Research Articles Base: Motivational Strategies

Application of ABC method for a vacuum cleaner firm : A case study of manufacturing and costing

Introduction Although not as stylish and elegant as the automobile sector, the UK vacuum cleaner industry has over 93% forecasted household penetration and at least six million units sales each year (MTProg 2006).  However, along with the growth forecasts, only less than half of the future sales will be accounted for new and additional unit buyers.  This is an indication that the industry is facing market contraction that triggers stiff competition.  Vacuum cleaner manufacturers must be able to provide innovative versions of earlier products as replacement accounts for almost 70% of future sales.  Dyson Corporation, the inventor of bagless vacuum cleaners, is one of industry players in the UK market.  It is established in 1993 by James Dyson in Wiltshire (Dyson Website 2008).  Central to the success of the company is the cyclone technology, formally referred as Root CycloneTM, which uses centrifugal force that separates dust and dirt from the air which allows stable suction capabilities, cleaner air discharge and other value-added features.  The technology’s prototype called G-force that is sold in Japan has even hit a price of ,000 per unit in 1991.  Its featured online products are broadly classified into three categories; namely, upright, cylinder and hand-held. There are at least twenty Dyson vacuum cleaner models available in the market.  They are marked DC1, 2 and so on reflecting the current innovation from the original G-force model which varies on color, weight, suction power, filter ability and other upgraded features.  Aside from its major vacuum cleaner business, Dyson also entered but discontinued production of innovative ball-barrow (i.e. a wheelbarrow that uses plastic ball instead of metal wheels) as well two-drummed washing machine (e.g. for stronger dryer).  Currently, it introduces a breakthrough hand dryer called Dyson Airblade which only requires 10 seconds to dry the wet hands.  The quality of their vacuum cleaners is guaranteed through testing for bacterial growth, continuous prototyping for improvement and diligent testing for endurance and reliability.            Operational Control  The innovative nature of Dyson situates its budgeting position on zero-based method particularly on the production of a series of G-force improvement models.  It is also showed on how the company confronted production risks with expanding product lines such as ball-borrow and washing machine including potential success in its breakthrough hand-dyer.  Zero-based budgeting (ZBB) necessitates Dyson to allocate its annual budget starting at base zero.  This means that previous year-end income and expenditure figures are seemingly useless in creating budgets for highly-innovative products.  Due to this, controlling performance and costs for laboratory prototypes post problems and the firm must take action to prevent past losses in its ball-borrow and washing machine inventions.                    For an effective ZBB, determination of underlying costs for the ambiguous prototype is vital.  This would help in appropriate pricing using internal data and would tell whether the company has the price advantage or simply innovative upper-hand to existing competitors.  This stage is important because this is the part by which the firm will create cost parameters and will be use in every financial metric that will be applied in the future.  If the parameters are wrong, Dyson will price its products on a sub-optimal manner because relevant costs are not injected in the performance analysis.  In aggravation, this mistake will be carried into the life cycle of the prototype from its introduction to the market, growth and eventual demise.  Further, even though correct parameters are installed, there are adjustments to be made on a periodic basis.  This is because newer products face greater influence from the external environment such as regulation, prices of raw materials and response from distributors.  In effect, creating a trial-and-balance budget (e.g. flexible budgets) using the ZBB framework is necessary.    In product upgrades and marketing of new accessories, ZBB would be shed proxy from incremental method.  As mentioned earlier, the vacuum cleaner industry is showing signs of market contraction which provide opportunities to offer newer models or product/ accessory upgrade.  For the latter strategy, incremental method demands reference from previous cost performance which is likely on an annual basis.  A vacuum cleaner model will be positioned as a stable production.  As a result, previous cost parameters and periodic adjustments are highly relevant to future engagements such as upgrades and development of product add-ons.  In fact, based on the twenty models that Dyson developed over the years since 1993, much of the improvements have singular platform which is the G-force model.  ZBB is largely evident to extreme developments of G-force and also creation of ball-barrow, washing machine and had-dryers.             Activity-based costing (ABC) method might offer the best costing practices to Dyson and probably finally succeed in product introduction and support its innovation-centered design culture.  The method will define major activities in the creation of the firm’s products.  This may include research design, testing, prototyping, raw material acquisition, machining, quality assurance, receiving and packing.  These activities have substantial overheads in them due to supervisory intervention in the assembly line, quality specialist in the receiving area and highly computerized processes.  The method can determine the cost of each activity, thus, reducing the difficulties of allocating the seemingly invisible overheads.  Next, the cost driver for each activity is required in order to allocate the total cost of each activity to each product line (e.g. vacuum clear models).  By capturing these components, it will be easy to control the cost driver based on the budgeted cost pool.             To illustrate this, we will use the ZBB.  Assuming that there are three primary activities that Dyson have in its production; namely, prototyping, machining and packing.  The cost of each is 0, 0 and 0 respectively.  