2. The main theme of the analyzed article is the difference between an individualistic approach towards reward allocation and a team-based one.
The theme of the article relates to the article on "Reward Allocation and Culture: A Meta-Analysis," whose theme is reward allocation, in particular the way the reward allocation behavior varies across different cultures. Based on an ample theoretical research, the article initially presents the way that theory on this subject has developed during the last decade and moves. As such, the premise of reward allocation has gradually shifted from reward allocated based on equity and equality to reward being allocated in a framework that factors in more and more additional issues such as social skills or tenure. The degree to which some of these factors are considered varies from culture to culture and will influence the way reward is allocated within the corporate group.
In particular, as the analyzed article has shown, reward allocation varies within the same organization as well, depending on the management's approach. The analyzed article looks into a particular cultural factor, namely the degree of individualism and all related realities deriving from that, including in terms of reward allocation.
The article on "Reward Allocation and Culture: A Meta-Analysis" is keen to connect the notion of reward allocation to cultural differences notions in management, including the theories that Hofstede or Schwartz have proposed. According to these, each culture has a particular power distance, showing the way the distribution of power is accepted within a society, and also promotes a different hierarchical structure (either more formalized or, on the contrary, more informal). All of these are considered when analyzing the reward allocation structure.
The analyzed article concludes that the choice of motivational systems and, as a direct consequence, of reward allocation frameworks, are strictly interrelated to the systems that have been traditionally used in the organization, because the costs of switching to a new system is often too costly to be adopted and promoted within the organization. One of the main conclusions of the article also refers to the way reward allocation, as a motivational component,...
Theory has proposed a combined individual and collective reward allocation system, but this was denied by the evidence provided in the analyzed article. This was identified as one of the limitations of the study and further research needs to be done in order to identify the effects that a team-based approach implies.
The related article moved beyond the theoretical approach to include empirical and statistical evidence in favor of the correlation between reward allocation and cultural characteristics. The statistical measures showed several conclusions as to how specific cultural traits, as well as the socioeconomic dimension, affect the distribution of rewards. Some of the conclusions proposed that there is a significant positive correlation between the level of income inequality and reward allocation (less income inequality proposes more equally awarded rewards). This also seems to be the case for those cultures proposing a greater power distance, more masculine cultures and cultures with more inclination towards collectivism, all having a more equalitarian structure of allocating rewards.
The most interesting conclusion, however, is the fact that reward allocation seems to be more influenced by hierarchical cultural dimensions rather than collectivism, as theory had previously showed. Those hierarchical cultures and organizations tend to allocate rewards based more on equity principles, including through the actual performance of the individual, than more equalitarian cultures. In the latter case, the allocation seems to be dome more on the principle of equality, with employees being less differentiated through their performances in the workplace. The most interesting example is that of the Chinese case, where the empirical results suggested that employees were more than willing to reverse the current egalitarian way of allocating rewards towards an equity-based one. The fact that equity seems to be the basis for reward allocation according to this study seems to strengthen the conclusion of the analyzed article that the individual reward allocation system functioned better in the respective organization.
