo area that examined motivation of the Japanese worker using the two-factor Herzberg model, which seems to be valid in Japan. The study indicates that there has been a movement from a more traditional, collective/company orientation toward more self-orientation. The study also demonstrates that Japanese managers seem to have an acceptable understanding of what motivates employees but that there is still room for improvement.
KEY WORDS extrinsic Herzberg intrinsic Japan lifetime employability lifetime employment motivation workplace
In management research, motivation has specifically been defined as inputs that initiate, direct and maintain movement toward desired work behaviors (Campbell and Pritchard, 1976; Finder, 1998). Motivation is recognized as the driver for arousal, direction, magnitude and maintenance of the effort in a person's (or group's) job (Katzell and Thompson, 1990) and is dependent on contextual elements (e.g. occupational socialization) combined with elements such as cultural and individual tendencies. In this manner, it can also be defined as the willingness to exert high levels of effort to reach organizational goals, moderated by the ability to satisfy some individual (or group) needs.
Specific to this current effort, motivation is also cited as one particular area in Japanese management literature that is in need of more research (Godkin et al., 1996). Our research effort sets out to examine motivational perceptions between Japanese managers and employees as a platform for...