The products that are ordered are G-force and DC-1 for 100 and 110 units respectively.  Direct labor for G-force is for two hours (e.g. per hour) and DC-1 is for four hours (e.g. per hour).  In traditional costing, if total overhead is ,000 and the total direct labor is 200 hours, the overhead is allocated on a labor hour basis totaling per hour.  As a result, the traditional costing will result for overhead allocation in G-force is 0 per unit and DC-1 is 0.  However, when ABC method is applied, the results in Table 1 will show the big difference in costing.  Although the results showed that the costing of Dyson using traditional method overpriced its products, in most cases, it is the inability of this method to reflect all overhead cost post the major problem.             As observed, ABC method can improve the costing parameters of ZBB or incremental budgets.  The products of Dyson and vacuum cleaner models are produced by different number of labor hours and machine hours which can obtain various times that each activity occurred in their respective production processes.  This can give Dyson flexibility in using the same budget spreadsheet to allocate overheads of each product line.  Another, the budgets that the firm uses can be easily flexed to reflect potential changes in the operating environment.  For example, the demand for G-force units is lowered, the estimated cost of the production will be easily viewed.  In effect, faster quotation of the products will be provided to clients.  Top management also has baseline information on how efficient labor or machine performed during a particular production cycle.  If the overhead cost of prototyping has increased, it is easy to detect where the problems occurred (e.g. in the production of G-force or DC-1).              Dyson can also use the ABC spreadsheets to forecast, flex and experiment on either ZBB or incremental budgeting.  In doing this, the company will be more vigilant of its status when an unexpected drop in demand occurred in the future due to stiffer competition and inability of its innovation to capture the market taste.  It can establish pro-active solutions to upcoming risks and even disastrous events that can lead its sales virtually to zero.  With or without exaggeration, building cost pools and flexing them according to economic and market expectations can provide useful information to Dyson.  Rationalizing product introduction can also be achieved.  The company can use the ABC spreadsheet to know whether being efficient in machining (e.g. reduction of times the machine is used) can contribute in cost-savings.  These savings can then be distributed to key innovation areas (e.g. hand dryers).  ABC method can open new opportunities to Dyson particularly on providing additional strategic options.  With greater competence on decision-making, it can operate more competitively and know the benefits of minimizing production errors are.  Finally, performance indicators (e.g. ROA) can be improved without trade-off to other balance scorecard components (e.g. employee motivation)                                     Operational Planning ABC method proved to be useful in Dyson simply because the manufacturing process of the firm is substantially affected by human intervention.  On extremely computer-operated production assemblies, the benefits that ABC can provide are limited due to minimal activities involved.  However, even with ABC compatibility with Dyson style of production, it is not an easy task to integrate the method into the production process.  As admitted, Dyson production process involves several human interventions which make change in cultural production an issue of operational planning.  Kaizen also invokes reduction of wastage which is vital to the efficiency benefits of ABC control on operations.  Further, the balance scorecard suggests that financial and customer objectives are as important as employee motivation and welfare.                                    The adoption of ABC method should be initiated from the top management to the bottom rank-and-file.  This will ensure commitment to the production and costing change including allocation of the right resources that will fund training, performance benefits and improved conditions of work.  When the managers are committed, appraising the performance of the organization towards the early parts of ABC adoption will be continuous.  As a result, changing the culture of manufacturing will be done gradually and based on integration to human and environmental conditions of the site.  Empowerment is crucial in changing work systems as employees feel that they are important components of a quality product.  In effect, any change in production guidelines and flow charts must be settled with machine operators, quality specialists, scientist and even sweepers.              It is no doubt that James Dyson is one of the most visionary and cunning vacuum cleaner inventors of all time.  However, the passion to produce innovative products must be coupled with collaboration with subordinates.  The move of transferring production sites in Asia is an example of bypassing the role of employees particularly in UK (BBC News 2002).  Although cost-savings are assured with cheap labor and affordable space rental, the skills of former employees are detached with the production processes.  As a result, it is likely that efficiency in operating the machines or assembling parts are lost.  ABC implementation to create budgets must not be all based on financial benefits and short-term savings.  Rather, the experience of employees in setting-up the production lines and their specialization in assuring quality must be on top of Dyson top management.  In this way, ABC adoption is aligned with production culture.             Strategic Control The firm should change its current system and replaced it with ABC technique.  This can especially gain beneficial returns when the firm decided to expand the up-market brands which would reflect the same manufacturing complexity and labor-intensiveness of some products.  If product line expansion is carried in the coming years, much more the significance of ABC is eminent because the manufacturing processes of up-market products are riskier compared to low-cost products.  As a result, proper costing is required for the company to maximize the benefits of the expansion.  