Cultural Norms and Reward Systems in Public Administration: A Socio-Technical Evaluation Beyond Monetary Compensation

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 comprised twenty open-ended questions spanning five thematic domains. The constant comparative data analysis approach was applied in conjunction with thematic content analysis. The data were categorised by the researchers according to thematic 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. JEL Classifications: M14; M52; M54; H83; J28; Z13