| MBA 669 | Rick Marriner |
| Monday, Orange County | Winter, 1998 |
Double Entry Journal Assignment
Stephen P. Robbins, 1998, Organizational Behavior - Chapter 6 "Applications of Motivation Concepts", New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc. |
Objective Points |
Subjective Review |
| Summary: This chapter sets out to apply the concepts in the last chapter of motivational concepts, specifically it talks about 5 programs currently in use and the expected success in certain situations. | The utility of theories in different situations is very important. I like the method used in the chapter in analyzing each method in terms of motivational concepts used. It also is a way to measure the utility of each application in terms of the situation at hand. Specifically how does an application meet the need for a service labor pool as opposed to a manufacturing labor pool. The reader may answer the last question, but the guidance is given by the review. |
| Point 1: Management by objectives is introduced as a set of specific attainable yet challenging goals set by an organization over a fixed time period such that the building hierarchy of goals suits to support the larger goals of the organization. | This has worked very well in the office. I am now in my second year of the MBO process and can look back on the process with some satisfaction and success. Although I did not unilaterally set my goals they are challenging yet attainable. Whenever I need to look at what I am doing I always do so in light of the MBO worksheet our company has developed. Our ships will soon be on this system since it has worked so well in the office. We will be moving it out to the ships in June or earlier. I am looking forward o see if it will work in the loose union setting that we have aboard. |
| Point 2: Employees benefit in the motivational sense due to participative involvement programs. There are generally two types of programs: Representative and participative. | I do not see the first of these two working on our ships, but the second would be a great benefit. One of my objectives is to develop a management team concept on the ships and in the office such that an open forum of ideas can be generated and all involved will have buy in to the decisions that are made. I am unsure about the motivational increase as an outcome, but with the analysis given in the book it proves to be marginally effective in generating some motivation among some individuals. |
| Point 3: Variable pay programs have been a recent motivational technique and cost cutting technique. They can be piece meal or profit sharing or gain sharing. | There is an inherent danger in this method of motivation amongst union types. The pay that is evident during boom times is eventually expected. In the times when production or service is suffering very few employees see the reverse side of the coin as fair. When a union becomes involved the pay becomes, "Traditional and customary" so that the increase is no longer part of the company doing well but a fixed labor cost even when production and business are in a lull. |
| Question: How do you incent an employee who is already making in excess of 6 figures? | Given the diminishing marginal utility of money incentives when pay-scale increase there is no easy answer. If it is stock options then how do you handle it in a private company where there is no employee or public ownership. Ideas? |
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