Occidental Versus Oriental I.S. Professionals' Perceptions on Key Factors for Motivation

A comparison of perceptions of analysts and programmers in Singapore versus the United States identifies many more similarities than dissimilarities. The Singapore sample consisted of 1,179 persons (31% of the entire I. S. population). The U. S. data base is comprised of more than 8,000 persons. Similarities were statistically significant on 9 of 12 factors compared for system analysts and on five of 13 factors compared for programmers. On six of the eight factors where programmers are significantly different, changes underway have a strong likelihood of eliminating those differences. On the most important factor that distinguishes I.S. professionals in the U.S from other U.S. professionals, individual growth need strength (GNS), Singaporean I.S. professionals are not significantly different from their U.S. counterparts. This is the first of six studies comparing American I.S. professionals to I.S. professionals in Singapore, that they perceive motivational issues much like their American counterparts. Introduction An earlier study by Couger and Zawackil compared motivational data from seven countries in the far east: In January and February of 1985 a motivation survey was Singapore, Taiwan, Korea, Hong Kong, Thailand, conducted of computer professionals in Singapore. Malaysia and Indonesia. The research indicated more Responses were received from 1,179 persons representsimilarities than dissimilarities between computer profesing 32 organizations from government and industry. sionals in these countries. It also identified a number of Since this constitutes over 31 percent of the total populasimilarities with U.S. computer professionals. However, tion of approximately 3,800 computer professionals1, it the data points were too few to develop motivation norms is an excellent sample. The Computer Board of Singafor each country, as has been done in the U.S. by Couger pore took on the responsibility of insuring that the survey and Zawacki3. was representative. A major possibility of bias was eliminated by taking a 100 percent sample of representative The massive sample in Singapore enables such a comparorganizations rather than a partial sample of all Singaison. The objective was identification of significant difporean organizations. Careful selection of organizations ferences between the computer populations of the two insured representativeness. countries. In the conclusions to the paper, we will discuss other factors which relate to the question of the degree to Survey responsiveness was aided by the Singaporean which Singapore is representative of the Southeast Asian government objective to become the leading software motivational environment. producing country in Southeast Asia. The National Computer Board requested the survey and development of Over the years, some interesting results have been proSingapore motivation norms for computer professionals duced by research on the differences in Western versus to enable a comparison to the U.S. norms, as an aid in Eastern hemisphere management styles. The earlier, determining if software objectives were realistic. better-known works were 71:e Silent Izinguage, by Hal14