Motivation of Thai companies Vs motivation of American Companies

‘Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.’
(Albert Einstein)

The motivation is inspiring the staff to increase work performance leading to the work goals. Generally, there are many motivating factors, effective leadership, good communications, work enrichment, job enrichment, job satisfaction, needs fulfillment, organizational change, and moral in the management field.

According to Kreitner, the term ‘motivation’ refers to a psychological process that gives behavior purpose and direction. Most American companies attempt to get individuals to pursue organizational objectives willingly. On the contrary, Thai companies will consider about group thinking or collectivism in order to motivate their staffs.

In order to understand the differences between American companies and Thai companies, we need to recognize the different cultural factors among them. Thai values apart from a range of Western ones will be on collectivism, power distance, masculinity and femininity, and the avoidance of uncertainty. At the same time, a study stated ‘In the world, common values manifested in all cultures and religious include a respect for life, liberty, justice and equity, mutual respect, caring, and integrity.’ Therefore, motivation methods of American companies can apply for Thai companies.

‘Forget praise. Forget punishment. Forget cash. You need to make their jobs more interesting.’
(Frederick Herzberg)

According to Frederick Herzberg, in order to help employees charge themselves up or to motivate the employees, the companies need to apply the following principles;

Increase individuals’ accountability for their work by removing some controls.

Give people responsibilities for a complete process or unit of work.

Make information available directly to employees rather than sending it through their managers first.

Enable people to take on new, more difficult tasks they haven’t handles before.

Assign individuals specialized tasks that allow them become experts.

For Thai companies, they used to motivate their staff with money incentives, such as bonus, sale commission, salary increasing, rewards, etc. So, do American companies forget about the money incentives as Frederick Herzberg stated above? No. He took into account the money incentives with weakness.

‘Spiraling Wages. Have these motivated people? Yes, to seek the next wage increase. Some medievalists still can be heard to say that a good depression will get employees moving. They feel that if rising wages don’t or won’t do the job reducing them will.’
(Frederick Herzberg)

Nevertheless, there are many similarities motivating methods in American companies and Thai companies. So we can refer the evolution of management approaches when we explore on motivation. There are four motivation theories, Maslow’s needs hierarchy theory, Herzberg’s two-factor theory, expectancy theory, and goal-setting theory.

According to Maslow, people are motivated by a predictable five-step hierarchy of needs, physiological needs, safety needs, love needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization needs.

According to Herzberg, a satisfied employee is motivated from within to work harder and that a dissatisfied employee is not self-motivated and two classes of factors associated with employee satisfaction and dissatisfaction are satisfiers; achievement; reorganization; work itself; responsibilities; advancement; and growth, and dissatisfiers; company policy and administration; supervision; relationship with supervisor; work conditions; salary; relationship with peers; personal life; relationship with subordinates; status; and security.

According to expectancy theory, motivational strength is determined by perceived probabilities of success and the term ‘expectancy is one’s belief or expectation that one thing will lead to another.

According to goal-setting theory, the process of improving individual or group performance with formally stated objectives, deadlines, or quality standard is effective motivation.

To sum up above motivational theories, we can say these theories focus on human nature. As a result, these can apply for Thai companies. Every theory has exception and may have many weak points to utilize for musculature or globally.

As the world is changing rapidly, globalization grows strongly and it removes boundaries and cultural shocks. Some predicate that there will be global lifestyle in very soon. So, Thai companies become similar to American companies and start to use western motivation methods for Thai staff or employee.

For instance, I would like to restate the motivation of Proctor and Gamble's winning strategy by Medhee Jarumaneeroj. (The Nation)

‘Medhee Jarumaneeroj believes employee happiness is a winning strategy.’

Creating a happy working life for employees not only increases their efficiency but also boosts company sales. This is one of the strongest philosophies of Medhee Jarumaneeroj, Proctor and Gamble Trading (Thailand)'s manager for marketing and corporate communications.

"I think a company's good performance depends mostly on good internal operations and its employees' admiration for the organisation," he says. "We have to encourage them to think that way."
(Medhee Jarumaneeroj)

He asked them a simple question: would you be happier if you could work from home one day a week? The outcome is that all 160 employees in Procter and Gamble's Bangkok office can choose one day a week to do so.

The company supports the programme by installing high-speed Internet access at employees' homes and pays telephone expenses. Eight months after its launch, 80 per cent of the company's employees have joined the work-at-home programme. They must first choose which day they want to work away from the office, so that their absence fits in with their colleagues and ensures continuity of the company's operations.

An evaluation of working efficiency and employees' attitudes to their employer has shown that the programme works.

Most of them [the employees] share the same view that the programme allows them to concentrate on work quality, and they are happier to work in a convenient place.

In the original plan to lift staff happiness and improve working efficiency there were three programmes: working from home, work-life balance and sport recognition.

To summarize, I would like to affirm that Motivation of Thai companies will not be different too from American companies. In future, the gap between motivation methods of Thai companies and American companies will be eliminated by IT, Globalization, etc.

"The secret of joy in work is contained in one word - excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it."

Pearl Sydenstricker Buck


combined by

Nyo Min