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Management would do well to begin with some basic diagnostics of the situation. Are
employees actually unmotivated? According to Equity Theory, people assess the equity
of a situation by comparing their own inputs and outcomes to other people. If everyone is
suffering the same circumstances of the bad economy, people might perceive their own
setting or behavior modification.
4. Motivating People in a Foreign Country
Before answering the question of “how do we motivate workers in a foreign country” we
should first determine whether motivation is really the problem in this scenario. The new
boss indicated that productivity and quality is “way off the last few months” and assumes
the problem is a lack of employee motivation. However, there are other possible
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5. Enriching the Boring Job
Debrief is found at the end of the chapter.
MANAGEMENT LIVE
6.1 Equity is Also Monkey Business
This Management Live discusses experiments that suggest that capuchin monkeys care about
equitable treatment in much the same way that humans do! Possible class discussion
questions are listed below:
1. Are you surprised by the research findings? Why or why not?
2. When do you think people develop a concern with equitable treatment? Are young
children concerned with equity or does this concern develop in adulthood? Explain your
answer.
3. Why do you think people are so concerned with equity?
4. Is there a biological or evolutionary reason for our concern with equity?
6.2 Goals, Rewards, and the Mortgage Crisis
This Management Live discusses misaligned goals of mortgage brokers in the 2000’s and
how that has led to foreclosures for many families.
Unfortunately, brokers were rewarded for giving loans to people, even if those individuals
could not afford the payments on the loan. There was no mechanism in the reward system to
incentivize brokers to make sure that the loans were affordable to the consumer. The reward
system might have encouraged brokers to act unethically by giving loans that they knew were
likely to end in foreclosure.
An additional resource for this topic is the article “Goals Gone Wild” by Ordóñez et al. (full
citation below). The article describes a variety of situations in which goals have been to
blame for negative outcomes. For example, in the early 1990’s Sears, Roebuck, and Co
implemented goal-setting in their auto repair department with disastrous consequences. Just
as advised by the research on goal-setting, Sears created a specific and challenging goal: The
sales goal for auto repair staff was $147 per hour. Just as past research would predict, the
goal was indeed motivating to employees; problematically, however it encouraged them to
overcharge customers and recommend services that were unnecessary. These actions
obviously were not what Sears had in mind when they set the goal.
The instructor might wish to have students read the article and answer the following
questions:
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1. What are the potential dangers of goal-setting?
2. What can managers do to avoid these dangers?
6.3 The Folly of Rewarding A, While Hoping for B
There is little doubt that rewards can motivate our behavior. But sometimes, rewards
motivate the wrong kinds of behavior.
Instructions:
Read each of the following scenarios below and discuss whether the incentive or reward
described might encourage the wrong kind of behavior.
1. Sales commissions for car salesman
5. Paying K-12 teachers bonuses if their students score well on national standardized tests
6.4 Behavior Modification and Pizza Delivery Drivers
This Management Live describes a behavior modification plan devised to encourage safe
driving for pizza delivery workers. Although behavior modification plans can be
implemented by managers to motivate their employees, we can also use behavior
modification to change our own behavior.
Instructions:
1. Identify a goal that you would like to achieve with regard to your school, work, or
personal life.
3. Identify the specific behaviors that you will need to change in order to reach your goal.
What behaviors will you need to do more frequently? What behaviors will you need to
decrease or stop entirely?
4. Describe how you can use behavior modification to change your behaviors. Be specific in
your plan. Will you use positive and/or negative reinforcement? Will you use extinction
or punishment? What types of reinforcers will you use? What
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will be the reinforcement schedule you use (e.g., after every time the behavior is
performed, once every three times the behavior is performed)?
6.5 Simple Rewards
This Management Live shows that simple rewards can demonstrate appreciation. Possible
discussion questions are listed below.
1. Why do simple awards like “The Golden Banana Award” work?
2. Do you think it is possible that simple awards can ever work better at motivating
employees than money? Why or why not? Explain your answer.
3. Describe a time you received a simple non-monetary award or recognition that you really
appreciated.
6.6 Show Me the Money!
fundamentals of drive theory is discussed in the textbook in Table 6.3. In the video, Daniel
Pink presents his ideas about motivation and discusses research suggesting situations in
which money is not the best motivator.
The instructor might wish to show the video in class and lead a discussion about Pink’s ideas
and how they compare to other motivational theories. Alternatively, students can watch the
video on their own outside of class and post comments on a class online discussion board.
TOOL KIT
6.1 Skills Needed to Improve Motivation Using Expectancy Theory
This tool kit lists ways to increase the various components of the expectancy formula.