Since ABC also allocates indirect costs to the overhead like transportation, the up-market products can provide easy allocation for the firm in distant places such as Asian countries.  The issue here is the transfer of value from normal places (i.e. UK) that may not be recognized by the firm and shipping costs are not included in the current system.  In its current manufacturing situation, its semi-automated process does not make “machine hours” a concrete basis for settling an overhead rate.  Emphasizing the error on a company-wide agenda only aggravates the problem.  Also, current departments such as packing and shipping are done manually and so it is obvious that “machine hours” does not represent the cost driver for general expenses of each department.  Further, the firm is a value-based producer where it presently made success through market position.  However, its profit continued to slump for consecutive years suggesting that demand-side approach to business is lacking.  As a result, supply-side should achieve value the same manner as the demand-side.  Since the current costing had made substantial understatements especially for some product lines, it showed that it cannot reflect measurement of cost-related efficiencies.  ABC can provide such data for the firm to improve its value chain in producing risky and low-volume up-market product line.         The firm should use ABC approach especially in its up-market products.  These products are considered labor-intensive, risky processes and substantial process investment compared to other counterparts.  In effect, costing approach should be more conservative.  In the operational issue, it should acquire new and dedicated machines for up-market products to increase productivity and also revenues.  It should exploit the lucrative market by coupling investment strategy and costing techniques.  Further, it should continue to produce and design up-market products for the next years to maximize the adoption of ABC technique.  When machines are acquired, ABC can assure that the interference of labor in the process is accounted and this claim creates the synergy that exists between ABC adoption and strategy to expand product line. Ultimately, the firm can focus its operations into the up-market demand.  It should close its low-cost product line by transferring the brand name its hand-held products are admired for to the up-market products.  For example, the firm can create discounts in bulk purchases or sell the products in retail markets for ease of discounting promotion.  It should obtain an integrated product portfolio where the up-market is prioritized and brand name retained due to the change in market environment.  This issue is concretized by the fact that the cost of shipping and machine investments will increase once the firm continuously create up-market products.  The rise in such costs may require substantial investment which may affect liquidity of the firm.  As a result, its low-cost business portfolio should be gradually reduced and retire once the brand name transfer is effectively executed.           Strategic Planning             Initially, there is an understatement for the cost of producing some products because they are machine-based units.  At the strategic side, abrupt adoption of ABC which necessarily leads to increase in market price especially of the some products can reduce competitiveness of the firm.  This is true especially when there are similar products in the market where up-market producers have lower prices.  Thus, ABC has the weakness of infusing its findings instantly and directly in the market and even investment strategies of the firm in the case of purchasing new assets.  Even if the firm has the information and measurement of performance, it has limited use of them because of the stakeholders involved.  The recommendations above also are not recourses that can be executed immediately.  Time, money and effort are elements necessary to make them reality but the firm is not a low-cost producer and substantial investment in assets, processes and change in strategy is possible due to financial depth and experience curve.                 In general, ABC is incompatible with mass production processes and machine-intensive products because activities are minimal.  This is why some products are understated under ABC because human intervention is very small.  Second, collecting data such as activities and “levels” can be tedious and costly.  A small manufacturing company may not afford the requirements of implementing a company-wide ABC adoption.  Computer systems, trained personnel and continuous evaluation in the manufacturing and non-manufacturing activities should be applied which can be impractical for small manufacturers.  In the behavioral side, ABC can create managerial resistance because it can show the inefficiencies of the processes where their departments are link.  Without support from managers, ABC adoption would be futile.    Table 1: ABC Method versus Traditional Costing Activity Overhead Cost # of times in G-Force Overhead Allocation # of times in DC-1 Overhead Allocation prototyping 0 once 0 2 0 machining 0 2 times 0 3 times 0 packing 0 once 0 2 times 0 TOTAL     0   ,100 Per Unit Overhead     0/ 100 units =   ,100/ 110 units = Total Cost (ABC Method) G-force: Overhead + Direct Labor = + = DC-1: Overhead + Direct Labor = + = Total Cost (Traditional Costing) G-force: Overhead + Direct Labor = 0 + = 0 DC-1: Overhead + Direct Labor = 0 + = 0   Books   Young, S 2000, Readings on Management Accounting, 3rd edition, Prentice Hall, NJ.      Lewis, R 1993, Activity-Based Costing for Marketing and Manufacturing, Quorum Books, Westport, CT.   Electronic Sources BBC News 2002, viewed on 4 January 2008 <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1801909.stm>   Dyson Website 2008, viewed on 4 January 2008 <www.dyson.co.uk>   MT Program 2006, viewed on 4 January 2008 <http://www.mtprog.com/ApprovedBriefingNotes/PDF/MTP_BNXS30_2007November15.pdf>     Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

Application of ABC method for a vacuum cleaner firm : A case study of manufacturing and costing

Introduction Although not as stylish and elegant as the automobile sector, the UK vacuum cleaner industry has over 93% forecasted househ...

