Where to start?
The following text describes the working life of five successful individuals with high levels of job satisfaction. You are asked to read this text and then discuss five questions presented in a table immediately after. You will find each of the assignment questions that you need to address on the left column, and the instructions to answer each question on the right column. READ this very carefully as these instructions give clear guidelines about what it is expected to be discussed in each question.
In order to answer these questions, you will need to draw on the material we work through in Term 1: job attitudes, personality and organizational context.
TESTIMONIALS: DOES THIS SOUND LIKE A SATISFYING JOB?
1) John Bishop, 31, is an investment banker who works for Citigroup’s global energy team in New York. A recent workday for Bishop consisted of heading to the office for a conference call at 6:00 pm. He left the office at 1:30 am and had to be on a plane that same morning for a 9:00 am presentation in Houston. Following the presentation, Bishop returned to New York the same day, and by 7 pm he was back in the office to work an additional three hours. Says Bishop “I might be a little skewed to a workaholic, but realistically, expecting 90 to 100 hours a week is not unusual”.
2) Irene Tse, 34, heads the government bond-trading division at Goldman Sachs. For ten years, she has seen the stock market go from all-time high to recessionlevels. Such fluctuations can mean millions of dollars in either profits or losses. “There are days when you can make a lot, and other days when you lose so much you are just stunned by what you’ve done”, says Tse. She also states that she hasn’t completely slept completely through the nights in many yearsand frequently wakes up several times during the night to check the global market status. Her average workweek? Eighty hours. “I’ve done this for 10 years, and I can count on the fingers ofone hand the number of days in my career when I didn’t want to come to work. Every day I wake up I can’t wait to come here.
3) Tony Kurtz, 33, is a managing director at Capital Alliance Partners and raises funds for real-estate investments. However, these are not your average properties. He often travels to exotic locations like Costa Rica and Hawai, wooing prospective clients. He travels more than 300.000miles a year, often sleeping on planes and dealing with yet lag.Kurz is not only one he knows with such a hectic work schedule. His girlfriend, Avery Baker, logs around 400,000 miles a year, working as the senior vice president of marketing for Tommy Hilfiger. “It’s not easy to maintain a relationship like this. But do they like their jobs? You bet
4) David Clark, 35, is the vice president of global marketing for MTV. His job often consists of travelling around the globe to promote the channel as well as to keep up with the global music scene. If he is not travelling (Clark typically logs 200,000 miles per year) a typical day consists of waking at 6:30 am and immediately responding to numerous messages that have been accumulated throughout the course of the night. He then goes to his office. Where throughout the day he will respond to another 500 messages or so from clients around the world. If he’s lucky he gets to spend an hour a day with his son, but then is back to work until he finally goes to bed around midnight. Says Clark “there are lot of people who would love this job. They are knocking on the door all the time. So that’s motivating.
Many individuals would balk at the prospects of a 60-hour or more workweek with constant travelling and little time for anything else. However, some individuals are exhilarated by such professions. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2004, about 17% of managers worked more than 60 hours per week. But the demands for such jobs are not for everyone. Many quit with turnovers around 55% for consultants and 30% for investment bankers. However, it is clear that such jobs which are time consuming and often stressful, can be satisfying for some individuals.
Case Study extracted from Robbins and Judge (2007, p. 98)
ASSIGNMENT QUESTION INSTRUCTIONS FOR EACH QUESTION
1) What are the characteristics of the job that might contribute to high levels of job satisfaction in these examples? (500 words)
-Identify these elements from the text and explain to what extent the literature on job design and satisfaction supports these findings
Support your arguments with relevant sources using Harvard Reference in both questions (start with notes from week 5)
2) Pick one of these individuals (1,2, 3, or 4 ) and explain potential cultural manifestations that might be experienced in the organisation.
What surface manifestations and values seem to be supportive of/consistent with the “satisfying” job characteristics discussed in Q.1? (500 words)? -Identify and discuss some of the cultural manifestations of the chosen companies.
