Culture Savvy: Working and Collaborating Across the Globe

Chapter 5

Rewards Across Cultures

The highest reward for a man’s toil is not what he gets for it but what he becomes by it.

—John Ruskin

Just as with recognition, clues to the meaning of the word “rewards” can be found in its etymology. It comes from an Old Northern French word meaning “take notice of, watch over, guard,” and later came to be related to any form of “requital or repayment for some service” (thanks again to Douglas Harper’s Online Etymological Dictionary, www.etymonline.com). In the context of the cross-cultural workplace, taking notice of someone or applying compensation and benefits in an equitable manner ...