Self – Leadership

Self – Leadership Introduction             For every economy and for every market, the environment workplace and the morale of the employee are the major factors in the success of the business. Most of the managers as well are only focus on the sales and to the marketing and they did not even notice the importance of the people that filling up the position and the things that they can do in the development of the business (Precht, n.d). Research shown that the additional workforce motivation will contribute in the increase of the innovation and in the production of the company. Aside from that, it also contribute in the in the enlargement of the creative and logical problem solving, it will decrease the turnovers and reduce the absenteeism.  Therefore, in order for the company to alleviate its circumstances regarding the employee management it should have to ignite the passion of the intrinsic motivation. Aside from that, it should also have to maintain the right and healthy business environment and atmosphere. The company should provide as well a tools and training for the proper work management and for the growing places. It is also important for the company to be aware on the sensitivity of the morale of the employees so that it will have to come up in the best result of producing quality suggestions. There are many motivation practices that the company can do in order to have a better working atmosphere and a better income return. One of these motivations is the self – leadership which is the process of self influencing whereas the people can achieve the self direction and its own motivation which is necessary to perform (Manz and Neck, 2004). It is also coincides with the cognitive strategies and specific behaviors that are designed to positive influence leads to the personal improvement. This is commonly categorized as natural reward strategies, behavior focused strategies, and constructive pattern strategies. Looking deeply self-leadership is the commitment and the capacity of having to take the full responsibilities for self responses to the life as creating a meaningful life (Campbell, 2001). It is therefore the development of one’s “leader within” that can be out (Self-Leadership Coaching, 2006). Therefore the self-leadership also plays an important role in the development of the business and in the construction of a positive atmosphere.     Theoretical Concept on Self Leadership             The self-leadership strategies can operate in the entire theoretical framework of the self regulation (Clark, 1996). This also operates in the broad theoretical framework of the self-regulation which shows how behavior happens that will be use in the understanding of the behavior. It prescribes specific cognitive and behavioral strategies which are commonly designed for the enhancement of the affectivity of the individual self-regulatory.             The self leadership strategies can also enhance the self regulatory as increasing the self awareness as well as increases the self-focus. In this manner, it will increase the focus on the task and in the performance of the task. It will also gain to have a positive self-goal setting. Regarding the self goal and its process, the individual will increase the effectiveness of the elf regulatory with the aide of the joint effort of the better performance and the openness for improvement. Lastly, the self-punishment, the self reward, and the self-cueing are all have potential enhancement of the self-regulations. In this regard, the objective is said to be meaningful it is attainable and at the same time it is valuable (Carver and Scheier, 1998). The self leadership strategies as in the mental imaginary and self talk can definitely increase the level of self efficacy. It also said to be the major determinant on the performance and on the confidence expectancies that has the probability to lead in the effective self-regulation as well as the increase in the performance.               Generally, the self – leadership can be developed and learn.  It is also an interesting manner in the construction and in the relation to the attainment of the goal. In the corporate setting, the self leadership suggests that it is the most effective way in facilitating these strategies including the self-goal, the self-observation, and the self-reward. The topic on the self leadership had been diverse for the past years and it can be related to the topic on the performance appraisal, spirituality in the workplace, in the total quality management, in the organizational change, in the self leading team and in the entrepreneurship. Part of the contextual setting as well are the satisfaction on the job, the non-profit management, the goal performance or the goal setting, the performance of the team and its sustainability.   Criticism on the Self-Leadership             The self-leadership had been criticized by most of the authors due to its broadness and its redundancy. This consists of set of strategies which are commonly broad yet they are useful in the personal effectiveness personally. Most of the strategies as well regarding the self-leadership are come on the theories on self-leadership and motivation. It had also been said that most of the concept of the self leadership are merely came from the repackaging of the individual differences. It also questioned on the extent on its distinguishable and its uniqueness in connection to the related personality and motivational constructs. Most of the critics then suggest that self-leadership had been overlap to the other theories on the motivation and had not noticed that it is a normative model and not a deductive nor a descriptive theory.   