CH-6 Motivation in Practice – Organizational Behaviour: Understanding and Managing Life at Work: Book Guide

CHAPTER 6 MOTIVATION IN PRACTICE AN INTEGRATIVE EXAM QUESTION Here is a class-tested essay exam question that requires students to integrate the knowledge acquired from Chapters 5 and 6 of the text. You may wish to modify the questions asked in order to reflect the particular emphasis of your own course. How is this for a fantasy? A state government desires to increase the performance of its non-elected civil servants. The ultimate goal is to enhance the government’s service to the public while maintaining a cost-effective system. The current motivational system is restricted to the use of pay and promotion. Pay is determined by job level, which is in turn determined by educational background and seniority. Promotion is almost entirely dependent on seniority and usually occurs within, rather than between, departments or functions. At most levels, jobs are designed to be rather simple, routine, and repetitive, stemming from decisions made many years ago to provide government employment for individuals with rather marginal skills and education. Turnover is high at the entry level of most units, especially for technical and professional jobs. At upper levels, turnover is almost nonexistent. Absence is high throughout the system, and the government provides twelve annual paid “sick days” with “no questions asked.” Change is possible for several reasons. A new state government has just been elected by a sweeping majority. It campaigned on a platform of “businesslike government,” a good move in a time of rising taxes and high interest rates. In addition, several prestigious newspapers have recently published investigative reports exposing the poor productivity of civil servants. Furthermore, a large number of civil servants hired just after World War II will be retiring in the next three years. 1. Use one of the need theories of motivation (Maslow’s Hierarchy, Alderfer’s ERG, or McClelland’s need theory) to characterize the state government’s current motivational system. What kinds of individuals would be attracted to work in the current system? Answer: Current System Characterization: • Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: The current system primarily addresses lower-order needs, such as physiological needs (basic pay) and safety needs (job security through seniority-based promotion). It inadequately addresses higher-order needs like esteem and self-actualization, as jobs are simple and repetitive, offering little room for personal growth and achievement. • Alderfer’s ERG Theory: The system focuses on Existence needs (basic pay) and Relatedness needs (job security and seniority-based promotion). There is minimal emphasis on Growth needs, as the job design lacks opportunities for professional development and challenging work. • McClelland’s Need Theory: The system attracts individuals with a high need for security and affiliation, as it offers stable but unchallenging work. Those with a high need for achievement or power are less likely to be attracted, as the system does not reward performance or leadership. Attracted Individuals: Individuals who prioritize job security, stable income, and low-risk environments over professional growth and challenging work will be drawn to this system. 2. Use expectancy theory to analyze the state government’s current motivational system. Consider motives to “produce” and motives to “participate.” Use the concepts of outcomes, valences, expectancies, and instrumentalities in your answer. Answer: Current System: • Outcomes: The main outcomes are job security, stable pay, and seniority-based promotions. There is a lack of rewards for high performance or innovation. • Valences: The valences (value of outcomes) are low for individuals who seek recognition, achievement, and growth. They are moderate for those who value job security and steady income. • Expectancies: Expectancies (belief that effort leads to performance) are low because job design does not challenge employees or provide opportunities for significant achievements. • Instrumentalities: Instrumentalities (belief that performance leads to outcomes) are weak, as promotions and pay increases are not linked to performance but rather to seniority and job level. Motives to “Produce” and “Participate”: • Produce: Motivation to produce is low due to lack of performance-based rewards. • Participate: Motivation to participate is moderate to high for individuals seeking job security and stable income, but low for those seeking meaningful work and career advancement. 3. Given your answers to questions 1 and 2, what changes would you propose so that the government can achieve its ultimate goal? Consider the pay system, job design, and various rules and policies. Answer: • Pay System: Introduce performance-based pay and bonuses, linking compensation to individual and departmental performance. This will increase instrumentalities and valences for high performance. • Job Design: Redesign jobs to include more challenging tasks, variety, and opportunities for skill development. Implement job rotation and enrichment programs to foster growth and satisfaction. • Rules and Policies: Reduce the emphasis on seniority for promotions and incorporate merit-based criteria. Limit the use of paid sick days to genuine illness, with proper documentation, to reduce absenteeism. 4. Given your answer to question 3, what special demands do your proposed changes make on supervisory personnel, especially with regard to their roles as motivators and developers of employees? Answer: Supervisors will need to: • Motivate and Coach: Actively engage with employees, set clear performance expectations, provide regular feedback, and recognize achievements. • Develop Employees: Identify training needs, facilitate skill development, and support career growth. • Monitor and Evaluate Performance: Implement fair and transparent performance evaluation systems and ensure that rewards are fairly distributed based on merit. 5. Will your new and improved civil service system require a revised hiring strategy? What changes in hiring will have to take place? Answer: • Hiring Strategy Changes: Focus on attracting candidates with a high need for achievement and growth. Emphasize the opportunity for career advancement, challenging work, and a merit-based reward system in job postings. • Changes in Hiring: Implement competency-based interviews and assessments to identify candidates with the right skills, motivations, and cultural fit. Prioritize candidates who show a willingness to embrace challenges and a drive for continuous improvement. SAMPLE ANSWERS TO DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 1. Describe some jobs for which you think it would be difficult to link pay to performance. What is there about these jobs that provokes this difficulty? Several factors might make it difficult to link pay to individual performance. Answer: a. Performance is difficult to observe or measure objectively (for example, police patrol officers or social workers). b. Performance can be measured objectively but not accurately (for example, machine operators who have machines that differ in capacity or salespersons in radically different sales territories). c. The technology prevents individual differences in performance (for example, assembly line workers). d. Teamwork makes it difficult to isolate the performance contribution of a single individual (for example, a task force designing a new product). In some of these cases (c and d in particular) it may be possible to link pay to group performance. Jobs Difficult to Link Pay to Performance 1. Police Patrol Officers • Difficulty: Performance is challenging to observe or measure objectively. • Reason: The quality and effectiveness of policing often depend on various factors, such as community relations, crime prevention, and maintaining public order, which are hard to quantify. Additionally, the nature of their work includes unpredictable and diverse situations that are not easily comparable. 2. Social Workers • Difficulty: Performance is difficult to measure objectively. • Reason: Social workers deal with complex, sensitive, and subjective cases, where success can vary widely based on individual circumstances. The impact of their work often unfolds over a long period and involves factors beyond their control, making it hard to assess performance accurately. 3. Machine Operators • Difficulty: Performance can be measured objectively but not accurately. • Reason: The performance of machine operators can be influenced by the capacity and condition of the machines they operate. Variations in machine efficiency, maintenance issues, and differences in production lines can result in discrepancies in output, making it hard to fairly link pay to individual performance. 4. Assembly Line Workers • Difficulty: Technology prevents individual differences in performance. • Reason: In highly automated and standardized assembly lines, the work is typically uniform, and individual contributions are limited. The pace of work is often controlled by the machinery, leaving little room for individual differences in performance. 5. Task Force Designing a New Product • Difficulty: Teamwork makes it challenging to isolate individual performance contributions. • Reason: Such projects require high levels of collaboration and interdependence among team members. The success of the project often depends on the collective effort and synergy of the group rather than individual contributions, making it difficult to fairly assess and reward individual performance. 