中国经济管理大学
MBA课堂
《组织行为学》

CHAPTER 5 - MOTIVATION: FROM CONCEPTS TO APPLICATIONS

CHAPTER OBJECTIVES
After reading this chapter, students should be able to:
Identify the four ingredients common to management by objectives (MBO) programs.
Outline the five-step problem-solving model in OB Mod.
Explain why managers might want to use employee involvement programs.
Contrast participative management with employee involvement.
Explain how employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) can increase employee motivation.
Describe the link between skill-based pay plans and motivation theories.

LECTURE OUTLINE
I. MANAGEMENT BY OBJECTIVES
A. Goal-setting Theory
1. An impressive base of research support.
2. How do you make goal setting operational?
a) In­stall an MBO program.

B. What Is MBO?
1. Management by objectives (MBO) emphasizes participatively set goals that are tan­gible, verifiable, and measurable.
a) MBO was originally pro­posed by Peter Drucker forty-five years ago as a means of using goals to motivate people rather than to control them.
2. MBO appeal is the emphasis on converting overall organi­zational objectives into specific objectives for organizational units and individual members.
a) See Exhibit 5-1 for the process by which objectives cascade down through the organization.
3. MBO works from the bottom up as well as from the top down.
a) The hi­erarchy of objectives link objectives at one level to those at the next level.
b) If all the individuals achieve their goals, then their unit’s goals will be attained and the organization’s overall objectives will become a reality.
4. Four ingredients are common to MBO programs: goal specificity, participative decision making, an explicit time period, and performance feedback.
a) The objectives in MBO should be concise statements of expected accomplish­ments.
b) MBO replaces imposed goals with participatively determined goals.
c) Each objective has a specific time period in which it is to be completed. Typi­cally, the time period is three months, six months, or a year.
d) MBO seeks to give continuous feedback on progress toward goals so that individuals can monitor and correct their own actions.
(1) Continuous feedback, supplemented by more formal periodic managerial evaluations, takes place at the top of the organi­zation as well as at the bottom.

C. Linking MBO and Goal-Setting Theory
1. Goal-setting theory demonstrates:
a) Hard goals result in a higher level of individ­ual performance.
b) Feedback on one’s performance leads to higher performance.
2. MBO directly advocates:
a) Specific goals and feedback.
b) MBO implies, rather than explicitly states, that goals must be perceived as feasible.
c) Consistent with goal setting theory, MBO would be most effective when the goals are difficult enough to require the person to do some stretching.
3. The only area of possible disagreement between MBO and goal-setting the­ory is related to the issue of participation.
a) MBO strongly advocates it.
b) Goal-setting theory demonstrates that assigning goals to subordinates frequently works just as well.
c) The major benefit to using participation, however, is that is appears to induce individuals to establish more difficult goals.

D. MBO in Practice
1. Reviews of studies suggest that it is a popular technique.
a) MBO programs are in busi­ness, health care, educational, government, and nonprofit organizations.
2. MBO’s popularity should not be construed to mean that it always works.
a) There are a number of documented cases in which MBO was implemented but failed to meet management’s expectations.
b) The problems rarely lie with MBO’s basic components.
c) The causes tend to be unrealistic expectations, lack of top-management commitment, and an inability or unwillingness by management to allocate rewards based on goal accomplishment.

II. BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION
A. Emery Air Freight Study
1. Occurred almost thirty years ago with freight packers at Emery Air Freight (now part of FedEx)
a) Management wanted packers to aggregate shipments into freight containers rather than handle many separate items.
b) Packers claimed 90 percent of shipments were put in containers.
c) Analysis showed container use rate was only 45 percent.
d) In order to encourage employees to use containers, management established a program of feedback and positive reinforce­ment.
e) Container use jumped to more than 90 percent on the first day of the program and held to that level.
f) This simple program saved the com­pany millions of dollars.
2. The Emery Air Freight study illustrates the use of organizational behavior modifica­tion (OB Mod).

B. What Is OB Mod?
1. See Exhibit 5-2.
2. A five-step problem-solving model:
a) Identify performance-related behaviors.
b) Measure the behav­iors.
c) Identify behavioral contingencies.
d) Develop and implement an inter­vention strategy.
e) Evaluate performance improvement.
3. Identify the behaviors that have a significant impact on the employee’s job performance.
a) These are those 5 to 10 percent of behaviors that may account for up to 70 or 80 percent of each employee’s performance.
4. The manager then develops some baseline perfor­mance information.
a) The number of times the identified behavior is occur­ring under present conditions.
5. The third step is to perform a functional analysis to identify the behavioral contingencies or consequences of performance.
a) This tells the manager which cues emit the behavior and which consequences are currently maintaining it.
6. Now the manager is ready to develop and implement an intervention strategy to strengthen desirable performance be­haviors and weaken undesirable behaviors.
a) The appropriate strategy will entail changing some element of the performance-reward linkage—structure, processes, technology, groups, or the task—with the goal of making high-level performance more rewarding.
7. The final step in OB Mod is to evaluate performance improvement.

C. Linking OB Mod and Reinforcement Theory
1. Reinforcement theory relies on positive reinforcement, shaping, and recognizing the impact of different schedules of reinforcement on behavior.
2. OB Mod uses these concepts to provide managers with a powerful/proven means for changing employee behavior.

D. OB Mod in Practice
1. OB Mod has been used to improve employee productivity and to reduce errors, ab­senteeism, tardiness, and accident rates.
a) General Electric
b) Weyerhauser
c) The city of Detroit
d) Xerox
2. A general review of OB programs found an average 17 percent improvement in performance.

