Beyond the paycheck: a socio-technical evaluation of cultural norms and reward systems in public sector environments

Dickson Mdhlalose, Francis Appiah Amo and Wendy Agyeibea Amo

EconStor Preprints from ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics

Abstract: There is a dearth of cultural studies on how individualism and collectivism affect employee engagement. With an emphasis on individualistic and collectivistic cultures as moderating factors in a public sector organization, this study attempts to analyze the effect of employee financial rewards on employee engagement. Standardized in-person, open-ended interviews were used in this study. To address the goals of this study, the research instrument consists of five open-ended questions centered on a single subject. The continual comparative data analysis approach was applied in conjunction with content analysis. The data was categorized by the researchers according to differences and similarities. According to this study, the municipality provides financial incentives to its workers; yet, because of political interference, inequity, injustice, and favoritism, workers are not compensated properly, which causes dissatisfaction and disengagement from the company and their jobs. Neither an individualistic nor a collectivistic culture is practiced by the municipality. Financial incentives have less of an effect on employee engagement when individualistic and collectivistic cultures are out of balance. The results of this study highlight how an organization's practices and the balance between individualistic and collectivistic cultures determine how well financial rewards affect employee engagement.

Keywords: Employee Engagement; Financial Rewards; Individualism-Collectivism; Perceived Fairness; Public Sector (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H83 J28 M14 M52 M54 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lma
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:esprep:337869

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