<p>Motivating employees is essential for any organization aspiring to succeed. However, the process of motivating is not straightforward due to the diversity of individual’s needs. The task has been made even more difficult by the fact that personalized needs have altered in recent years. For instance, in many circumstances financial compensation is not considered as the main motivational factor of employees. Therefore, various other motivational practices have been developed, which take into consideration such issues as the work environment and the job itself.</p><p>This thesis is a comparative study between Sweden and Finland. The study has an objective of exploring how corporate culture affects the use of motivational practices in the Information Technology industry.</p><p>According to the findings gathered from two organizations, Sasken Finland Oy and SYSteam, culture does influence the choice of motivational practices. The issue of how culture affects, depends on whether corporate culture is task or person-oriented.</p>

Motivating employees is essential for any organization aspiring to succeed. However, the process of motivating is not straightforward due to the diversity of individual’s needs. The task has been made even more difficult by the fact that personalized needs have altered in recent years. For instance, in many circumstances financial compensation is not considered as the main motivational factor of employees. Therefore, various other motivational practices have been developed, which take into consideration such issues as the work environment and the job itself. This thesis is a comparative study between Sweden and Finland. The study has an objective of exploring how corporate culture affects the use of motivational practices in the Information Technology industry. According to the findings gathered from two organizations, Sasken Finland Oy and SYSteam, culture does influence the choice of motivational practices. The issue of how culture affects, depends on whether corporate culture is task or person-oriented.

Background: Cultural differences provide challenges for multinational corporations, due to the differences in norms, values, and beliefs accompanying national cultures. Multinational corporations must adapt to the new environment to achieve optimal performance and attain competitive advantages. One of these challenges is motivation, which is crucial for employee performance and hence the pursuit of competitive advantage. Vietnam and Sweden, two cultural contexts having remarkable cultural distances, are the specific focus of this study.    Purpose: This study aims to explain the effect cultural differences have on job motivation and satisfaction. The authors investigated six motivation factors deemed to lead to job satisfaction based on Herzberg’s Two-Factor theory. The study’s framework is constructed also by four cultural distance factors according to Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions Theory to test the moderation effect of cultural differences on the relationship between motivation and job satisfaction.    Method: A quantitative research was conducted on a sample of 79 employees from two MNCs: Samsung in Vietnam and Husqvarna in Sweden. An online survey was distributed to respondents to gather primary quantitative data. The survey questions were based on previous studies to ensure validity in measuring the scales. Finally, two main testing analyses namely multiple linear regression and moderation effect were undertaken in SPSS.   Conclusion: The satisfying motivation factors included in Herzberg’s Two-Factor theory correlated positively to employees’ job satisfaction in both countries, although it was evident that each of the six factors contribute to job satisfaction at varying degrees. Furthermore, the finding of the culture dimensions as moderator variables showed that different levels of culture factors could either weaken, strengthen, or had no effect on the relationship between employee satisfaction and the six motivation factors.

This study explores the use and effectiveness of motivational strategies with teachers and learners of Albanian and Japanese at the Missionary Training Center (MTC) in Provo, UT. Each teacher was observed three times using a modified version of the Motivation Orientation of Language Teaching (MOLT) observation scheme that was first used by Guilloteaux & Dornyei (2008). Learners were surveyed using an instrument from that same study. Teachers were surveyed using a modified version of the instrument created by Cheng & Dornyei (2007). Data collected from these three instruments provide insight into (a) the relationship between teacher motivational practice and learner motivated behavior in this context and (b) teachers' awareness and use of motivational strategies. The significant relationship found between teacher motivational practice and learner motivated behavior indicates that teachers' use of motivational strategies does influence learner engagement in this context, similar to results from previous studies. Although teachers were observed using some motivational strategies, they underused many other strategies because they lacked confidence, forgot to use them, or did not see how the strategies support the MTC curriculum. Training teachers to use strategies within the framework of MTC principles may help increase teachers' confidence in using motivational strategies, thus improving the teachers' motivational practice.

This study investigated the connection between teacher use of motivational strategies and observable learner motivated behavior in an adult Intensive English Program (IEP) in the United States. The question of whether teachers would find value in being specifically trained in the use of motivational strategies as part of teacher educations programs was examined. Eight teachers and 117 students were observed over the course of 24 classes using a classroom observation instrument, the motivation orientation of language teaching (MOLT), originally developed by Guilloteaux and Dörnyei (2008) and modified by the current researchers. The MOLT observation scheme allowed for real-time coding of observable learner motivated behaviors and teacher motivational behaviors based on Dörnyei's (2001) motivational strategy framework for foreign language classrooms. Postlesson teacher evaluations completed by both the observer and the teacher formed part of the measure of teacher motivational practice. Additionally, teachers attended up to two training sessions, responded to postlesson interview questions and completed a feedback survey. The results validate the previous findings that teacher motivational practice is strongly related to learner motivated behavior. Additionally, results show that teachers find value in motivational strategy training.

In response to the covid-19 pandemic in 2020, the Swedish National Agency for Education and the Public Health Agency of Sweden recommended that all upper secondary schools in Sweden would temporarily transition to distance education. A report was simultaneously ordered by the Swedish School Inspectorate, which would monitor the effects the distance education had on Swedish upper secondary schools. The report found that many areas of the Swedish upper secondary school had suffered during the period of distance education. The purpose for this essay is to examine how the findings of the report corresponds with the experiences in German teaching at upper secondary level, one year after the publishing of the original report. An interview with a teacher of German was conducted, who had spent the last three semesters teaching German in an upper secondary school, which mostly was spent via online teaching due to the recommendations from the Public Health Agency. The findings suggest that most of the negative consequences highlighted by the report coincide with the experiences in teaching of German as a foreign language, although many of the findings also apply to other parts of the schoolsystem as well. The findings, furthermore, seem to indicate that certain aspects of what was highlighted by the report could potentially affect foreign language teaching especially, as language learning depends on interactional factors to be successful. The gradual return of present learning has also created a situation of hybrid learning, which only seem to affect certain parts of the school system, German teaching included. To combat similar situations with negative effects in the future, this essay aims to discuss ways in which to actively work towards a teaching approach that is affected to a lesser extent than have been monitored during the covid-19 pandemic. Ways in which to improve future teaching include actively fostering good motivational practices and adapting to working methods which combine the positives of both present and online teaching practices.