Select individuals who vary in interesting ways that may be relevant
for understanding the factors that motivate people – for example, people
at different organizational levels, career stages, job roles, sex,
marital and parental status. Good variation in your sample makes it
easier to identify differences among participants, and also highlights
the contours of the performance management system (e.g., maybe it works
we ll for senior level employees who get bonuses, but not for lower
level employees who don’t).
Purpose: This
assignment will give students insight about what motivates employees to
work, and why motivation differs based on job and personal factors.
Applying motivation models can guide manager’s interventions to improve
employee motivation. This knowledge will increase student’s awareness of
employee attitudes and behaviors associated with motivation, and
frameworks for more motivating work arrangements. Such insights can be
helpful for understanding job performance – one’s own, co-workers, and
subordinates. It is especially beneficial for managers to recognize and
understand the dynamics of motivation.
Skills
- Understanding how motivation shapes employee performance
- Applying basic motivation models to real-world examples which may not exactly match textbook cases
- Analyzing and comparing three cases to identify key similarities and differences
- Interviewing
- Writing
Knowledge
This assignment will also help you become familiar with important management knowledge, such as:
- Recognizing employee attitudes
- Designing and implementing interventions to improve motivation
- Understanding the performance feedback process and how performance feedback influences employees
Task
- Interview three employees working in a single organization. This can be your workplace or another to which you have access.
- Apply
ideas and concepts from job attitudes and satisfaction, personality,
and motivation to explain the different attitudes and levels of
motivation you saw. Compare the employees’ responses and offer rationale
for differences among your three employees that links to their personal
(age, sex) and contextual (job title, industry) situations. - Ask
about the organization’s performance evaluation system, and evaluate
its effectiveness based on the information you’ve learned from your
interviews. Consider the alignment between the organization’s reward
system and its goals. - What recommendations would you make to
improve the motivation of the employees you interviewed, and/or to
improve the performance management system? - Analyze and evaluate
your findings in a paper, not to exceed 12 double-spaced pages, in Times
New Roman with 1-inch margins. The formatting requirements for this
paper are flexible; use your judgement to make a professionally
formatted paper. There is no minimum page limit, as long as you address
the assignment. - Do not include your interview notes; use
selected quotes to make your points. This paper should give analysis of
the interviews, not the interviews themselves. - To protect
confidentiality, please do not identify the company or use real names.
You may disguise names or refer to people by role or title. - The entire paper should be 6 pages single spacing
Suggestions
- Select
individuals who vary in interesting ways that may be relevant for
understanding the factors that motivate people – for example, people at
different organizational levels, career stages, job roles, sex, marital
and parental status. Good variation in your sample makes it easier to
identify differences among participants, and also highlights the
contours of the performance management system (e.g., maybe it works well
for senior level employees who get bonuses, but not for lower level
employees who don’t). The paper should be - Review the OB
concepts before you have your interviews so you can prepare questions
that focus on specific aspects of the theories. Have a list of prepared
questions that you can use, and be flexible so that you can pursue
interesting responses. - Ask each participant about the performance evaluation process since their answers may vary.
- Use your judgement to present the most interesting and salient comparisons among your participants.
- You are encouraged to check out the sample motivation papers posted on Canvas.
Criteria for Success
Sample motivation papers are available on Canvas.
Criteria
Evaluation
Points
Data collection and variation
Interviewed
3 employees of the same organization, with adequate variation among
employees in age, sex, family/marital status, and rank.
5
Description and comparison
Describes
and compares employees, highlighting themes and relevant differences;
demonstrates how differences in each person’s situation contributes to
their motivational situation.
15
Performance management system
Describes
the organization’s performance management system (performance
appraisal, bonuses, raises, formal and informal feedback)
15
OB concepts applied
Student accurately applies at least three concepts and/or models (e.g., motivation, satisfaction, commitment)
15
Professional writing quality
Student demonstrates professional writing skills, including typos, grammar, formatting, and flow.
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