2. Why do you think employees and managers seriously underestimate the importance of pay as a motivator? What are the implications of this for organizations’ use of pay to motivate employees? What are the consequences? Answer: In an article by Rynes, Gerhart, and Minette (2004, Human Resource Management, 43(4), 381-394), they discuss how when asked directly about the importance of pay, people place it around fifth in lists of potential motivators. However, studies of people’s actual behaviours in response to motivational initiatives shows that pay is the most effective motivator. Why the discrepancy? One reason for this is socially desirable responding or the tendency for people to respond in socially appropriate ways. In terms of pay, people are likely to underestimate its importance either because they midjudge how they might respond to say an offer of a higher paying job or due to social norms that view money as a less noble source of motivation than things like challenging work or work that makes a contribution to society. Thus, some might feel that to be motivated by money is “crass” or undignified. Research has also found that managers do not believe that pay is as important to employee behaviours as employees say it is even though employees underreport pay’s importance to their actual behaviours. One reason for this noted by Rynes et al. (2004) is the information about pay that is reported to HR professionals in the most widely read practitioner journals. A review of articles in these journals on motivation shows that they rely on survey evidence rather than actual behavioural evidence and as already indicated, when you ask people about the importance of pay they underestimate it. As a result, practitioner journals convey the belief that pay is not a very important motivator. It is a mistake to conclude based on general surveys that monetary rewards are not highly important and motivational. If employees say that pay is less important to them than it really is and managers and HR professionals underestimate its importance, then organizations might fail to implement motivational programs using pay to motivate employees. Employees might begin to question their pay and if they deem it to be lower than what they desire, it might have a negative effect on their motivation, performance, and tenure in the organization. Of course, it also means that organizations are failing to motivate employees to the greatest extent possible which means that performance and retention might suffer. Thus, underestimating the importance of pay might result in less than effective motivational interventions. It might also lead organizations to question the effectiveness of programs that use pay to motivate employees causing them to perhaps incorrectly abandon them. 3. Imagine two insurance companies that have merit pay plans for salaried, white-collar employees. In one organization, the plan truly rewards good performers, while in the other it does not. Both companies decide to make salaries completely public. What will be the consequences of such a change for each company? (Be specific, using concepts such as expectancy, instrumentality, job satisfaction, and turnover.) Answer: In the company that truly rewards good performers a public salary system might well increase performance and satisfaction. The instrumentality connection between pay and performance will be strengthened, and good performers will be satisfied, feel equity, and be motivated to remain with the company. Poor performers will either experience dissatisfaction and quit or observe good performers to learn how to increase their own performance (increased expectancy). In the other company, assume that salaries are established randomly. Making this system public will provoke underpayment inequity for good performers. They may lower inputs or seek work elsewhere. Poor performers will have few clues about the way to perform better since the salary system provides inaccurate feedback about what is considered good performance. 4. You are, of course, familiar with the annual lists of the world’s 10 worst-dressed people or 10 worst movies. Here’s a new one: A job enrichment consultant has developed a list of the 10 worst jobs, which includes highway toll collector, roofer, bank guard, garbage collector, and elevator operator. Use the five core job characteristics to describe each of these jobs. Could you enrich any of these jobs? How? Which should be completely automated? Can you add some jobs to the list? Answer: It is safe to say that each job is very low on most of the core characteristics. Bank guards may experience some task significance and elevator operators may receive a crude degree of task feedback and identity, but otherwise the situation is bleak. Each job cited has been partially or completely automated already: Toll collection is automatic with exact change; bank guards have been replaced by cameras; and user-operated elevators are commonplace. Other poor jobs include assembly line workers, traffic surveyors, night security guards, and photocopy machine operators. These jobs have low job breadth and depth and are therefore low scope jobs. 5. What are the essential distinctions between gainsharing, profit sharing, and employee stock ownership plans? How effective is each pay plan, and what are the advantages and disadvantages? Answer: Profit sharing is the return of some company profit to the employees in the form of a cash bonus or a retirement supplement. Employee stock ownership allows employees to purchase shares at a fixed price and in some cases the organization will match employee contributions. Gainsharing is a group pay incentive plan based on productivity or performance improvements over which the workforce has some control. Profit sharing and employee stock ownership programs can be effective for aligning the goals of employees and the organization as employees and the organization will benefit when the organization does well. However, when the organization does not make a profit or when the economy and factors that are not under the control of employees cause the share price to drop, the motivational potential is rather limited. This is especially the case in large companies where it is difficult for employees to see a link between their efforts and organizational performance. Gainsharing is less dependent on other factors and so employees have more control over their ability to do something that will result in a positive consequence. Thus, the link between what employees do and the consequence is clearer and more controllable with gainsharing. Of course, to be effective there must be ways for employees to improve productivity and performance. Overall, gainsharing is more likely to be consistently effective given that employees have control over their performance and the link between their performance and the consequences they receive is more evident. Employees have more control over their own performance than the company’s profit and share price. 6. Some observers have argued that the jobs of the prime minister of Canada and the president of the United States are “too big” for one person to perform adequately. This probably means that the jobs are perceived as having too much scope or being too enriched. Use the Job Characteristics Model to explore the accuracy of this observation. Answer: The core job characteristics included in the Job Characteristics Model are skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback. In recognizing the limitations of human skills and knowledge, the model does allow for the fact that a job could be too enriched. It is safe to conclude that the president’s and prime minister’s jobs are very enriched or high in scope. They are very significant in their impact on others. In addition, they involve a tremendous amount of variety, including setting policy, heading a political party, and making public appearances. Similar arguments can be made for autonomy, identity, and feedback, although autonomy may be limited by the public nature of the job, and feedback from various sources may be contradictory. Whether the jobs are too enriched depends greatly on the leader’s ability to delegate certain tasks to others. The prime minister often delegates public appearances to subordinate ministers and the president uses the vice-president for the same function. 7. Imagine an office setting in which a change to a four-day week, flex-time, or telecommuting would appear to be equally feasible to introduce. What would be the pros and cons of each system? How would factors such as the nature of the business, the age of the work force, and the average commuting distance affect the choice of systems? Answer: Pros of the four-day week: Lower commuting costs; employees have time for personal business on a regular business day; employees have a long weekend every week. Cons of the four-day week: Customers and clients may be disadvantaged; longer workdays may fatigue older employees. Pros of flex-time: Employees can fit personal business in at the beginning or end of a regular business day; carpools and commuting may be easier; rush hours can be avoided; flexible hours connote a prestigious job. Cons of flex-time: System is open to abuse; coverage of key functions may be damaged; meetings may be difficult to arrange. Pros of telecommuting: Can lower turnover and the costs associated with it; less office space and equipment needed; can attract employees who see it as a desirable benefit; employees avoid grinding commutes in urban areas and this could lead to lower stress. Cons of telecommuting: It can have a negative effect on informal communication; problems handling rush projects; workload spillover for non-telecommuters; distractions in the home environment; feelings of isolation and overwork. Some businesses which interface directly with the public (banks or stores) would lose a competitive edge under the short week. Others, such as the head office of a manufacturing firm, might operate quite easily on a four-day system. Flex-time and telecommuting are problematic if the office requires much teamwork or if it interfaces directly with the public. Other things equal, work forces with long commutes should appreciate the shorter work week and telecommuting more than flex-time. 8. How is the concept of workforce diversity related to the motivational techniques discussed in the chapter? Answer: A motivational technique such as offering flex-time to your employees meets the needs of a diverse workforce by allowing them to tailor their arrival and departure times to meet their childcare situation. More generally, where possible, job designs and pay plans need to be tied to the needs of individual employees. 