Difference of Self-leadership to the other Motivations             There are many people who need to push or to have given a complement in order to have a better performance in the company. These pushing techniques done by most of the managers are the so called motivation practices. There are many motivational practices one can have to choose in order for his employees to have a better performance and best output. These motivations are essential for the business so that it will have to succeed as well as to survive. Many of the motivational practices are then being practice for the past years. These includes the positive reinforcement, the treatment of the people in the fair way, the effective discipline and punishment, satisfying the needs of the employees, restructuring the jobs, setting the work related goals, and the base reward which are commonly on the job performance. For these practiced motivations, what is the edge or the difference on the one kind of motivation which is self-leadership motivation? Is the self-leadership has significance over the other motivation practices? Is advantageous to the entire company? These are some of the questions that should given a solution in order to have a better way on the proper motivating the employees.             There are many differences between the self-leadership and the other motivational practices as the positive reinforcement. In the positive reinforcement, the consequences is known to be the dependent in the behavior and it is more likely to occur and it is also the more precise way in the employee controlling behaviors. It likely of reward that will given by the manager to its employees. On the other hand, the self-leadership is the just the motivation of oneself without any dependent variables. The reward also was came to its own mind and it is being directed him to its goal. The praise and the other rewards also came within itself and not by the other people nor to the incentives or to the rewards.             The fairness on the treatment to the employees is also major factor in motivating the employees due to the fact that it will have a good reputation and it will be the primary factor for keeping the employees a much desirable. In this manner, to compare it to the self-leadership they have differences as the self-leadership is often declare to work on its own within and not to compete to the other employees and therefore fairness is not an issue.             The restructuring of the job is also one of the important sources of motivating the employees. According to Herzberg, in the job enrichment theories, this technique will give satisfaction to the individual. This will also encourage for the personal goal accomplishment. In this manner as well, it gives the people the greater involvement as well as the satisfaction in their respective work so that it will increased the efficiency that is being achieved on the involvement on the lower job. In this manner, the structure of the ones job depends to himself and not supported by the other people, in self leadership only shows that person can manage and can structures its normal setting of the work which was characterized by its goal.             The discipline and the punishment is the plays a major role as well in the development in motivating the employees. In this regard, the employee will value on what is taken away or the fears which are being threatened. The employees then, will see the sanctions as consistent yet fair. And finally, it will acknowledge and respect into the manager’s right of imposing those sanctions. In this regard, the employees will take an alternative perspective which will be an option to every employee to learn. On the contrary, in the self-discipline, it simply implies that the behavior and the leader trait has only less impact on the subordinate behavior.             Employee needs satisfaction simply the made the motivational practices be achievable. In this scenario, including in the employees want and needs are having good pay, the security on the job, the growth and promotion, the working conditions, and so forth. In the needs the employees will work hard and will give its best upon receiving this things. Looking deeply, the self-leadership is accepting the idea that employees are the one which motivates their own.     The Elements of the Self-Leadership             There are five (5) major elements of the self-leadership as the personal goal setting, the constructive thought pattern, the designing of the natural rewards, the self-monitoring, and the self reinforcement.             In the personal goal setting, the employees are being set by their own goals and they apply it in the effective practices of the goal setting. In the constructive thought pattern includes the positive self-talk which talk of himself in the context of the thoughts and or actions and lead to the advancement of the self-efficacy. The mental imagery is also one of the importances of the self-leadership which practice by the mental task and being visualize the completion of the successful task. In relation to the designing of the natural rewards, it simply finds ways on the job proper for the motivation as the altering of the task that is being accomplished and its way. The self monitoring is also one of the elements of the self-leadership that will keep that track on the development in the context of the self-set goal. This will look of the feedback which are occurring naturally and designing the artificial feedback. The self-reinforcement is the final element of the self-leadership. This simply implies of taking the reinforcer after the completion of the goal which is self-set. The example of this one is watching the movie right after writing section in the report and starting a task which is commonly fun after the completion of the task which one does not like.   The Self-Leadership Model             The self-leadership is the ability of the subordinate to have its own motivation. This is also commonly known as the “substitute” for the leadership. The interactions of the leader-subordinate are the major part in the promotion of the self-leadership in its subordinate through the reinforcement and modeling (Sims, 1987). The self-leadership is also a component of the in group script. One of the key factors also to strengthen the self-leadership is with the aide of the social categorization process. The leader traits as well only have a least impact on its perspective in the extent of the presence of the self-leadership.             