-Critically analyse how these cultural elements seem to be consistent (or not) with the satisfying elements the job discussed in Q1.
Support your arguments with relevant sources using Harvard Reference in both questions (start with notes from week 2, mention Schein’s levels of culture)
3)Discuss the role of personality in finding this type of jobs satisfying (500 words) -Use the Big 5 model of personality as a theoretical framework to explain some of these individuals’ behaviour
-You can also use other personality traits if you think are relevant for the answer
Support your arguments with relevant sources using Harvard Reference (start with notes from week 4)
4) These individuals seem satisfied with their jobs. Discuss how this relates to (500 words):
Their performance
The perceived organizational support
The possibility of them leaving the organization
Their general attitudes and
Their general behaviour -Use relevant research to back up your arguments about how job satisfaction is associated with other attitudes and behaviour
Support your arguments with relevant sources using Harvard Reference (start with notes from week 5)
5)Write a conclusions and “lessons learned for managers” that discusses the following:
a. Discuss the relative value of personality, job design and culture to explain job satisfaction. (250 words)
b. All these individuals had very long hours work, what are the aspects that a manager can still use for individuals working in lower ranked jobs? (250 words)
(a) Evaluate how the individual and organisational factors play a role in job satisfaction. Is it enough by looking at an individuals’ personality? Or the way we design the jobs? Do we need both? How does this reflect the contingent element of this discipline?
(b) Identify the key learning points about job satisfaction that can be extrapolated to different (probably less glamorous jobs)
Support your arguments with relevant sources using Harvard Reference
In particular the following materials will be useful for you;
• Critical thinking and logical argument skills
• Building an argument
• Analytical thinking
• Report writing and report layout
What format?
1) Like any other assignment, it should have an introduction, body and a conclusion
2) The intro makes clear to the reader the topic to be discussed and how you will do so
3) In the body you begin to discuss each of the questions. A recommended heading structure is as follows:
1. Job design and Job satisfaction
2. Organizational culture and Job satisfaction
3. Personality and Job satisfaction
4. Outcomes of Job satisfaction
5. Lessons learned
4) Within each heading, there should also be a logical structure. You should start by introducing the “theme” that you are discussing (in other words, the general topic or heading), follow up with some theory/published findings about it/then application of this theory to the testimonials/ look for agreements but also discrepancies and extract some conclusion.
For instance, the first question discusses job satisfaction and characteristics of the job. Thus, you could start your answer to Question 1 by arguing that “The way jobs are designed affects individual’s attitudes towards it, in particular their job satisfaction. Studies have found that X, Y, Z elements seem to be highly correlated with job satisfaction (Reference)…In this particular case (examples from the testimonials), respondents seem to agree that their jobs provide them XXX . According to (Reference) these aspects are key drivers of job satisfaction.
5) In your overall conclusions you draw together all of the main points without adding anything that has not been discussed in the body
6) You must stick to the limit of the word count for each section. Your marks are distributed evenly to each of the five questions so avoid doing great in one and limit your efforts for the rest
Use of sources?
1) Use a wide range of sources including textbooks (as a start) but mostly peer-reviewed journal articles
2) Answers that read like “opinions” without any sources to backed them up and no evidence of reading will not be counted
MARKING CRITERIA
1) Business –. Appreciation of international, national and organisational context
a. 20%
2) Knowledge of subject matter. Evidence of wide reading and a comprehensive familiarity with the topic reinforced by citation from appropriate third part sources, rese4arch and relevant literature
a. 30%
3) Critical thinking. Demonstration of the ability to analyse and evaluate both theory and research and to make objective and impartial judgments and proposals
a. 30%
4) Application capability. The development of firm conclusions which reflect the analysis undertaken
a. 10%
5) Presentation and persuasion skills. The systematic organisation and presentation oif the assignment so that it is coherent, convincing, accurate, reader friendly and business like.
a. 10%