9. Although an increasing number of organizations are offering their employees the opportunity to telecommute, many employees who have tried it don’t like it and prefer to be in the workplace. Why do you think some employees do not want to telecommute and some have even returned to the workplace after trying it? What can organizations do to ensure that employees’ telecommuting experiences are successful? Answer: Employees have become turned off of telecommuting for a number of reasons such as distractions in the home environment, feelings of isolation, and overwork. One area of particular concern is being left out of the loop and decreased visibility which can hurt employees’ chances of being promoted or assigned to interesting projects. Many workers worry about missing advancement opportunities while others miss the company and ties with co-workers and proximity to friends. Others feel they are missing out on mentoring opportunities and a sense of community. As a result, they feel disconnected from the workplace and their co-workers. Therefore, organizations need to ensure that employees who telecommute are kept up to date and in the loop and that they are not passed over for important assignments and promotions. As indicated in the text, some organizations now offer distributed work programs that allow employees to work at the company office, a satellite office, and a home office. This might be the best way for employees to reap the benefits of telecommuting without suffering some of the negative consequences of being away from the office and co-workers. For those who do work at home most of the time, some organizations now offer on-line mentoring programs and other ways to communicate and socialize on-line and some have virtual teams which are described in Chapter 7. 10. Refer to the work design characteristics in Exhibit 6.7. What work design characteristics are most important for you and why? If you were to redesign the job you currently hold or a job you have previously held, what work design characteristics would you change? Answer: When answering this question, students should first understand that there is more to work design than the core job characteristics of the job characteristics model. Thus, it might a good idea to have students first describe the different work design characteristics. Work design characteristics refer to the attributes of the task, job, and social and organizational environment and consist of three categories: motivational characteristics, social characteristics, and work context characteristics. Motivational characteristics include task characteristics, which are similar to the core job characteristics of the Job Characteristics Model as well as knowledge characteristics that refer to the kinds of knowledge, skill, and ability demands required to perform a job. Social characteristics have to do with the interpersonal and social aspects of work and include social support, interdependence, interaction outside of the organization, and feedback from others. Work context characteristics refer to the context within which work is performed and consist of ergonomics, physical demands, work conditions, and equipment use. Students should then explain what work design characteristics are most important to them and why. You might then probe their answers by asking them to refer to a job they once had that was low or high on the work design characteristics and how this might have affected their motivation and performance. Students should then explain how they would change a current or past job with respect to the different work design characteristics. It might be interesting to wrap up the discussion by noting the work design characteristics that most of the class considers important. Perhaps you can rank them from most important to least important and also consider the importance of them for students’ decision to accept a job offer as well as their motivation and performance on-the-job. To address this question, I'll provide a summary based on common work design characteristics and how they might be prioritized: Most Important Work Design Characteristics 1. Autonomy: The degree to which a job provides the employee with freedom, independence, and discretion in scheduling the work and determining the procedures to carry it out. Autonomy is often crucial because it fosters a sense of ownership and responsibility, leading to higher job satisfaction and motivation. 2. Task Variety: The extent to which a job requires a variety of different activities, skills, and talents. This characteristic is important to prevent monotony and keep work engaging. 3. Task Significance: The degree to which the job has a substantial impact on the lives of other people, whether those are within or outside the organization. Knowing that one's work is meaningful can greatly enhance motivation and satisfaction. 4. Feedback: The extent to which employees receive clear, specific information about how they are performing. This characteristic is crucial for continuous improvement and professional growth. 5. Skill Variety: The degree to which a job requires different skills and abilities. This can be motivating as it allows employees to use a range of their capabilities. Job Redesign Considerations If redesigning a job, the following changes might be made: 1. Increase Autonomy: Provide more decision-making power to enhance responsibility and ownership. 2. Enhance Task Variety: Introduce new tasks or rotate duties to prevent routine and boredom. 3. Improve Feedback Mechanisms: Establish regular feedback sessions or implement systems that provide real-time performance data. 4. Emphasize Task Significance: Communicate the broader impact of the job to enhance motivation. 5. Expand Skill Variety: Encourage skill development through cross-training or offering opportunities to learn new competencies. 11. Incentive compensation plans are believed to have a number of advantages for organizations. However, they can also have negative consequences for employees and organizations. Discuss how the design of compensation programs can lead to inappropriate and unethical behaviours. How should incentive compensation programs be designed to encourage positive behaviours and discourage negative ones? Answer: Students might get the impression that incentive compensation is always good for motivation so this question is meant to show them that incentive compensation can result in inappropriate and unethical behaviours. As described in the Ethical Focus feature (see page 196), compensation systems are believed to be one of the reasons why many companies in the United States engaged in risky and unethical behaviour that helped trigger the financial crisis and a global recession. It is believed that financial incentives contributed to an increase in accounting fraud and risky and unethical behaviours. The key issue here is how the incentive compensation system is structured. As described in the Ethical Focus, target-based incentive systems require an employee to achieve a certain level of performance to obtain a bonus. This means that employees who fall short of the target might be tempted to take short cuts and engage in risky, unethical, and dishonest behaviour to reach the target and receive the bonus. The research described in the Ethical Focus found that participants in the target-based bonus condition lied about the number of correct words they created. Thus, the point here is that incentive compensation systems that link pay to numerical targets can result in inappropriate and unethical behaviour. Therefore, incentive compensation systems must be carefully designed to encourage appropriate behaviours and discourage inappropriate and unethical behaviours. They should motivate employees to engage in the behaviours that are congruent with an organization’s goals and objectives. Incentive compensation plans can drive productivity but may lead to negative behaviors like unethical practices, cutting corners, and unhealthy competition if poorly designed. To encourage positive behaviors, plans should include: 1. Balanced Metrics: Use both financial and non-financial performance indicators. 2. Long-Term Focus: Incorporate incentives that reward sustainable performance. 3. Ethical Standards: Include compliance and ethical behavior in evaluations. 4. Team-Based Rewards: Encourage collaboration with team incentives. 5. Transparent and Fair Metrics: Ensure clarity and fairness in performance assessment. 6. Cap on Incentives: Prevent excessive risk-taking by capping rewards. 7. Regular Review: Continuously adjust the program to align with goals and conditions. 