As the self-leadership is interpreted in the term of the social cognitive, then it has definitely had an influence on the subordinate which can be seen in the leadership. The influence is not directly occurs. In the leader behavior through the leadership perception which the subordinate is being internalized, then it also affects in the degree of the engagement which is involved in the self-leadership. The self-leadership then can be seen as the solution on the sequence of the social interaction. The model  has only a single episodes, and therefore has relative effect on the influence of the leader’s identification.             Sometimes, the self-leadership and the intrinsic motivation had been characterized as similar. But, looking further, the concept of the self-leadership extend in the natural rewards, rather it result in the task and in the performance of the on the activity on itself. Additionally, these natural rewards are primarily based on the intrinsic motivation. In accordance to the self-leadership, the range whereas the activities as well as the task are being chosen, perceived and structured for the increased competence and feelings as well as the task performance and self-determination are being enhanced.             The self-leadership is merely a learned behavior and not a fixed trait. Its proponents as well are commonly ignored individual and personality differences factors. In this manner, the personality traits are not related to the effectiveness of the self-leadership. This has also no relationship as well in the mental imagery and performance of the individual.   The Predictable Outcome of the Self-Leadership             In the self leadership, it can predict several outcomes or the association of the self-leadership strategies and its application to the corporate word. Part of the forecasted result that the company is looking forward are the independence, the commitment,  the trust, the creativity or the innovation, and the positive effect, the potency, the job satisfaction, self-efficacy and the psychological empowerment. The outcome of this strategy can then be affected the individual, the group as well as the performance of the organization. The commitment and the independence of the employees are due to the engaging in the self leadership over the task and in the process work. The employees also became creative and innovative as part of the appropriate and useful ideas as well as the implications of the creative concepts. The trust and the team potency also developed due to the facilitation of the effective team and internal leader. The positive effect and the job satisfaction also the outcome of the self-leadership due to their enthusiasm regarding the work they are into that made them to be satisfied on the field where they are currently belong. The self-leadership also is being proclaimed as the major mechanism when it comes to the empowerment through the creation of the purpose, meaningfulness, competence, and self-determination.             Finally, the employees are the major foundation for the business and they are also the major asset that is why they should be properly trained and give them importance.     Example of Self-Leadership Elements and Application             In the working of mine it has also been practice the concept of the self-leadership, on of the example if the use of the pattern includes the positive self-talk which talk of himself in the context of the thoughts and or actions and lead to the advancement of the self-efficacy. This is the time wherein one of my colleagues is telling to himself that he can better that what our co worker had done. He is also kept on telling to himself that his work can be improved. His performance also can be improved and the output of the his can be develop. That’s was the power the mind and its self leadership. The positive self-talk lead my colleague to the better outlook and to perform well. This self-talk also is his bridge towards the better perception and enthusiasm.             Another example of the self-leadership is the self-reinforcement. This simply implies of taking the reinforcer after the completion of the goal which is self-set. The example of this one is watching the movie right after writing section in the report. This is another colleague that giving herself a break after the writing several sections in her work. In this regard, he can relax for a while and can worker harder for the next report due to the fact that the movie relieves its stress and made him unwind for even for awhile.  In this manner after the goal of another report had been set out or done, then it self reinforcer made her a move for the movie to watch. This self motivation made her realized that the break needs in her work.   Bibliography Lord, R and Maher K 1993, Leadership and Information Processing: Linking Perception and Performance, Routledge Neck, C and Manz C 2006, Mastering Self Leadership: Empowering Yourself for Personal Excellence, Pearson/Prentice Hall Neck, C. 2006, Self Leadership, Emerald Group Publishing Employee Motivation Theory and Practice 2008, Accel Team, viewed 05 February, 2008 http://www.accel-team.com/motivation/index.html Motivating Employees 2001, 16types.com, viewed 05 February, 2008 http://www.16types.com/Request.jsp?lView=ViewArticle&Article=OID%3A400632 Self-Leadership: Portal to Freedom, Foundation of Success 2001, Unite Media Group Inc. Campbell, viewed 05 February, 2008 http://www.thinkavenue.com/articles/hr/article14.htm   Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

Self – Leadership

Self – Leadership Introduction For every economy and for every market, the environment workplace and the morale of the emplo...

