Motivation

Motivation to work in host country

The interviewees were asked what motivated them to work with the host country.

All of the interviewees had their own motivation to work in the host country. But the most common motivation identified from the data was the business opportunities in the host country. Moreover, there were also several other motivational factors such as, exploring the culture, working with the poor people, exploring the religion, traveling to different places. These were discussed as follows:

Opportunities in the host country

Five out of ten interviewees were motivated to work with the host country due to the opportunities in the host country. The drive to work in host country arose when there are opportunities that come along with the correct network of people.

For instance, the following was quoted by an interviewee regarding his motivation.

In India there's incredible opportunities if you break this to create a new economy, be part of it. (Inter-13)

The motivation of people to work with the host country also depends very much on their job position. When an individual works for a multinational company, the motivation towards working with the host country has different dimensions.

Whereas, when an individual is an entrepreneur, it is clear that the motivation is mostly driven by monetary benefits. The following are the words that has been said by one of the interviewee who is an entrepreneur;

I'm not at all motivated not to China or India or any country just because it is India or China or getting to know the culture. I want to make business, and

then secondly good to know something about the culture. (Inter-16) The same interviewee also said that when there is no person from their industry who have been dealing with host country ever before, in a way kind of first mover advantage also been a motivation.

The economic uncertainty in Europe has also lead the home country business people to be interested towards doing business with host country. With the huge population of host country business people are enthusiastic about the opportunities that can be derived. Besides, the volume of business opportunities in host country compared with the local home market has also been the

motivation to work. Monetary and revenue indicators bring motivation towards host the country as is described one of the interviewees as follows;

We are small Finnish company and we need new export markets. And if you work on --we have already been able to reach our sales to India about €5 million, €6 million per year, which is, for this kind of smaller company, quite

important. And that's a new market, so it's adding on to our old sales. So I think that has been very motivating. (Inter-20)

The host country is one of the emerging economies in the world and also has a huge population, creating tremendous opportunities for business. Therefore, it is obvious that the home country interviewees are driven by the opportunities available. Also in a business scenario, it is always the opportunities that motivates people to be interested in working with the foreign countries. This is also evident among the interviewees.

Motivation towards host culture

Two out of ten interviewees said that their motivation to work in the host country was due its culture. It was said by an interviewee, that he accepted work in host country, due to the attraction of working in a completely different culture than the home country. The host country culture, had been a fascination for the interviewee as he had never traveled anywhere so drastically different from western culture. Furthermore, the following was explained by the interviewee as below;

I like Indian culture. I worked mostly with --before, in my sales experience, I mostly worked with West European countries and with, I mean U.S. companies,

U.S., and so when I get some countries in Asia, it was really interesting to go there. (Inter-01)

The people who tend to work with host country, may also drive to work as it is part of their job to work and deal with host country. The initial perception about the host country, is a country with huge population, diverse languages and various religions. If the person has not experienced this kind of environment, this can easily be carried out with prejudice and stereotypical things about the host country. However, when a person looks in-depth and realizes the positive things that can be experienced in such a chaotic and diverse environment, it also increases the interest of the person to travel to that place and experience things as it is. The following was said by this interviewee;

;

I was not motivated because it was part of my work and in that sense also very interesting. (Inter-06)

Motivation to work with underprivileged people

Though all of the interviewees had a clear business purpose, in terms of dealing with India it was interesting to see that one interviewee had a motivation to work with underprivileged people in India. The interviewee explained about her motivation in the following way

I am working together with the poorest of poor there. So it's really motivating to see how motivated these people are there. So that's the biggest motivating

thing for me also. (Inter-02) Motivation to learn technical things

The technical things are done in an unusual way when compared with the host country. The chance to experience new things, and challenges has also been also been the motivation for the interviewee, who pointed out as follows:

The motivation was new country, new technical things, new problems to solutions that we have. (Inter-10)

Caliber of host country people is the motivation

Host country has been a country which is deeply rooted in religion and also has things like yoga, several religious rituals and community bounded activities which has also been the motivation to work with it. Moreover, the host country people also combine the wisdom of religion in their day-to-day work execution and also brought the motivation to the interviewee which has been explained, as below;

The caliber of people I want to be associated with. So that motivates me a great deal. (Inter-18)

The employee’s engagement to work with the company in host country, was also one of the motivations for the second interviewee. Furthermore, the second interviewee said as below:

I think what is motivating is that people are quite engaged and want to develop and it's a good spirit, I think, at least in our organization. (Inter-21) As a foreign company, it is important to have the right people at the organization.

When there are motivated people, who work in the company, it is great asset for

company growth. Furthermore, being a foreign company, it is also important to create the trust in the host country and once the trust is established people are more engaged to give their best to the company.

Motivation to learn

The learning in the host environment also that takes place as a step-by-step process increasing the motivation of the individuals in the host environment.

This step-by- step learning enables individuals to know how and know how not to do things in the host environment. For instance, the following was quoted about learning:

I was very motivated, I found just a huge challenge. So I wanted to learn to be honest. (Inter-04)

The partnership with the host national who had a long living experience in the home country, also was the motivation to work with host country. A host national with experience knowledge of the ways of doing things in both the cultures, brings great value for the home country business leader to have partnership with that person. In addition to that, it also enhances the motivation of the host individual, as there is a trust that develops with the host person with home country living experience and who can better understand a home country person, than a host partner who does not have a clue about the home country way of doing things. Moreover, when the home country person has frequent interaction with the host country person on regular basis, the home person is also exposed to much more things about host environment and creates an understanding about the host environment and the way of doing things and interacting with host people.