12. What is the relational architecture of jobs and why is this important for job design? Discuss your current or most recent job in terms of its relational architecture. How can the relational architecture of your job be improved and what effect would this have on your motivation? Answer: The relational architecture of jobs refers to the structural properties of work that shape employees’ opportunities to connect and interact with other people. The basic idea is to design jobs so that employees can see the impact of their actions on others. This involves emphasizing the relational aspects of jobs and their social impact and value. This is important for job design because it can improve employees’ prosocial motivation which refers to the desire to expend effort to benefit other people, and because it has been found to improve employee motivation and performance. Students should describe a current or previous job and the extent to which it allowed them to connect and interact with other people. Then ask them how their job could be redesigned to improve its relational architecture and if this would have any effect on their motivation. If students have some difficulty understanding how their job can be redesigned, remind them it is done by designing jobs so that employees have contact with those who benefit from their work. You might remind them of the examples in the text in which call centre employees who raise funds for a university had a brief exposure to a scholarship recipient who benefited from their work. SAMPLE ANSWERS TO INTEGRATIVE DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 1. Merit pay plans often require managers to conduct performance evaluations of their employees to determine the amount of merit pay to be awarded. Discuss some of the perceptual problems and biases described in Chapter 3 that could create problems for a merit pay plan. What can be done to improve performance evaluations and the success of merit pay plans? Answer: Merit pay plans are often ineffective because individuals who work under such plans do not perceive a link between their job performance and their pay. There is also evidence that pay is not related to performance under some merit plans. The underlying reason of these problems stems from the use of subjective performance evaluations. Managers are confronted with a number of perceptual roadblocks. They might not be in a position to observe instances of effective and ineffective performance. This is especially likely when employees’ job activities cannot be monitored directly. As a result, the target or employee performance is frequently ambiguous and as noted in Chapter 3, the perceptual system resolves ambiguities in an efficient but often inaccurate manner. Even when performance is observable, employees often alter their behaviour so that they look good when their manager is around. Some of the perceptual errors that might be made when making subjective performance evaluations include primacy or recency effects, reliance on central traits, implicit personality theories, and stereotyping. Rater errors such as leniency, harshness, central tendency, halo effect, and similar-to-me effect can also pose a problem. Solutions to these problems that are likely to improve the effectiveness of merit pay plans would involve improvements in the performance appraisal process. Managers must be able to gather behavioural examples of effective and ineffective performance, and they should use a standard behaviourally anchored rating scale to make evaluations. Frame-of-reference training which is described in Chapter 3 can also help improve the accuracy of performance evaluations. 2. Using each of the motivation theories described in Chapter 5, explain how job design and job enrichment can be motivational in terms of different motivation theories. According to each theory, when is job design and job enrichment most likely to be effective for motivating workers? Answer: The theories of work motivation can help students understand how job design and job enrichment can be motivational. For example, Maslow’s and Alderfer’s need theory indicate that job design and enrichment can fulfill higher-order needs such as self-esteem in Maslow’s hierarchy and growth in ERG theory. Thus, job design and job enrichment will be effective in motivating individuals who wish to fulfill higher-order needs and are motivated by intrinsic motivators. McClelland’s need theory suggests that job design and job enrichment will result in jobs that are motivational to individuals with a high need for achievement. In terms of expectancy theory, job design and job enrichment can result in second-level outcomes such as a sense of accomplishment and feelings of achievement. To the extent that these outcomes are highly valent for individuals, job design and job enrichment will be motivational. Equity theory can be understood to the extent that job design and enrichment provide valuable outcomes (i.e., the nature of work) for individuals. For example, if individuals who have high inputs such as work effort are rewarded with more challenging and enriched jobs, then this can be motivational to the extent that individuals perceive it as a desirable outcome. Finally, job design and job enrichment can be motivational to the extent that they assist in the goal setting process. This is likely to be the case in terms of more challenging goals and feedback. 3. In Chapter 2, employee recognition programs were discussed as an organizational learning practice. Using the material presented in this chapter, describe the potential for employee recognition programs to be used as a motivational practice. What aspects of recognition programs might be especially important for a motivational program? Answer: Employee recognition programs are formal organizational programs that publicly recognize and reward employees for specific behaviours. In Chapter 2, employee recognition programs were presented as an organizational learning practice. When employees are recognized for their behaviour and performance, the recognition serves as a form of reinforcement so that the behaviours are learned and repeated. In a similar manner, employee recognition programs can also be used as a strategy to motivate employees to perform at a certain level or reach a performance goal. To use employee recognition programs as a motivational strategy, it is important to adhere to the requirements of employee recognition programs and motivational strategies for linking pay to performance. That is, a formal employee recognition program must specify (a) how a person will be recognized, (b) the type of behaviour or performance being encouraged, (c) the manner of the public acknowledgement, and (d) a token or icon of the event for the recipient. Keep in mind that a key part of an employee recognition program is public acknowledgement. To be an effective motivational strategy, there must also be a performance evaluation system in place, and managers must be able to discriminate between good performers and poor performers. In addition, there must be a clear and strong link between performance and recognition. An employee recognition program can be used in combination with goal setting or a Management by Objectives program as well as pay-for-performance systems. However, unlike a pay-for-performance system, it is critical that the employee recognition program include some form of public acknowledgement. SAMPLE ANSWER TO ON-THE-JOB CHALLENGE QUESTION: PROFIT SHARING OR HOURLY WAGES? Do you agree that profit sharing is “gimmick” pay and the best way to improve compensation for autoworkers is through hourly wage increases? What are the implications of these two pay strategies for employee motivation? What are the implications of each strategy for employees, the union, and the automakers? What are the advantages and disadvantages for all concerned? What do you think is the best pay strategy? Explain your answer. Answer: After reading the chapter, students might wonder why a compensation strategy that links pay to performance would not be desired by all parties. To help them understand the different perspectives on profit sharing and hourly wage increases, ask them to list the pros and cons for the organization, employees, and the union. Given the union’s strong stand against profit sharing, you might start with the union. This of course reflects the traditional approach of unions – to negotiate hourly pay increases. This guarantees employees more pay and it also demonstrates the union’s ability to get employees an increase in pay. If the union were to instead accept profit sharing, then there is no guarantee if or how much of a pay increase employees will receive and it is therefore difficult to see a tangible result on the part of the union’s negotiations. For employees, an hourly pay increase guarantees them higher pay. With profit sharing, they don’t know what they will get and there is always the possibility that they will get little or nothing. Of course, in good years profit sharing could result in more pay for workers than an hourly pay increase. The bottom line for the union and employees is that profit sharing does not guarantee employees a specific pay increase each year during the negotiated contract and an hourly pay increase does. Profit sharing is more likely to be in the interest of the organization because it means that they only pay employees more when they turn a profit and when they can afford to give employees’ a pay increase. From a motivational perspective, employees are more likely to be motivated to perform better with profit sharing because they will benefit when the organization does well and turns a profit. Of course as described in the chapter, whether or not an organization turns a profit is affected by many other factors besides employee motivation and performance. Students will probably disagree on which strategy is the best. With an hourly pay increase, employees are guaranteed more pay but this is not likely to change their motivation. On the other hand, profit sharing can result in a larger increase if the organization is profitable and it is more likely to motivate employees to perform at a higher level given that it is in their best interest that their organization turns a healthy profit. In September of 2012, the CAW reached similar deals with Ford, GM, and Chrysler that do not include hourly wage increases or profit sharing. Instead, workers received a $3,000 ratification bonus and will get a $2,000 cost of living lump sum payment in each of the second, third, and fourth years of the deal. EXTRA ESSAY QUESTIONS 1. Why would workers consciously restrict their productivity under piece-rate? Answer: Productivity Restriction: Workers might restrict productivity under piece-rate to avoid exceeding quotas that could reduce their overall pay or increase workload expectations. 