'I heard a great line about this once, and unfortunately I cannot remember the source:
“Most people want to become wealthy so they can consume social status. Japanese employers believe this is inefficient, and simply award social status directly.”
The best employees aren’t compensated with large option grants or eye popping bonuses — they’re simply anointed as “princes”, given their pick of projects to work on, receive plum assignments, and get their status acknowledged (in ways great and small) by the other employees.'
I mean, Chinese society also values social status quite a bit. But nowadays, being wealthy buys social status rather easily in China -- hence the almost gold rush mentality in trying to get wealthy.
I guess what I'm saying is that social status and wealth are two distinguishable things, and in some societies they correlate really well, but in others they don't, and they also have different relative values.
In the US, you can't really buy social status through money directly -- being an anonymous millionaire doesn't get you much more service or adulation than what you're willing to pay for directly.
“Most people want to become wealthy so they can consume social status. Japanese employers believe this is inefficient, and simply award social status directly.”
The best employees aren’t compensated with large option grants or eye popping bonuses — they’re simply anointed as “princes”, given their pick of projects to work on, receive plum assignments, and get their status acknowledged (in ways great and small) by the other employees.'
From http://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-japan/