Assessment of Motivational Strategies: Applied within HR team, managers and the workforce at Hospital 123 Research Proposal Paper

Section 1: The Proposal Template     Title “Assessment of Motivational Strategies: Applied within HR team, managers and the workforce at Hospital 123”   Abstract There are such desired strategies determining motivation in work organizations particularly Hospital 123 employees in assessing how HR team, managers and the workforce is motivated and given motivation appropriately as well as maintain good type of role performance, such job experiences from the Hospital 123 system that should be rewarding, particularly if these employees have freedom to move in and out of the organization. Motivating people with theories conceived in the 80’s and 90’s can be feasible thus, distill knowledge that will help illuminate the motivation path for present and future HR people. The core message is that Hospital 123 should consider better motivational patterns utilized to maintain good work performance. This research will assess the reliability and rationale of Hackman and Oldham’s job characteristics model among Hospital 123 employees. Then, continues by focusing on such job motivation elements of HR team, managers and workforce from such motivational outcomes. The purpose of the research is to describe such theory model of work motivation relevant to hospital work stance of professionalism .The theory will be derived from selected theories of behavioral motivation and work motivation as review of selected theories of motivation is presented, that includes theory analysis and evidence supporting theoretical propositions and linkages to Hospital 123 assessment of motivation strategies. Moreover, attention to motivation theory and research provides insights and suggests relationships among employees perception towards motivation at work as part of research paradigm.   Introduction Ideally, research questions impose a positive function in every research that will happen as it will provide a causal link among relevant theory applications within critical assessment and organization of related studies that can be found in the review of literature. The central question could be that, “Does Hospital 123 reflects an attempt to move such groups of employees such as HR team and managers and the workforce respectively through motivation conditions at work such as the enhancement of tasks within the job?     The sub-questions can be the following: <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%; text-autospace: none"> How does Hospital 123 motivate their staff? What are the ways of motivating them?</li> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%; text-autospace: none"> Does this work effectively among the employees? Why?</li> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%; text-autospace: none"> Are there any areas to be improved so that Hospital 123 staff be motivated accordingly? Explain and provide examples </li> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%; text-autospace: none"> How do the HR team, managers and workforce describe motivation approaches at Hospital 123? How do they see this as affecting staff commitment and performance?</li>   The questions mention above were interesting because it will possibly give the readers a brief overview of what the research is about and how the study process will be organized according to such critical aspects and will provide ideas as to how the literature works and be achieved from within.   Relation to previous research .According to Locke (Cited from, 1997), he said that motivation is determined by goal directedness, human volition or free will, and perceived needs and desires, sustaining the actions of individuals in relation to themselves and to their environment. Although this definition appears to be comprehensive, it is put forward here for critique amid other competing definitions found in the literature. Using Hind’s criteria for concept clarity, the authors propose the following definition for motivation: “Motivation is values-based, psycho-biologically stimulus-driven inner urge that activates and guides human behavior in response to self and environment, supporting intrinsic satisfaction and leading to the intentional fulfillment of basic human drives, perceived needs, and desired goals” (Cited from, Locke, 1997). As the definition meets Hinds’ criteria for conceptual clarity in that it uses clear, concise, positive, noncircular terms and language; it is in the natural context of self, other and environment; and it is on an expressive continuum from internal values to external behavior. Research on individual differences in relation to motivation and human performance at work is needed to explain variables linked with individual differences, theories of motivation, and relationships among personality and other psycho-social variables. Organizing and linking research and theory in these areas provides more insights into the complexity of work motivation. Motivation within its strategy ways amiably serves as an essential paradigm in determining professional growth also, in attaining personal development among Hospital 123 employees particularly within the human resources area as there can be related theoretical posits verifying motivation approaches applied among HR team, managers and the workforce in general. Motivation at work has been popular area of research as influenced on contemporary research and have provided a more informed understanding of work motivation. Essentially, such motivation models contend that work should be challenging and require workers to use skills and knowledge if they are to be motivated and if such jobs are unskilled and easily accomplished, Hospital 123 employees will become bored and frustrated and will give rise to job dissatisfaction unless job elements are changed in a positive way. Thus, for example Hackman and Oldham’s (1974, 1975) theory has not been tested among hospital catering employees. It is therefore essential that the theory be analyzed to establish rationale and reliability. There focuses upon “internal work motivation”, whereby the presence of specific job attributes motivates workers. The more effort expended by employees on their jobs, the more motivated they will become, creating self perpetuating cycle of motivation. For example, such hospital 123 employee from their workforce who has strong desire for accomplishment and growth should respond positively, but an incumbent who has low need for accomplishment or growth may feel intimidated and consequently may not respond favourably. Proposed methods The research will have the utilization of semi-structured interview methodology serving as a primary method for assimilation because it is believed to be effective and accessible for the researcher to gather all the needed information in realizing the whole process of the study and thus, interview method allows the respondents to freely share their ideas and respond properly to such interview questions as precisely as possible. It can be ideal to just limit the representation of sample respondents to just 15 employees in total particularly:   - Five (5) employees who are part of the HR Team - Five (5) employees who are HR heads/managers - Five (5) employees coming from the Hospital 123 workforce Quantitative data collection methods are centred on the determination of the weighted mean of the given statements. When these methods are used, the researcher is usually detached from the study and the final output is context free. Measurement, numerical data, and statistics are the main substance of quantitative instruments (Cited from, Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2003). With these instruments, an explicit description of data collection and analysis of procedures are necessary. The quantitative approach is more on the detailed description of phenomenon. It basically gives generalization of the gathered data with tentative synthesized interpretations. The quantitative data gathering methods are useful especially when study needs to measure the perception of the respondents regarding the focus topic (Cited from, Gall, Gall and Borg, 2003).   