2. What are some of the reasons that merit pay plans are often ineffective and what can be done to make them more effective? Answer: Ineffectiveness of Merit Pay: Merit pay plans can be ineffective due to lack of clear criteria, bias, or lack of differentiation. To improve, ensure clear, measurable performance criteria and regular, unbiased evaluations. 3. What are some of the reasons that wage incentive plans are often ineffective and what can be done to make them more effective? Answer: Ineffectiveness of Wage Incentives: Wage incentive plans may fail if they don't align with employee goals or if they are poorly communicated. Improve effectiveness by ensuring incentives are relevant, achievable, and clearly communicated. 4. Contrast the traditional view of job design with the more recent approach. Answer: Job Design Views: Traditional job design focuses on simplifying tasks for efficiency, while recent approaches emphasize enriching jobs to increase employee satisfaction and motivation. 5. How do the moderating variables influence outcomes in the Job Characteristics Model? Answer: Moderating Variables in Job Characteristics Model: Moderating variables (e.g., individual differences, work context) influence how job characteristics impact outcomes like job satisfaction and performance. 6. What are some of the problems with job enrichment and how can they be managed? Answer: Problems with Job Enrichment: Issues include resistance to change, poor implementation, and mismatched enrichment strategies. Manage by ensuring clear communication, involving employees in the process, and aligning enrichment with job roles. 7. What is Management by Objectives (MBO)? What problems may develop with its implementation? Answer: Management by Objectives (MBO): MBO involves setting specific, measurable goals collaboratively. Problems include potential for goal misalignment, excessive focus on targets, and neglect of broader objectives. 8. Define flex-time and telecommuting. How does each affect the quality of working life? Answer: Flex-Time and Telecommuting: Flex-time allows employees to choose their working hours, while telecommuting enables working from home. Both can enhance work-life balance and job satisfaction but require effective management to avoid isolation or miscommunication. 9. Distinguish between the various pay plans used to motivate teamwork. What are the advantages and disadvantages of them? Answer: Teamwork Pay Plans: Types include gainsharing (sharing financial gains), profit-sharing (sharing company profits), and team bonuses. Advantages include increased collaboration; disadvantages include potential for free-riding and complexity in measuring team performance. 10. What factors should an organization consider when deciding on a strategy to motivate employees? Answer: . Motivation Strategy Factors: Consider organizational goals, employee needs, job nature, and existing reward systems when deciding on a motivation strategy. 11. What is the difference between job design and work design? Compare and contrast the different work design characteristics. Answer: Job Design vs. Work Design: Job design focuses on structuring individual roles, while work design includes broader organizational processes. Key characteristics include task variety, autonomy, and feedback. 12. What is the meaning of the relational architecture of jobs and how does it contribute to what is known about job design? Answer: Relational Architecture of Jobs: Refers to the social and relational aspects of jobs, such as interactions and support systems. It contributes to job design by emphasizing the importance of relational elements in job satisfaction and effectiveness. TEACHING NOTES FOR THE TASK CHARACTERISTICS SCALE EXPERIENTIAL EXERCISE The Task Characteristics Scale exercise in Chapter 6 (pages 220-222) of the text is from the Work Design Questionnaire (WDQ): Morgeson, F.P., & Humphrey, S.E. (2006). The work design questionnaire (WDQ): Developing and validating a comprehensive measure for assessing job design and the nature of work. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91, 1321–1339. A study of a sample of 540 individuals who had at least 10 years of full-time work experience resulted in the following mean scores for each task characteristic (scores range from 1 to 5; note that there are three different scales for autonomy: work scheduling autonomy, decision-making autonomy, and work methods autonomy): Work scheduling autonomy: 3.93 Decision-making autonomy: 4.12 Work methods autonomy: 3.99 Task variety: 4.13 Task significance: 3.95 Task identity: 3.61 Feedback from the job: 3.91 Scores for each task characteristic can range from 1 to 5, with higher scores indicating a great amount of the task characteristic. Scores on each task can be calculated as follows: Work scheduling autonomy: Add items 1, 2, and 3 and divide by 3. Decision-making autonomy: Add items 4, 5, and 6 and divide by 3. Work methods autonomy: Add items 7, 8, and 9 and divide by 3. Overall autonomy: Add items 1 to 9 and divide by 9. Task variety: Add items 10, 11, 12, and 13 and divide by 4. Task significance: Add items 14, 15, 16, and 17 and divide by 4. Task identity: Add items 18, 19, 20, and 21 and divide by 4. Feedback from job: Add items 22, 23, and 24 and divide by 3. Note that you can have students complete the scale in one of two ways: As it is appears in the exercise in which case they answer each question about a current or previous job. If you have students answer about a current or previous job then the discussion can focus on the job in question and their motivation, attitudes, and behaviour. Alternatively, you can have students answer each question in terms of their task preferences in which case they replace the beginning of each statement (The job allows me to) with: “I would like a job that allows me to….” If you do this then the focus of class discussion is the kind of job a student desires in terms of the various task characteristics. A third possibility is to have students take the scale both ways and then subtract their task characteristics score for their job from their task characteristics preference score to obtain a difference score. If you do this then the discussion can focus on the difference scores for each task characteristic (and for all task characteristics combined) and how this difference influences their motivation, attitudes, and behaviours and how they would redesign their job. To facilitate class discussion and student understanding of the task characteristics, have students form a small group with several other members of the class and consider the following questions: 1. Each group member should present his or her score on each task characteristic. What task characteristics do group members score high and low on? Is there any consistency among group members in terms of the highest and lowest task characteristics? Students should rank their scores and identify those that are highest and lowest for themselves as well as within their group. It might be interesting to collect these scores from each group and try to find a trend in the class. What task characteristics tend to be rated the highest and lowest? This can be done for both the task characteristics of their job as well as their task characteristics preferences (e.g., what task characteristics do students prefer the most and the least?). Answer: 1. Group Member Scores: • Activity: Each student presents their scores for each task characteristic (e.g., autonomy, task variety, task significance) and ranks them from highest to lowest. • Objective: Identify which task characteristics each student rates highest and lowest. 2. Consistency Analysis: • Activity: Analyze the scores across all group members to determine if there are consistent patterns in the ratings. • Objective: Find out if there is agreement among members about which task characteristics are most or least valued. 3. Class-Wide Trends: • Activity: Aggregate and analyze scores from multiple groups to identify trends across the entire class. • Objective: Determine which task characteristics are generally rated highest and lowest by the class as a whole. 4. Comparison of Job Characteristics and Preferences: • Activity: Compare current or past job characteristics with task characteristic preferences to identify gaps or congruencies. • Objective: Understand how well current or past jobs align with students' ideal task characteristics. 5. Discussion Points: • High and Low Ratings: Discuss reasons for high and low ratings. Consider factors such as job satisfaction, motivation, and job design. • Preference vs. Reality: Explore how students' preferences compare with actual job characteristics and implications for job satisfaction and performance. Outcome: This exercise helps students reflect on their own job characteristics, understand common trends among their peers, and assess how their job preferences align with their current or past roles. 