Cultural Perspectives of Financial and Non-Financial Incentives

Abstract

The present paper delineates an explanatory framework for the defining factors of incentives, both financial and nonfinancial, through the theory of human economic action and that of personality traits, which shape human goals and, ultimately, social identity. It is ascertained that three types of variables affect incentives: basic conditions (cultural change, etc.), basic values and needs (tradition, external values, etc.) and the dynamism of social identity, which includes the goals that are set. More specifically, the two basic variables that shape the incentives for human action and imbue dynamism in behavior relate to megalothymia—i.e., the need for acknowledgement of a person’s integrity along with the predisposition to be thought superior to others as well as the aspiration to a certain level of quality in life.