1 Executive Compensation
Research clearly links managerial leadership to positive consequences for both the individual and organizations, including financial performance. Also, substantial evidence demonstrates that sound managerial leadership practice is critical to creating effective organizations. So it makes sense that executives are well paid for their managerial and decision-making skills.
1.1 What do you believe is a reasonable benchmark for determining executive compensation?
1.2 Also, in your opinion what role should the organization, shareholders, and governments pay in dictating executive compensation?
2 Which benefits?
Imagine you have been hired as a consultant by a company to provide recommendations for what voluntary benefits the company should give employees.
2.1 What steps would you take to determine your recommendations and what questions should you pose to the company to help you determine the best options for their employees?
2.2 HR is spending significantly more time than in past years to educate their employees and communicate the value of company benefits to all especially considering most employees do not understand the true cost and value of the benefits that organizations provide. How would you suggest communicating the values of these benefits to employees?
3 Intrinsic motivation: psychological reward or exploitation?
“In recent years increasing attention has been paid to intrinsic motivation and employee engagement. Self-determination theory (SDT) (Ryan and Deci, 2000) identifies that people have inherent psychological needs for a sense of competence, relatedness and autonomy, and where work design captures these conditions, people will strive to perform because they want to rather than simply because they are paid to. In a similar vein, Jeffrey Pfeffer, in his influential 1998 article ‘Six dangerous myths about pay’, highlights the motivational importance of stability, engaging work and fun in a suitable work environment as a counterpoint to the ‘myth’ that the most effective way to motivate people is through individual incentive compensation.” (Lussier, 2021).
3.1 In your opinion, is employee engagement, whereby employees ‘go the extra mile’ for their employer, a positive outcome of an engaged workforce or a means through which employers seek to exploit their employees at no additional cost to themselves? Cite relevant literature on which you based your argument.
4 Job Evaluations
4.1 What is the basic principle behind using job evaluations?
4.2 Explain the advantages and drawbacks for an organization which uses the factor comparison method to conduct job evaluations.
5 Group or individual incentives?
Explain the merits of adopting an individual vs group incentives approach by suggesting whichever approach would work best in each of the following positions:
• A used car salesperson
• An emergency room nurse
• An expatriate production manager (Cypriot) working to set up a new joint venture factory in Sweden
Clearly explain the reasons behind your suggestion in each case.
