Motivational Case Assignment

The following assignment is to be done in teams. The teams may range in size from 1 to 4 members. THE ASSIGNMENT Each team will be required to submit two motivational case studies. One case study will involve the use of the Equity Theory of Motivation. The other case will involve the Expectancy Theory of Motivation. The case materials will be submitted in three parts: PART 1: Teams will be required to write up a case scenario (one case per motivational theory -approximately 1 to 2 pages) that involves a motivational problem. Be sure to include names of key actors and descriptions of relevant situational variables (who?, what?, where?, why?, how?). PART 2: The team submission must also include an analysis of the motivational case outlined in PART 1. This analysis must include information about the theory being applied and an explanation of why the use of this theory is appropriate.

PART 3: The third part of each case submission must include a "solution" to the problem. That is, once the problem and the appropriate theoretical framework have been identified, the teams will be required to apply the theory to resolve the motivational issue. Teams must show how the theory was useful in resolving the problem. GRADING: Since this is

a group assignment, what you hand in must look like a single, unified piece of work. Marks will be deducted for assignments with look like individual efforts that have simply been stapled together. I will be looking for evidence of editing (I am suspicious of the amount of teamwork that has occurred if one of the case studies has been "spell checked", and the other hasn't. I also question the degree of teamwork that has gone into the assignment if there appear to be different fonts, formats and styles used for different parts of the assignment.).

Leadership Case Assignment

The following assignment is to be done in teams. The teams may range in size from 1 to 4 members. THE ASSIGNMENT Each team will be required to submit two leadership case studies. One case study will involve the use of the Blanchard Model of Leadership. The other case will involve the Vroom-Yetton Model of Leadership. The case materials will be submitted in two parts: PART 1: Teams will be required to write up a case scenario (one case per leadership model -approximately 1 to 2 pages) that involves a leadership problem. Be sure to include names of key actors and descriptions of relevant situational variables (who?, what?, where?, why?, how?). PART 2: The team submission must also include an analysis of the leadership case outlined in PART 1. This analysis must include information about the model being

applied and an explanation of why the use of this model. HINT: For PART 1, you

may find it useful to reflect back on some incidents in your own work experience; perhaps you have encountered motivational problems that could be explained by the theories mentioned above. If you have experienced such situations, all you would be required to do for PART 1 is "tell" one of those "stories". Be sure to include names of key actors and descriptions of relevant situational variables (who?, what?, where?, why?, how?).

Overcoming Lack of or Bad Leadership It is a natural human instinct to follow leadership as children we look up to our parents and as adults we look up towards our superiors. Leaders must lead the way and be an example for others to follow. In leading and setting an example to others leaders must take an active role a hands on approach side by side with the employees in order to motivate and encourage. As in the words of the great, Mahatma Gandhi; We must become the change we want to see(Mahatma Gandhi, http://www.performance-first.co.uk/organisation/orgmain.htm).
b) Paper Summary: This paper discusses an organizational behavior case study in the context of the different motivational theories. Among the process and content motivational theories applied to this case study are Adams' Equity Theory, Herzberg's Two-Factor Theory, B.F. Skinner's Operant Conditioning Theory and Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Recommended actions cognizant with the theories cited in each situation are also given. From the Paper: "Sarah Goodman faced the following problems at work. First was the lunch meeting with the advisor for the MHA program at State Thomas University. Next was the Human Resources Department meeting to gather input on a strategy to bring the pay issue into line so as to avoid a gender discrimination charge. Cognizant with this, was the personal issue of whether she got paid as well as Dave, her counterpart in Tampa. There was also the performance appraisal she'd scheduled with her assistant Maria and her intention of trying to get her more involved with others in the department with the ultimate objective of landing her a promotion later on. She was primarily confronted with the problem of Maria's less than desirable social skills, a hindrance that not only prevents her from being more a part of the department, but also a hindrance to her promotion."

