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Think of a current or former employer, and describe the firm’s state of diversity management in terms of Thomas and Ely’s (Week 4, Reading 2) three paradigms. Be sure to define each paradigm, explain why you think the paradigm characterizes your firm, and why the other two paradigms do not characterize the firm. (If your work experience is in another country, provide some background on who in your country is considered a “minority” or who is considered to be a second-class citizen.)
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Write My Essay For Me- Research suggests that the way in which a team is designed has a stronger effect on a team’s performance than the team’s leader has. Think of a recent team experience, describe it in terms of Hackman’s five conditions for team effectiveness (Week 2 Reading 3), and discuss whether the presence (or absence) of the five conditions affected the team’s performance. Be sure to briefly describe how the team’s performance was measured (that is, how do you know whether the team has succeeded or failed?).
- You are the senior VP in charge of People Management at a large consulting firm based in NYC. It has come to your attention that many senior partners in NY give relatively low performance evaluation ratings to foreign-born junior consultants who work for them (in NY), compared to ratings they give junior consultants who were born and raised in the U.S. The foreign-born junior consultants perform as well as American-born consultants, according to objective indicators of performance (e.g., ability to bring in new business, high retention rates of clients, satisfied and productive subordinates), which suggests that the foreign managers should be getting very good evaluations. Low performance evaluations severely hurt their chances for promotion. Because the turnover rate among these employees is growing, most likely due to their dissatisfaction and concerns about fairness, and because you don’t want to lose good people, you need to do some in-depth analysis of the situation. Based on your knowledge of the perception process (see Kinicki & Fugate Sections 4.2 and 4.3), describe at least three perceptual errors the senior consultants might be making, and then describe what your company should do to improve the accuracy of the senior managers’ perceptions and ultimately, their evaluations. (Hint: Focus on the perception process, and avoid giving broad recommendations such as “diversity training.”)
- Given your expertise in organizational behavior, you have been asked to give a formal presentation about how to be an effective manager to a group of young managers at New York Life. Most of the managers have backgrounds in marketing or computer information systems, and all have been managing at the department level for less than two years. These managers are responsible for all aspects of running their departments, including hiring, firing, motivating, compensating, and in general, managing productivity. Using expectancy theory and equity theory (Kinicki & Fugate Section 5.3), what advice would you give these managers in your presentation? Focus on the managerial implications that flow from each theory. Remember, you are teaching them how to manage their subordinates, not how to manage their own motivation. (You may use bullet points to outline your major points.)
- Choose ONE of the following short-answer essays:
- From the Wall Street Journal: “In today’s job market, where talent, energy and mobility count a lot more than seniority, new hires often earn more than seasoned veterans. Managers anxious to recruit and hang on to employees with particular skills routinely ignore traditional salary scales and pay whatever they must to get and keep them. Increasingly, they must offer even more than what they themselves earn to attract the best candidates. As pay becomes increasingly arbitrary, lopsided and unfair, …managers deliberately keep their employees in the dark about their coworkers’salaries, and hope that employees remain silent as well… But what happens when the word gets out?” Several years ago, Agency.com inadvertently posted a salary spreadsheet (imagine!) on its New York staff’s email. Employees learned of large salary ranges in many job categories (e.g., salaries for creative directors ranged from $65k to $125k). Salaries had accelerated so fast that even employees who had been with the company for only two years were sometimes making significantly less than new employees. Given your knowledge of equity theory, what do you predict will happen? What should Agency.com have done to redress the inequities?
- Jerry Pilato, the owner of a high-end bakery on Canal Street in NYC, has a problem. Although he pays his employees top wages and provides good working conditions, excellent benefits, and yummy leftover baked goods at the end of each work day, his employees are still dissatisfied. According to Herzberg’s theory of motivation (Kinicki & Fugate Section 5.2), what might explain their dissatisfaction?
- You have been hired as a consultant to a large aeronautical engineering company, NY Aeronautical, to help them improve their selection system. Specifically, the company is planning to increase its workforce dramatically to meet the growing demands of their customers (e.g., Boeing, Airbus). The company is interested in selecting machine shop workers whose personalities most strongly predispose them to being productive, reliable, and ethical. The work they perform requires the workers to be diligent in the manufacturing of airplane parts, and each part must conform to exact standards. In the past they’ve had to fire workers for taking short cuts in the manufacturing process, because if parts are not manufactured properly, the safety of an aircraft could be compromised. What personality characteristics (Kinicki & Fugate Section 3.3) would you recommend that the company seek to find in its search for workers? (Be sure to define them.) Which ones should it seek to avoid? How should the company measure these characteristics? Would you recommend any follow-up study to assess the validity and reliability of your measures?
- The Job Characteristics Model (Kinicki & Fugate Figure 5.10) is an excellent way to get managers to think about designing jobs that are motivating, as opposed to getting managers to think about how to motivate people. Think about a former or current job and describe it in terms of the five core job characteristics. Then describe the job’s “motivating potential.” If any of the characteristics are low in “motivating potential,” describe how you would redesign that aspect of the job to make it more intrinsically motivating.