2. Each group member should describe his or her job and provide specific examples of what contributes to their task characteristics scores. What is it about the job that contributes to a high or low score on each task characteristic? What kinds of jobs are high or low on the task characteristics? If students answered the questions in terms of task characteristics preferences, they should discuss their ideal job based on their task characteristics scores and they should be specific in terms of how they would like their job to be designed. It might be interesting to have students describe their jobs in terms of the task characteristics and/or describe their ideal job with respect to each task characteristic. Answer: 1. Job Description and Task Characteristics: • Activity: Each student describes their current or past job, providing examples of how the job contributes to their scores on each task characteristic (e.g., autonomy, task variety, task significance). • Objective: Understand how different aspects of the job influence the task characteristics scores. 2. Specific Examples: • Activity: Students should highlight specific elements of their job that lead to high or low scores. For example, if a job scores high on autonomy, describe how freedom in decision-making contributes to this. • Objective: Illustrate how actual job conditions impact the task characteristics ratings. 3. High and Low Task Characteristics: • Activity: Discuss the types of jobs that typically score high or low on different task characteristics. For example, creative roles might score high on task variety, while routine assembly line jobs might score low. • Objective: Identify patterns in job design related to task characteristics. 4. Ideal Job Design: • Activity: If students have answered questions based on task characteristics preferences, they should describe their ideal job in detail, focusing on how they would like each task characteristic to be designed. • Objective: Visualize how ideal job designs align with preferred task characteristics. 5. Comparison and Discussion: • Activity: Compare the actual job characteristics with ideal preferences. Discuss discrepancies and potential improvements. • Objective: Explore how understanding task characteristics can guide job redesign or career choices. Outcome: This exercise helps students connect theoretical task characteristics with real-world job experiences and preferences, facilitating a deeper understanding of job design and its impact on motivation and job satisfaction. 3. After discussing the task characteristic scores and/or preferences, students should consider the implications of their scores for their motivation, attitudes, and behaviour. Students should consider their motivation, job attitudes (e.g., job satisfaction, organizational commitment) and behaviours (e.g., job performance, absenteeism) in terms of their task characteristics scores. To what extent do the task characteristics contribute to their motivation, job attitudes and behaviours? If they answered the questions in terms of task characteristics preferences, they should describe how the task characteristics might influence their motivation, job attitudes, and behaviours. What task characteristics do they think would be most important for them and why? Answer: 1. Discussing Implications: • Motivation: Reflect on how the task characteristics of their current or past job impact their motivation levels. For example, high task variety and autonomy often lead to higher motivation because they make the work more engaging and fulfilling. • Job Attitudes: Analyze how these characteristics influence job satisfaction and organizational commitment. For instance, jobs with high task significance might lead to higher job satisfaction because employees feel their work has a meaningful impact. • Behaviors: Consider how task characteristics affect job performance and absenteeism. For instance, a lack of feedback might result in lower job performance and increased absenteeism due to unclear performance expectations. 2. Preferences and Implications: • Preferences: If using task characteristics preferences, discuss how their ideal job design would influence their motivation and attitudes. For example, if they prefer high autonomy, a job that lacks this characteristic might lead to dissatisfaction. • Importance: Identify which task characteristics are most important to them and why. For instance, someone who values task variety might find a monotonous job less satisfying. 4. Students should now think about and describe how they would redesign their current or a previous job. What task characteristics would they focus on and try to change and why? What exactly would they do to redesign their job? Students should be specific in terms of how they would like their job to change. Next, have students describe the effect that these changes might have on their motivation, attitudes, and behaviours. If students answered the question in terms of task characteristics preferences, they should discuss how knowledge of their task characteristics preference scores can assist them in their job search. For example, what questions will they ask interviewers? How will knowledge of their preference scores affect their job choice? How will knowledge of their task characteristics preferences assist them in the future? Answer: Students should learn how the scale can be used to diagnose a job in terms of the task characteristics and the implications of the task characteristics for work motivation, job attitudes, and behaviours as well as for work redesign. They should also appreciate the value of knowing their preferences for each of the task characteristics and how this knowledge can help them to choose jobs and perhaps try to change jobs that are weak in task characteristics that are important for them. One final way to conduct this exercise especially for students who have little work experience is to answer the questions for the job of a student. In other words, answer each question as: “My job as a student allows me to…..” Students might be surprised to learn that being a student ranks pretty high on some of the task characteristics. After calculating their scores, students should discuss what it is about the work of a student that contributes to high and low task characteristic scores. 1. Redesign Suggestions: • Identify Changes: Determine which task characteristics they would focus on changing in their current or previous job. For example, they might want to increase task variety or provide more feedback. • Specific Actions: Describe specific actions they would take to redesign the job, such as introducing more diverse tasks, improving feedback mechanisms, or increasing autonomy. 2. Impact of Changes: • Motivation and Attitudes: Discuss how these changes might positively affect their motivation, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment. For instance, increasing autonomy might boost motivation and job satisfaction. • Behaviors: Consider how the redesign might influence job performance and absenteeism. For example, more challenging tasks might improve performance and reduce absenteeism. 3. Using Preferences for Job Search: • Interview Questions: If discussing preferences, students should consider what questions to ask potential employers to ensure the job aligns with their ideal task characteristics. • Job Choice: Reflect on how understanding their preferences can help them choose jobs that better match their needs and enhance their work experience. 4. Application for Students: • Student Jobs: If applying this to their role as students, students can evaluate how their tasks (e.g., coursework, studying) score on task characteristics and how this affects their motivation and attitudes. They might find that aspects of student life, like task variety, contribute positively to their engagement. By completing this exercise, students will gain insights into how task characteristics influence work experiences and how they can apply this understanding to improve job satisfaction and performance, both in their current roles and future job searches. For the purposes of further class discussion, you might have students answer the following questions: 1. Define task characteristics and each of the task characteristics dimensions. Answer: Task Characteristics refer to the specific attributes of a job that affect an employee's motivation, satisfaction, and performance. According to the Job Characteristics Model (JCM), task characteristics include: • Task Variety: The degree to which a job requires different activities and skills. Higher task variety means the job is more diverse and less monotonous. • Task Identity: The extent to which a job involves completing a whole and identifiable piece of work. Higher task identity means employees can see the outcome of their efforts from start to finish. • Task Significance: The degree to which a job has a substantial impact on others, whether within the organization or in the external environment. Jobs with high task significance make employees feel that their work is important. • Autonomy: This dimension is divided into: • Work Scheduling Autonomy: The freedom to decide when to perform tasks. • Decision-Making Autonomy: The freedom to make decisions about how to perform tasks. • Work Methods Autonomy: The freedom to choose how to carry out tasks. • Feedback from the Job: The extent to which employees receive clear information about their performance directly from the job itself. This helps employees understand how well they are doing. 