Students should read the tool box and identify which component(s) of expectancy theory are
addressed by each suggestion. Answers are below:
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Action
Expectancy theory component(s)
Select capable and motivated people
Expectancy (people who can do the job)
Provide necessary training
Expectancy (give people skills to perform at the
required level)
Show successful examples
Expectancy (watching others succeed builds our
own efficacy)
Be supportive an available
Expectancy (coaching and encouraging can build
efficacy)
Make the link between performance
and outcome extremely clear
Instrumentality
Follow through quickly
Instrumentality or Expectancy (depends on
whether the follow-through is providing
feedback about performance or giving rewards)
Make rewards proportional to effort
Instrumentality or Expectancy (Ensure that
required performance level is appropriate and the
link between performance and outcomes is clear)
Reward based on individual
preferences
Valence (If individuals choose their own rewards
they will be more likely to value them)
6.2 Diagnosing Motivational Problems
This tool kit offers important questions to ask for diagnosing motivational problems.
Instructions for corresponding class activity:
1. Students should write a short report 2-3 paragraphs describing a motivational problem
that they have experienced at work or school. The problem could have been their own
lack of motivation or it could have been a motivational problem with other students or
employees that the student worked with on a project or task.
2. After writing the report, students should answer the questions from the tool kit to help
diagnose the motivational problem.
3. Students should highlight the one solution they think would most help address the
motivational problem.
6.3 Equity Sensitivity Measure
Instructions: Take the Equity Sensitivity Measure and answer the following questions:
1. What do your results suggest about your equity sensitivity?
2. Do the results surprise you? Explain your answer.
3. What are the pros and cons to being high in equity sensitivity?
4. What are the pros and cons to being low in equity sensitivity?
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6.4 Steps to Rewarding Effectively
Scenario:
Gina is a manager at a customer call center for an insurance company. Gina has noticed a lot of
areas for improvement in the performance of her customer service agents. The following list
describes the behaviors that Gina would like all customer service agents to perform.
4. Being a good listener and being polite and professional even when the customer is angry.
5. Ensuring that customers’ questions and complaints are resolved at the end of every call.
Gina would like to use rewards to improve performance in these areas. Using the steps described
in the tool kit, give Gina some advice on how she can use rewards most effectively in this
situation.
Tool Kit 6.5 – Steps to Effective Punishment
The tool kit focuses on steps to effective punishment. The case below focuses on other ways of
changing behavior including positive reinforcement and extinction.
Case
On June 25, 2006, an article appeared in the New York Times entitled “What Shamu Taught Me
About a Happy Marriage.” Written by Amy Sutherland, the article detailed how she used
reinforcement techniques learned from animal trainers, such as those at SeaWorld in San Diego,
to make her husband, Scott, into “a mate who would be easier to love.” The behaviors she
wanted to change included a tendency to be messy, a mercurial temper, and a habit of getting in
her way while she was cooking. The techniques she used are highlighted below:
Reinforcement for successive approximations. One of the things Sutherland learned from
the animal trainers is that no animal is able to do a complete trick the first time they are
asked. It is unreasonable to expect a seal to balance a ball on his nose the first time he
sees it. Trainers reward small steps – first looking at the ball, then touching the ball with
hamper. Once that behavior was reinforced, Scott had to throw two shirts into the
hamper, but if he did, he got a
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kiss. Soon, the bedroom floor was clean, and dirty clothes were where they belonged.
Extinction. Modifying someone’s temper is an extremely difficult task. The important
thing to know is that responding to an outburst reinforces it, so the key is to ignore the
behavior, which will cause it to be extinguished. Sutherland gives the example of her
husband having misplaced his keys (again.) When he storms through the kitchen
demanding to know if she’s seen them, she calmly focuses on washing the dishes. She
doesn’t acknowledge his outburst in any way, and soon enough, he’s found his own keys
and goes on with his day. Successive extinction trials reduce both the number and size of
outbursts.
Incompatible Behaviors. Sometimes the best way to eliminate a behavior is to reinforce
an incompatible behavior. Sutherland tells the story of a professional animal trainer who
was tired of having African crested cranes land on his head. Rather than trying to
extinguish landing behavior, the trainer simply transferred it to a more appropriate place.
kitchen island, she was soon able to train Scott not to get in her way anymore.
One of the points Sutherland makes in her article is that “It’s never the animal’s fault.” If training
fails, it is the trainer’s responsibility to either look for different behaviors to reinforce, break a
behavior down into smaller approximations, or come up with new strategies for delivering
reinforcers or making behaviors extinct. She also points out that some behaviors are so ingrained
that it is simply impossible to try and change them. Instead, it is better to work on things that can
be changed.
Discussion Questions
1. Identify one behavior that you would like to change in someone who is close to you. Using
the case study above, along with the table in Tool Kit 4.5, design a reinforcement strategy for
2. Implement your reinforcement plan for one week. What results did you see? Keep careful
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3. Discuss the ethical implications of using reinforcement theory, both at home and in the
office. Do you think that reinforcement is an appropriate motivational technique for
managers to use? Why or why not?
CLASS EXERCISE
The Hovey and Beard Case
Part I
The Hovey and Beard Company manufactured wooden toys of various kinds: wooden animals,
pull toys, and the like. One part of the manufacturing process involved spraying paint on the
partially assembled toys. This operation was staffed entirely by women.
The toys were cut, sanded, and partially assembled in the wood room. Then they were dipped
into shellac, following which, they were painted. The toys were predominately two-colored; a
few were made in more than two colors. Each color required an additional trip through the paint
room.