c) Case Study 1 : Performance dip due to under-performing employees

Company A which was one of the Fortune 500 companies in the USA in the year 2005, experienced a sudden downfall in their profits. After some analysis, the company's management found out that their revenues fell because the employees were not performing as per expectations. The company took a hasty decision in firing about 6 employees from their rolls and hiring a new batch of people. What the company realized later that the employees were not performing due to their manager's inability to provide them safer working conditions. In essence, lack of organizational behavior implementation ensured that 6 good employees were sacked for no fault of theirs. This incident was an eye-opener for this organization which picked up the gauntlet and implemented OB strategies site-wide. Case Study 2 : Attrition of a high productivity company Company B which was one of the major production companies in the USA, experienced a sudden attrition leaving from one particular department of the company. About 25 employees left the company within a month of 250 employees, and the manager who was responsible for attrition did not have answer. Company B decided to take action on the manager and transferred him to another department. The company later realized that high attrition happened because the workers were not paid their bonuses by the company on time. In the background, the company could not pay the bonuses to the employees as it was going through a phase of heavy losses. The company realized its mistake and decided to be more open and transparent to its employees about its promises that it makes to the employees. These two case studies are enough to indicate that good organizational behavior principles are extremely central to keeping your workforce happy and satisfied. At the end, if your workforce is satisfied, your productivity will be sustained. There is absolutely no way that you can drive your employees to work in force. Since many organizations have realized that this is the essence of human resource retention, organizational behavior principles are increasingly getting implemented in a lot of organizations.

d) Motivation is a vital factor for business in the process of making their production. Labours are not working machine, so that they can not always do the same affairs with equal passion. Accordingly, the efficient method to

make staffs keen on their jobs should be to motivate them. It might even gain a better yield than purchasing plenty of equipments and facilities. However, to be contrary to the classical management approaches, some reports had proposed that the ways to motivate employees are not only money. Kohn (1993) showed a survey that if a reward frame only offers physical rewards, the produce from workers might decline, especially in the creativity industries. What is more, other factors are essential as well, such as working environment or relationship between employees and managers. Nicholson (1998) reported that workers had strong social needs which they tried to satisfy through membership of informal social groups at work place. Besides, the importance of informal social factors in the work place such as co-worker relationships and group norms that influence employee motivation and performance is highlighted (Macky & Johnson, 2003) A pervious researcher, Pugh & Hickson (1989) cited Elton Mayo (1933) made an investigation called Hawthorne Experiment. According to the results, if managers provided a suitable working environment considering each personal requirement and their sense of satisfaction rather than a higher salary or bonus, workers were encouraged to be more hard-working and efficient. He also verified that if managers of an organisation do not consider about individual works needs and wants, then treat them as equal units would maximise payment and minimise effort. As a result, how to use non-financial incentives would be an important issue for nowadays business. The chief executive officer of Starbucks corporation, Howard Schultz, considers that the tip of success in Starbucks is not coffee but employees. Constantly accumulating the working experience of employees and providing chances of promotion in a company for working partners is the way to operate sustainability. He firmly believes that the spirit of Starbucks is employees and feels honored about the value of Starbucks employees. For this reason, it is necessary to have a perfect education and training policy for better performance in a company (Michelli, 2006). Starbucks offers an interactive structure that makes personnel instill themselves into their job; hence they can motivate partners to satisfy themselves then achieving a new level of performance. 3.1 Equal treatment The managers in Starbucks treat each workpeople equally and all of the staffs are called partners, even the supervisors of each branch are called it as well. In order to narrow the gap between managers and employees, they also co-work with the basic level staffs in the front line. Due to this, they can maintain a well management system and create a much closer and more familiar atmosphere than other place, which makes not only employees can enjoy their job but also customers are affected by their enthusiasm. 3.2 Listen to employees Starbucks has a well-organized communication channel for employees. It places a great importance on labours. For example, managers plan the working hours per workers and arrange the schedule of time off, according to their wants to meet their requirements. There are interviews weekly to see what employees need is. A special survey called Partner View Survey is taken off approximate every two years. The managers can receive feedbacks through the event to which part should be improved or what issue should be paid more attention to. The partners have the right to figure out what is the best policy for them, and the directors show a respect for each suggestion. Starbucks even wants every employee to join in making and developing plans, then achieving their goals all together. As a result, the policies and principles are communicated between all staffs, and there is no limitation in employees personal opinions. For this reason, business could improve their strategies even innovate by different ideas. 3.3 Good welfare measures All employees, including informal personnel, are offered a great deal of welfare policies, for instance, commodities discounts for employees, medical insurance (including health, vision and dentil) and vacations. Moreover, the partners who work over 20 hours a week are entitled for benefits. Starbucks also thinks that debt financing is not the best choice, thus it chose allocate stock dividend to all employees with a free scrip issue. By this policy, the employees can get benefits from the dividends of company. Because of this, they have the same goal; in other words, they are motivated to increase the sales to earn more profits. Starbucks just handles personnel with its core value, which is the employees are the most important asset of Starbucks. Showing a respect to employees and well-developed environment have lead Starbucks to produce the best working quality for customers and an increase in profits. 4. Teamwork Teamwork can not only construct a small social structure in organization for employees to socialize, but also composite of various kind of members who equip with different background of skill and knowledge on account of

