Week 3 – Assignment

Motivation Case Study

To be effective, a company must learn to motivate its employees to efficiently and effectively meet the goals of the organization. Prior to starting this case study, read Chapter 6 in your text, the article Person-organization Fit, Family Supportive Organization Perceptions, and Self-efficacy Affect Work-life Balance, watch the required videos, Dan Pink: The puzzle of motivation (Links to an external site.)and Dan Ariely: What makes us feel good about our work? (Links to an external site.), review the Writing a Case Study Analysis (Links to an external site.) resource from the Ashford Writing Center, and review the weekly Instructor Guidance and any supporting information in the announcements.

The Motivation Case Study:

• Identify a company that struggles with employee motivation. Make your choice based on evidence from resources you find. Be sure to document these resources so you can include as citations and references in your paper. The company may be currently active or no longer operating.
  • Not sure how to start? Try googling “Worst companies to work for” or “companies with poor motivation.” Numerous sites list companies that are struggling in differing areas. Once you identify the company you want to research, google news articles or other sites that include information about the company and the situations affecting motivation/challenges.
• Research the company and the associated motivational challenges.
  • As you research, consider this week’s activity about bias to try and rule out commentary that may not be credible. Seek professional sites, rather than just opinions. Check out the What is CRAAP? A Guide To Evaluating Web Sources (Links to an external site.) and this Four Moves & a Habit: A Guide for Web Literacy and Fact Checking (Links to an external site.) resources for support.
  • Include a short summary about the company.
    • Note that enough information should be included to inform the reader (your instructor) about the company and the noted challenges/issues.
• Identify three to five motivational challenges within the company that you discovered through your research. Support this information with citations for the sources that provided you the information about the organization.
• Discuss potential rationales for why the company is experiencing these issues. Support your assertions with credible sources.
• Identify at least three content theories and/or process theories of motivation, discussed in this week’s text chapters that could be applicable to determining strategies/solutions. (You are to identify the theories that you think could be applied to improve the organization’s situation.) Consider using headings in your paper to organize this information.
  • Note that extrinsic and intrinsic motivation are types of motivation and should not be presented as theories, but as variables within a theory.
• Discuss Possible Solutions/Changes Needed
  • Identify at least two strategies that could be applied to improve motivation, based on your reading and research.

The Motivation Case Study paper

• Must be four to five double-spaced pages in length (not including title and references pages) and formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center (Links to an external site.)’s APA Style (Links to an external site.)
• Must include a separate title page with the following:
  • Title of paper
  • Student’s name
  • Course name and number
  • Instructor’s name
  • Date submitted
    For further assistance with the formatting and the title page, refer to APA Formatting for Word 2013 (Links to an external site.).

• Must utilize academic voice. See the Academic Voice (Links to an external site.) resource for additional guidance.
• Must include an introduction and conclusion paragraph. Your introduction paragraph needs to end with a clear thesis statement that indicates the purpose of your paper.
  • For assistance on writing Introductions & Conclusions (Links to an external site.) as well as Writing a Thesis Statement (Links to an external site.), refer to the Ashford Writing Center resources.
• Must use at least one peer-reviewed source in addition to the course text. You are encouraged to use additional credible websites and articles that offer information about the company you have chosen.
  • The Scholarly, Peer-Reviewed, and Other Credible Sources (Links to an external site.) table offers additional guidance on appropriate source types.
  • To assist you in completing the research required for this assignment, view this Ashford University Library Quick ‘n’ Dirty (Links to an external site.) tutorial, which introduces the Ashford University Library and the research process, and provides some library search tips.
• Must document any information used from sources in APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center’s Citing Within Your Paper (Links to an external site.) Include frequent citations for resources utilized.
• Must include a separate references page that is formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center. See the Formatting Your References List (Links to an external site.) resource in the Ashford Writing Center for specifications.

Resource: Before you submit your written assignment, you are encouraged to review the The Grammarly Guide: How to Set Up & Use Grammarly (Links to an external site.) tutorial set up a Grammarly account (if you have not already done so), and use Grammarly to review a rough draft of your assignment. Then carefully review all issues identified by Grammarly and revise your work as needed.

Cite all information from your sources according to APA guidelines as outlined in the In-Text Citation Helper: A Guide to Making APA In-Text Citations (Links to an external site.). List each of your sources at the end of your post according to APA style as shown in the APA References List Sample (Links to an external site.) resource.

Carefully review the Grading Rubric (Links to an external site.) for the criteria that will be used to evaluate your assignment.