For a number of years, production of these toys had been entirely handwork. However, to meet
tremendously increased demand, the painting operation had recently been re-engineered so that
the operators who did the painting sat in a line by an endless chain of hooks. These hooks were
in continuous motion, past the line of operators and into a long horizontal oven. Each woman sat
at her own painting booth, designed to carry away fumes and to backstop excess paint. The
operator would take a toy from the tray beside her, position it in a jig inside the painting cubicle,
spray on the color according to a pattern, then release the toy and hang it on the hook passing by.
The operators working in the paint room were on a group bonus plan. Since the operation was
new to them, they were receiving a learning bonus that decreased by regular amounts each
month. The learning bonus was scheduled to vanish in six months, by which time it was
expected that they would be on their own — that is, able to meet the standard and to earn a group
bonus if they exceeded it.
Discussion Question 1: What do you expect to happen over the next few months: Will
production go up, down, or stay the same?
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Part II
By the second month of the training period, trouble had developed. The employees learned more
slowly than had been anticipated, and it began to look as though their production would stabilize
far below what was planned for. Many of the hooks were going by empty. The women
complained that they were going by too fast, and that the time-study man had set the rates wrong.
A few women quit and had to be replaced with new operators, which further aggravated the
foreman: the job was a messy one, the hooks moved too fast, the incentive pay was not being
correctly calculated, and it was too hot working so close to the drying oven.
Discussion Question 2: if you were a consultant, what would you recommend?
Part III
A consultant who was brought into this picture worked entirely with and through the foreman.
After many conversations with him, the foreman felt that the first step should be to get the
employees together for a general discussion of the working conditions. He took this step with
some hesitation, but he took it on his own volition.
The first meeting, held immediately after the shift was over at four o-clock in the afternoon, was
attended by all eight operators. They voiced the same complaints again: the hooks went by too
fast, the job was too dirty, the room was hot and poorly ventilated. For some reason, it was this
The foreman came to the second meeting with some apprehensions. The operators, however, did
not seem to be much put out, perhaps because they had a proposal of their own to make. They
felt that if several large fans were set up so as to circulate the air around their feet, they would be
much more comfortable. After some discussion, the foreman agreed that the idea might be tried
out. The foreman and the consultant discussed the question of the fans with the superintendent,
and three large propeller-type fans were purchased.
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The fans were brought in. The women were jubilant. For several days the fans were moved
about in various positions until they were placed to the satisfaction of the group. The operators
seemed completely satisfied with the results, and the relations between them and the foreman
improved visibly.
The foreman, after this encouraging episode, decided that further meetings might also be
profitable. He asked the operators if they would like to meet and discuss other aspects of the of
the work situation. They were eager to do this. The meeting was held, and the discussion
quickly centered on the speed of the hooks. The operators maintained that the time-study man
had set them at an unreasonably fast speed and that they would never be able to reach the goal of
filling enough of them to make a bonus.
The turning point of the discussion came when the group’s leader frankly explained that the
point wasn’t that they couldn’t work fast enough to keep up with the hooks, but that they
couldn’t work at the pace all day long. The foreman explored the point. The employees were
unanimous in their opinion that they could keep up with the belt for short periods if they wanted
to. But they didn’t want to because if they showed they could do this for short periods they
would be expected to do it all day long. The meeting ended with an unprecedented request: “Let
us adjust the speed of the belt faster or slower depending on how we feel.” The foreman agreed
to discuss this with the superintendent and the engineers.
Discussion Question 3: What do you think the results of this action will be? Will production go
up, down, or stay the same? Will satisfaction go up, down, or stay the same?
Part IV
The operators were delighted, and spent many lunch hours deciding how the speed of the belt
should be varied from hour to hour throughout the day. Within a week the pattern had settled
down to one in which the first half hour of the shift was run on what the operators called a
medium speed (a dial setting slightly above the point marked “medium”). The next two and one–
half hours were run at high speed; the half hour before lunch and the half hour after lunch were
run at low speed. The rest of the afternoon was run at high speed with the exception of the last
45 minutes of the shift, which was run at medium.
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In view of the operators’ report of satisfaction and ease in their work, it is interesting to note that
the constant speed at which the engineers had originally set the belt was slightly below medium
on the dial of the control that had been given the women. The average speed at which they were
running the belt was on the high side of the dial. Few, if any empty hooks entered the even, and
inspection showed no increase of rejects from the paint room.
Production increased, and within 3 weeks (some 2 months before the scheduled ending of the
learning bonus) the operators were operating at 30 to 50 percent above the level that had been
expected under the original arrangement. Naturally their earnings were correspondingly higher
than anticipated. They were collecting their base pay, a considerable piece-rate bonus, and the
learning bonus that, it will be remembered, had been set to decrease with time and not as a
function of current productivity. The operators were earning more now than many skilled
workers in other parts of the plant.
Discussion Question 4: What do you think will be the final reaction of plant management? If
you were part of Hovey and Beard’s top management team, what would you recommend?