2. Discuss the difference between task characteristics and the other work design characteristics (i.e., knowledge characteristics, social characteristics, and contextual characteristics). Answer: Task Characteristics focus on the nature of the tasks performed in a job and how they affect employees’ internal states. In contrast: • Knowledge Characteristics: Concern the types of knowledge, skills, and abilities required for a job. They relate to what employees need to know to perform their tasks effectively. • Social Characteristics: Involve the interpersonal interactions within a job, such as teamwork and social support. These characteristics focus on how employees interact with others and the social dynamics of the work environment. • Contextual Characteristics: Refer to the physical and environmental conditions of the job, including workspace layout, equipment, and organizational climate. These characteristics impact how the job is performed but are not directly related to the tasks themselves. 3. According to the Job Characteristics Model, what is the relationship between each task characteristic and the critical psychological states? Answer: According to the Job Characteristics Model: • Task Variety → Experienced Meaningfulness of Work: Jobs with high task variety are perceived as more meaningful because they offer diverse and engaging activities. • Task Identity → Experienced Meaningfulness of Work: Jobs that involve completing a whole and identifiable piece of work enhance the sense of meaning in the work. • Task Significance → Experienced Meaningfulness of Work: Jobs with high task significance contribute to a strong sense of the work’s impact on others, enhancing its meaningfulness. • Autonomy → Experienced Responsibility for Outcomes: High autonomy provides employees with a sense of control and responsibility for their work outcomes. • Feedback from the Job → Knowledge of Results: Clear feedback helps employees understand how well they are performing and provides information on how to improve. 4. What is your score on each of the task characteristic? What task characteristics are most important to you in a job and which ones are least important? Answer: Personal Task Characteristic Scores: • Scores vary based on individual experiences and job roles. For example, one might score high on task variety but low on task identity in a specific job. Most Important Task Characteristics: • Task characteristics such as autonomy and task significance might be more important to individuals who value meaningful and independent work. Least Important Task Characteristics: • Characteristics like task identity may be less critical for those who prefer variety or have lower personal investment in the completion of specific tasks. 5. Describe a job you have held that was high and one that was low on the task characteristics. How did you respond to each job in terms of your motivation, job attitudes, and behaviours? Answer: High Task Characteristics Job: • Example: A project manager role with high task variety, task identity, significance, autonomy, and feedback. • Response: Likely increased motivation, higher job satisfaction, and better performance due to engaging and fulfilling tasks. Low Task Characteristics Job: • Example: An assembly line worker role with low task variety, task identity, and autonomy. • Response: Likely lower motivation, dissatisfaction, and potentially higher absenteeism due to repetitive and monotonous tasks. Motivation, Attitudes, and Behaviors: • Jobs high in task characteristics generally enhance motivation, job satisfaction, and performance, while jobs low in these characteristics can lead to disengagement and lower performance. TEACHING NOTES FOR THE JUNIOR ACCOUNTANT CASE INCIDENT 1. Describe the job characteristics and critical psychological states of Sabrita’s job. According to the Job Characteristics Model, how motivated is Sabrita and what is the effect on her job attitudes and behaviours? Answer: Sabrita’s job has been designed as a low-scope job. It is low on all of the core job characteristics. For example, she does the same task every day so there is little skill variety. She only does part of an audit and does not see the final completed job so she has low task identity. She has no contact with clients and does not know the impact of her work on others which results in low task significance. Her supervisor tells her exactly what work to do and how to do it so she has no autonomy. And because she never speaks to clients and her supervisor never discusses the final audit or her work with her, she receives no feedback. Thus, Sabrita is not likely to experience any of the critical psychological states of meaningfulness, responsibility, or knowledge of results. Thus, the motivating potential of Sabrita’s job is quite low and she is obviously not very motivated. Not surprisingly, she has low internal work motivation, growth satisfaction, and job satisfaction, and she is thinking about quitting. In such cases, there is a good chance that Sabrita will quit her job. 2. Evaluate Sabrita’s job on each of the work design characteristics described in Exhibit 6.7. What work design characteristics are particularly low? Based on your evaluation, what factors do you think are contributing to Sabrita’s attitudes and intention to quit? Answer: As indicated for question one, Sabrita’s job is very low on all of the task characteristics in Exhibit 6.7. However, because she does complete the audit work on her own, her job is potentially high on the knowledge characteristics. While we can’t be sure of the nature of the files she is asked to do, we can assume that given this kind of work and the education required to do it, it probably would rate high on the knowledge characteristics such as information processing, skill variety, and specialization, and perhaps to a lesser extent job complexity and problem solving. Thus, it is worth noting that even though her job is very low on the task characteristics, it is high on the knowledge characteristics. As for the social characteristics, her job ranks very low as she has no social support, no interaction outside the organization, and no feedback from others. Although the completion of her work is required for completion of the audit (interdependence), she really has no knowledge of the extent of this as she does not work with or interact with her co-workers who are also working on a file which her supervisor completes. With respect to the contextual characteristics, it would rank low on physical demands and equipment use. It probably rates better on ergonomics and work conditions although we have no information about these. Thus, overall the factors that are primarily contributing to Sabrita’s negative attitudes and intention to quit are the task characteristics and the social characteristics. 3. How would you redesign Sabrita’s job to increase its motivating potential? Be sure to describe changes you would make to the work design characteristics as well as job enrichment schemes that you might use to redesign her job. Answer: It would not be very hard to redesign Sabrita’s job to increase the motivating potential. For example, she could be given more variety and tasks in her work to improve skill variety. Perhaps she can be given smaller audits to work on so she can do most if not all of it on her own to increase task identity. Or, alternatively, she could work on a team that completes an entire audit which would increase skill variety and task identity. She could be allowed to meet with clients and discuss the audit with them. This would improve skill variety, task significance, and feedback. She could also be given some freedom in how she schedules her work and plans her day to increase autonomy. Finally, her supervisor should discuss the audit with her in terms of how good of a job she has done, how her work fits into the whole audit, and the impact her work has on the audit team and clients. In terms of job enrichment schemes, these kinds of changes would also be examples of combining tasks, establishing external client relationships, reducing supervision, forming work teams, and making feedback more direct. The redesign of her job should also focus on improving the social characteristics, especially social support, interaction outside the organization, and feedback from others. Some of the changes noted above would help to also improve the social characteristics (e.g., working in a group would increase interdependence, could provide social support and feedback from others; meeting with clients would increase interaction outside the organization and provide feedback from others; meeting with her supervisor to discuss her work could provide social support and feedback from others). It would probably be a good idea for Sabrita’s supervisor to meet with her to provide feedback on how she is doing and give her a chance to express her concerns about the job. Together they should work out a plan for future assignments that would better meet her expectations and needs. It should be clear form the previous questions that her work needs to be enriched to provide her with more challenge and opportunities for growth and development. Sabrita’s supervisor needs to find out what he can do to improve Sabrita’s attitudes and prevent her from quitting. This will very likely involve more enriching job assignments and opportunities for learning as well providing her with social support. More specifically, she needs to be given more variety, autonomy, and frequent feedback. She should be able to meet with clients and her supervisor should review the final audit/report with her. Overall, this is a job that needs to be redesigned to increase the task characteristics and social characteristics. TEACHING NOTES FOR CHANG KOH METAL PTD. LTD. IN CHINA CASE STUDY 1. Comment on the fixed salary system that Andrew adopted from his former employer. Why was this system not effective for motivating the plant workers? Answer: Andrew adopted the same salary system as he had seen used by his former employer which paid workers a fixed salary based on the number of hours worked. However, productivity rates were very low and the workers were not committed to meeting the company’s goals. As a result, Andrew decided to replace the fixed salary system with a piece-rate system. The fixed salary system was ineffective for motivating the plant workers to increase their productivity because it was based on hours worked. In other words, workers saw no advantage to increasing their productivity. Simply coming to work and putting in the designated number of hours was enough to get paid. This is a good example of the lack of motivation in jobs where there is no incentive for high performance and the work itself is not intrinsically motivating. 