Then, there should be such support method in such secondary method approach that can be through the utilization of case study analysis pointing to motivation strategies applied by the Hospital 123 through such press releases and or statements or reports from the HR area along with relevant information from peer reviewed journals and articles, with the use of interviews and published literatures, this research takes the combined quantitative and qualitative approach of research (Cited from, Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill, 2003) from reliable publication resources such as Emerald insight – EBSCO database, Blackwell Synergy and or from Questia Library Reflections The researcher believes that such substantial purpose do ideally support motivation at work of Hospital 123 employees affect but, in broader sense, there is human trait purpose akin to mission that arises more symbolically to support and guide one’s motivational behaviors in research analysis contexts as sustained by held values that connect to perceived meaning of one’s motivation at work. Thus, there can be hindrance to such alignment factors involved in research such as affecting certain implicit meaning of Hospital work, as such employees in the HR area are more inclined to commit to Hospital principles and trust in legitimacy of management to support purposeful work as being congruent with employee values, even in context of change in work situations as revealed through reflection. In addition, some proponents had posited that such work purpose backed by value system that is meaningful to the employee is driver of the motivation approaches as human motivation starts with needs, but how work values grow out of human needs has not been empirically studied. The research will suggests that the desire for meta-level purpose at Hospital 123 supports human need nested in motivation to improve professional skills from within. Thus, there consistently encourages and incorporates nurses’ professional ethical value system and conscious reflective attention to this value system contributes necessary meaning and professional purpose management that support nurses’ intrinsic motivation at work as influenced by individual differences and trait variations affecting individual mindfulness and reflective skills as individual performance factors need to be taken into consideration related to strategies found into such job role of the HR team, managers and workforce at Hospital 123. The research can thus pursue ideal contributions for greater good in such societal as well as political process that can impose some research barriers to be avoided. For ethical considerations, in keeping with the appropriate procedures and in the interest of maintaining the integrity of the research, the researcher had made every effort to ensure that the ethical guidelines for conducting study were strictly followed. Prior to commencing with the research, permission was obtained from each customer, who participated in the study. All data collected from the respondents were kept in secure location. The names of the respondents were secured. The objective, purpose and the significance of the study were all relayed to the participants before initiating the research process.    Conclusion It can concluded that, motivation strategies do basically impose a positive function among employees at Hospital 123 thus, allowing them to see and perceived differently how they are motivated and how motivation strategies is applied to them as they have diverse job specifications within the organization. The theory of Hackman and Oldham will be utilized in the study as one positive theory that explains the depth of motivation process that Hospital 123 staff can use. Therefore, it is imperative for the research to amicably identify, determine and evaluate how such groups, the HR team, managers and workforce are being motivated according to standards and to understand and be aware of motivation strategies as presented by various theoretical proponents relevant for the completion of research.       Timetable   TASK Month   1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th Select topic                   Undertake preliminary literature search                   <ul style="margin-top: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in" type="disc"> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center"> Define research questions </li> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center"> Write-up aims and objectives </li> </ul>                   Select appropriate methodology and locate sources of information. Confirm access.                   Write-up Dissertation Plan                   Undertake and write-up draft critical literature review.                   Secondary and Primary Data Detailed <ul style="margin-top: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in" type="disc"> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center"> Sources </li> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center"> Consulted </li> </ul>                   Research Findings: <ul style="margin-top: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in" type="disc"> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center"> Analysed </li> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center"> Evaluated </li> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center"> Written-up </li> </ul>                   Discussion: <ul style="margin-top: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in" type="disc"> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center"> Research findings evaluated and discussed in relation to the literature review </li> </ul>                   Methodology written-up (including limitations and constraints)                   Main body of the report written-up and checked for logical structure                   <ul style="margin-top: 0in; margin-bottom: 0in" type="disc"> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center"> Conclusions drawn </li> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center"> Recommendations made </li> </ul>                   Introduction and Executive Summary written-up                   Final format and indexing                     Print                       References   Gall, M. D., Gall, J. P., & Borg, W. R. (2003). Educational Research: An Introduction (7th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon   Hackman, J.R., Oldham, G.R. (1974), Motivation Through the Design of Work: Test of a Theory, SOM, Yale University, New Haven, CT   Hackman, J.R., Oldham, G.R. (1975), “Development of the job diagnostic survey”, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 60 No.2, pp.159-70   Locke, E. A. (1997). The motivation to work: What we know. In M. Maehr & P. Pintrich (Eds.), Advances in motivation and achievement (Vol. 10, pp. 375–412) Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.   Saunders, M., Lewis, P., Thronhill, A., (2003). Research Methods for Business Students 3rd Edition. Prentice Hall                             Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

Assessment of Motivational Strategies: Applied within HR team, managers and the workforce at Hospital 123 Research Proposal Paper

Section 1: The Proposal Template Title “Assessment of Motivational Strategies: Applied within HR team, managers and the workfo...