the mission. Each member plays an important role in the teamwork; therefore everyone in that team can meet their need for getting acquainted with different colleagues and learn new skill from each other. Hoegl & Gemuenden (2001) observed that the definition of teamwork is a social system including more than three people in an organization or context. These members identity others as one member of the team and they have the same goal. Robbins (2001) stated that the factors influencing teamwork are relation of leadership, roles, principles, status, size, composition and the power of agglomerate. 4.1 The strategies to keep well relationship Starbucks establishes a well-developed system to keep good relationship between mangers and employees. At first, the leaders of a retail shops use the same title partner as a basic level worker to narrow the gap of bureaucracy. Furthermore, they co-work in the first line to eliminate the distance between different statuses. Secondly, the numbers of employees are usually from three to six. Such a small size of a retail shop makes staffs acquaint with each other easily and deeply. In the co-working period, this helps a team to match different personalities and majors quickly to achieve well performance. Next, the suggestions and complaints provided by employees are treated of equal importance. In the same way, they have a right to participate in the process of revising company policies as well as a manager. In that case, each staff thinks that they also play an important role in company operating, and they can join to work out a direction of Starbucks. These give employees not only a respect, but a sense of participation. 4.2 A goal of public welfare Starbucks has endeavored to create third place (outside from home or office) for people to take a rest (resource: wikipedia). They want to provide such a comfortable environment to increase the harmoniousness of the society. Apart from this, Starbucks contributes part of its profits to public service; on the other hand, it also set a goal to improve and donate to the society. As a consequence, the aim makes all staffs have an idea that what they do for Starbucks is for the society as well. As the goal theory, Starbucks set a challenging and specific goal, and it permits all partners to decide the direction. Afterward, employees embrace to do what they chose and they get some feedbacks form the goal. The concept causes an increase of the power of agglomerate and enthusiasm in relation with a positive effect to the profit of Starbucks. 5. Conclusion Starbucks changes the behaviours and view points of global consumers to coffee, and this successful example has caught global attention. Nevertheless, it was also a small retail coffee shop in North American initially. Nowadays, it is not only one of the fastest growing corporation, but also an outstanding business model with lower employee turnover rate and higher profit performance. According to the case of Starbucks, it shows that motivation is the key factor of a company policy; in other words, opposite to the principles of classical management which only concerns about produce but ignore workers ideas. In recent successful businesses, the appropriate management for labours should include financial and emotional rewards. Besides, motivation and personal satisfaction should be put into first rank. A good relationship between managers and employees could maintain a high quality of performance. Just like Starbucks, to use the correct strategy would lead to a successful path.

5) Organizational Behavior Option A /Cases: Automation in the Book Store and The Night Owl Answering Service /Part 1)The field of Organizational Behavior is one that is very important when it comes to managing people and to make them work effectively. This begins with training. In order to understand these cases it is important to look at both the structure and environment of the company. In the case of the Automation in the Book Store, the company is a medium sized bookstore. Because this company is a bookstore with very few employees there is not a high level of formalization, less specialization and less authority. Therefore, it has an organic structure. Employees don't have a lot procedures and rules that they must abide by while doing their jobs. In fact the initial company policy required employees to stay with the customer they were serving from the time they walked into the store until the sale was made. Also, there was not a great deal of standardization in that there was not a set procedure on how employees did their work, rather it was a freer organization because there were very few employees and this resulted in greater flexibility. These facts all changed once the new computer system was implemented. This system presented employees with some degree of formalization and standardization in their jobs because now there were precise rules and procedures on how to deal with customers. This includes entering an ID number every time a sale was made and closing the store with the system. Also, because this bookstore was not use to high levels of formalization in the past, the implementation of the training program

was affected. There were no instructions on how to close at the end of the day in training. The manager had to come...
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Organizational Behavior Case: "Drinking up the Paycheck" (325) 1. James Behavior using the Frustration Model As the text states "Frustration occurs when a motivated drive is blocked before a person reaches a desired goal. . .The barrier may be either overt (outward, or physical) or covert (inward, or mentalsociopsychological) (299). The model has two parts. First to determine at what level an individual is within the scale from inner to outer directedness, and, second, what can be done to alleviate the frustration. In James' case, he is described as "raised in a hardworking immigrant family. His needs for power and achievement were developed while he was growing up. Now he finds himself in a lowpaying, dead-end job with a large manufacturing firm" (325). This is a perfect example of what the text calls "intra-individual" frustration. James is a man lost in his hopes and his dreams, and he feels he will be going nowhere, so he has turned to drink. The case

tells us "...he really doesn't understand himself well enough, and he certainly doesn't know or trust his boss enough to discuss his problems openly with him