2. Do you think that scrapping the fixed salary system and replacing it with the piece-rate system was a good idea? What are some of the strengths and weaknesses of the piece-rate system? Answer: Discouraged with the fixed salary system, Andrew instituted a piece-rate system in which the workers were paid a minimum base salary supplemented by an incremental rate for each unit produced above a certain number. Thus, if the workers produced at or below the minimum production standard for the day, they received the minimum wage. If they produced above that rate, they received additional money for each extra piece produced. If Andrew was interested in increasing productivity then it was probably a good idea to scrap the fixed salary system and replace with the piece-rate system. The strength of this system is that it links productivity to pay. In expectancy theory terms, it strengthens the instrumentality. Thus, there is now a high probability that an increase in productivity will result in more pay. Not surprisingly, there was an improvement in the worker’s motivation and productivity. Company productivity targets were met, the workers were exerting themselves energetically, and they were even willing to work overtime at the same rate as the usual work day in order to make extra money. However, a weakness of the piece-rate system was one of the typical problems with wage incentive plans – low quality. That is, wage incentives often increase productivity at the expense of quality. Thus, it is not surprising that within a short period of time, customers began to complain about the low quality of goods they were receiving from the company. Parts that should have been rejected were being shipped to customers. Andrew had not included a system to monitor and maintain the quality of the manufactured goods. 3. Why was Andrew unsuccessful in his efforts to improve product quality? Do you think that a system of demerit points and wage deductions for the quality control workers would have been effective? Would having more supervisors in the quality control department and shipping products to Singapore for final inspection solve the problem? What do you think would be an effective way to improve product quality? Answer: In response to the quality problems, Andrew set up a quality control department and implemented 100 percent quality checks and he posted quality control and manufacturing specifications on large posters around the plant. However, this did not stop poor-quality products from reaching customers. Upon investigation, Andrew discovered that while the quality control department was in fact inspecting the parts, they were passing almost everything that they inspected. In response to this problem, Andrew held a training session for the quality control inspectors and pointed out defective parts to them and made sure that they could distinguish poor quality from good quality. However, within a short period of time it became apparent that the inspectors were not doing their job any better than before the training session. The main problem with the inspectors was that they were unwilling to reject parts because it would mean a reduction in the wages received by the production workers. They perceived this as tantamount to taking money out of the pockets of the production workers. This is likely a reflection of the more collectivist culture of China where there is a high degree of loyalty to the group. Thus, it is unlikely that the demerit point system and wage deductions that Andrew suggested for the quality control workers would have made much of a difference. It is not likely that they would have done anything that threatened the welfare of their co-workers. Additional supervisors in the quality control department is also unlikely to make a difference. However, having the final products shipped to Singapore for final inspection before being sent out to customers might at least stop poor quality items from reaching customers. Given the collective values of the culture, Andrew should probably consider some form of incentive that is based on the quality of parts as well as the performance of the group rather than individuals. 4. Were cross-cultural differences a factor in the effectiveness of the salary systems? How effective do you think each system would have been if the plant was located in North America? Answer: The effects of the fixed salary and piece-rate system are not necessarily a result of cross-cultural differences. Fixed salary systems tend not to motivate people to perform at high levels. Rather, they simply motivate people to come to work. In addition, a common problem of piece-rate systems is an increase in productivity at the expense of quality. Thus, it is likely that these outcomes are common in North America and the effectiveness of the salary systems would not necessarily be any better in North America. What is likely to be culturally relevant is the behaviour of the quality control inspectors. In North America where the culture is more individualistic than collective, quality inspectors would be less likely to pass all parts regardless of quality because they did not want to reduce the wages of production workers. Thus, to the extent that the quality inspectors in North America would perform their jobs as required, the piece-rate system might actually be more effective at least in terms of addressing the quality problem. 5. Discuss the potential effects of implementing an MBO program in the plant. Do you think it would improve productivity and solve some of the problems? Answer: Under the fixed salary system, the workers had little commitment to meeting the company’s goals. However, with the piece-rate system they were meeting company targets. Thus, goals are likely to be motivational to the workers if they are linked to pay. In this regard, an MBO program might be effective. However, to make it effective the goals should probably be set at the group level rather than individual level, and they should address both the quantity and quality of parts. 6. Are there any conditions under which the piece-rate system might have been more effective? Answer: It is possible that the piece-rate system might have been more effective if it was used at the group level rather than the individual level, and if it clearly indicated that quality was a requirement. In addition, the group might have been given responsibility for inspection. This would be more consistent with a collectivist culture. If wage increments were given at the group level for the production of quality parts, group members would ensure conformity to the group’s goals. 7. What are some alternative ways to use pay to motivate the workers at the plant? Are there alternatives to the piece-rate system? How effective are they likely to be? What does this case say about using money as a motivator? Answer: This case clearly shows that while money can be used to motivate workers, it will not always produce the intended results. In this case, it resulted in an increase in the production of poor quality goods. Alternative ways to use pay to motivate workers at the plant would be systems that use pay to motivate teamwork. Profit sharing might be effective if the plant regularly makes a profit and then shares it with employees. Gainsharing might also be effective if employees can lower the cost of labour, material, or supplies. 8. What should Andrew do now? What would you do? Answer: Andrew was on the right track with his piece-rate system except that he failed to factor quality into the plan and he also did not consider the collectivist values of the workers. The fact that the workers showed a dramatic increase in their motivation when the piece-rate system was implemented along with their eagerness to do moonlighting work to make extra money, clearly suggests that money can be used to motivate them. To do so, Andrew should design a system in which additional pay is based on the performance of groups rather than individuals. In addition, the system should clearly indicate that both quantity and quality will be used to determine incentive pay. The groups themselves should be given responsibility for inspecting quality with the final inspection taking place in Singapore as suggested by Andrew. The groups should also participate in setting performance goals in conjunction with the company’s goals. A profit sharing plan might also be instituted as well as an incentive plan based on the number of goods returned by customers. Groups might be given additional pay for having the fewest returns of parts that they produced. Solution Manual for Organizational Behaviour: Understanding and Managing Life at Work Gary Johns, Alan M. Saks 9780133347500, 9780133951622