Category 2: Motivation Motivation is one of the critical factor in generating high productivity and employee satisfaction.

Employee motivations vary between cultures and also between individuals. From the interviews, we found that Taiwanese are a collective and modest in nature. Especially in the work place, Taiwanese are motivated by affiliation, and people focus on getting the job done and do whatever it takes to complete a task for the good of the group, including working overtime. They prefer to work cooperatively with their co-workers, and personal interaction is highly preferred. Employees in Taiwan often prefer that their bosses should understand employees personal problems; also employees expect personal loyalty from their bosses. In American culture, on the other hand, employees are often motivated by individual achievements, and they would like to perform well individually. Besides, American employees give much priority to interesting work and expect the appreciation of their individual work rather than the group work. Taiwan employees are non-confrontational and they rarely speak up. If their work in not recognized, then employees will just take time off instead of complaining about their work not being recognized. Monetary rewards are very much acceptable. Besides, many incentives are done privately as public recognition is generally frowned upon as being boastful. Taiwanese give high priority to job security and good wages. In contrast, American employees give less priority good wages, rather they prefer to set goals themselves, have control over their functions, and have more leadership roles. a. Personal Challenges: As a leader, you have to create an environment where employees can be motivated and empowered themselves. Motivation is an ongoing task. In a collectivist society, such as

Taiwanese, employees consider rewards to be distributed equally among group members, so sense of personal accomplishment is it is difficult to set. Besides, setting SAMRT goals (Specific, Measurable, Acceptable, Realistic, Time-based) also not very easy. Moreover, giving a feedback is tricky because direct feedback is not acceptable in Taiwan culture. b. Ethnocentrism Open communication: In individual cultures open communication is allowed, so managers can give direct feedback and motivate employees to meet the common goals and tailor the expertise of these individuals easily. Often manager in our culture easily conduct regular sessions to meet with employees and offers suggestions and take feedback, so managers can tailor their motivational strategies based on the feedback they receive from their employees.
Employee involvement

In American culture, rather than agreeing to what manager decide, employees openly argue if there is any flaw in the solution that the manager proposed. This leads to more innovation, collaboration and creativity. On the other hand, in collective cultures most of times employee never raise any concerns and just agree what managers said.