Motivation in the Workplace: American and Japanese Cultures Compared - Term Paper Example

een recognized and accepted by the experts as one of the most important responsibilities of the human resource managers of today and they are supposed to develop effective motivational strategies allowing employees to give their level best to the organization (Bittle et al, 1990). Different nations tend to have different perception and approach towards the practice of workplace management (Graham et al, 1994). The research paper aims to analyze the differences in the approaches of Japanese and American organizations towards the motivation of employees.

The paper explains the role culture could play in determining the differences in workplace motivation practice and analyzes the cases of Japanese and American workplace to affirm the cross cultural difference within workplace motivation rituals of different nations. In this regard, the research paper explains the concept of workplace motivation to elucidate its significance and defining role within business world and then proceeds towards explaining the difference culture could make in the entire scenario.

The paper describes the motivation policies generally adopted in Japan and America and presents their comparative analysis to illustrate the role of culture in making difference in the approaches of people of different cultural groups towards the issue of workplace motivation. Motivation is a challenging job because within an organization different people belonging to different social, cultural and ethnic groups work and they possess quite different personalities; their needs, goals, desires and demands are different from each other.

(Catt, 1999) The managers have to understand the unique desires of the employees to formulate motivational policies for them accordingly. The formulation and implementation of motivational strategies and plans is not a simple task. The managers have to recognize the different demands and desires of the employees because the employees do not share similar preferences and thus, all