III. EMPLOYEE RECOGNITION PROGRAMS
A. The Laura Schendell Example
1. Organizations are increasingly recognizing what Laura Schendell is acknowl­edging: recognition can be a potent motivator.

B. What Are Employee Recognition Programs?
1. Numerous forms
2. The best use mul­tiple sources and recognize both individual and group accomplishments.

C. Linking Recognition Programs and Reinforcement Theory
1. A survey of 1,500 employees regarding the most powerful workplace motivator.
a) Their response was recognition, recognition, and more recognition.
2. Consistent with reinforcement theory, rewarding a behavior with recognition immediately following that behavior is likely to encourage its repetition.
3. And that recognition can take many forms.
a) Personally congratulate an employee in private for a good job.
b) Send a handwritten note or an e-mail message.
c) Publicly recognize accomplishments.
d) And to enhance group cohesiveness and motivation, you can celebrate team suc­cesses.

D. Employee Recognition Programs in Practice
1. Today’s cost pressures make recognition programs particularly attractive.
a) Recognizing an employee’s superior performance often costs little or no money.
b) A survey of 3,000 employers found that two-thirds use or plan to use special recognition awards.
2. One of the most well-known and widely-used recognition devices is a sugges­tion system.
a) Employees offer suggestions for improving processes or cutting costs and are recognized with small cash awards.
3. The Japanese have been especially ef­fective at making suggestion systems work.
a) A typical high-performing Japanese plant in the auto components business generates 47 suggestions per em­ployee a year and pays approximately the equivalent of U.S. $35.00 per suggestion.
b) In contrast, a comparable Western factory generates about one suggestion per em­ployee per year but pays out $90.00 per suggestion.

IV. EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT PROGRAMS
A. Example
1. Teams perform many tasks and assume many of the responsibilities once handled by their supervisors.

B. What Is Employee Involvement?
1. Employee involvement has become a convenient catchall term to cover a variety of techniques.
a) Employee partici­pation or participative management
b) Workplace democracy
c) Empowerment
d) Employee ownership
2. Employee involvement is a participative process that uses the entire capacity of employees and is designed to encourage increased commitment to the organization’s success.
a) The underlying logic involves workers in decisions that will affect them and increases their autonomy and control, which will result in higher motivation, greater commitment, more productivity, and more satisfaction.
3. Participation and employee involvement are not synonyms.
a) Participation is a more limited term.
b) It is a subset within the larger framework of em­ployee involvement.

C. Examples of Employee Involvement Programs
1. Three forms of employee involvement:  participative management, representative participation, and employee stock ownership plans.
2. Participative Management
a) Characteristic of all participative manage­ment programs is joint decision making.
b) Has been promoted as a panacea for poor morale and low productivity.
c) Not always appropri­ate. For it to work:
(1) There must be adequate time to participate.
(2) The issues must be relevant to the employees.
(3) Employees must have the ability to participate.
(4) The organization’s culture must support employee involvement.
d) Dozens of studies have been conducted on the participation-performance re­lationship.
(1) Mixed findings.
3. Representative Participation
a) Rather than participating directly in decisions, workers are represented by a small group of employees who actually participate.
(1) The most widely legislated form of employee involvement around the world.
4. The goal of representative participation is to redistribute power within an or­ganization.
5. The two most common forms that representative participation takes are works councils and board representatives.
a) Works councils link employees with management. They are groups of nominated or elected employees who must be consulted when management makes decisions involving personnel.
b) Board representatives are employees who sit on a company’s board of directors and represent the inter­ests of the firm’s employees. In some countries, large companies may be legally re­quired to make sure that employee representatives have the same number of board seats as stockholder representatives.
6. The overall influence of representative participation on working employees seems to be minimal.
a) Works councils are dominated by management and have little impact on employees or the organiza­tion.
b) The greatest value of representative participation is symbolic.
7. Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs)
a) Company-established benefit plans in which employees acquire stock as part of their benefits.
(1) United Airlines, Publix Supermarkets, Graybar Electric, and Anderson Corporation are four examples of companies that are more than 50 percent owned by employees.
b) In the typical ESOP an employee stock ownership trust is created.
c) Compa­nies contribute either stock or cash to buy stock for the trust and allocate the stock to employees.
d) Employees usually can­not take physical possession of their shares or sell them as long as they’re still em­ployed at the company.
e) ESOPs increase employee satisfaction and fre­quently result in higher performance.

D. Linking Employee Involvement Program and Motivation Theories
1. Employee involvement draws on several motivation theories.
a) Theory Y is consistent with participative management.
b) Theory X aligns with the more traditional autocratic style of managing people.
c) Two-factor theory relates to employee involvement programs that provide employ­ees with intrinsic motivation by increasing opportunities for growth, responsibility, and involvement in the work itself.

E. Employee Involvement Programs in Practice
1. Germany, France, the Netherlands, and the Scandinavian countries have firmly es­tablished the principle of industrial democracy in Europe, and other nations, in­cluding Japan and Israel, have traditionally practiced some form of representative participation for decades.
2. Participative management and representative participation were much slower to gain ground in North American organizations.
a) Now, employee involvement programs stressing participation are the norm.
3. ESOPs.
a) They are becoming a popular employee involvement program-having grown to around 10,000, cover­ing more than 10 million employees.

V. VARIABLE-PAY PROGRAMS
A. Examples
1. Nucor Steel has had an incentive compensation plan in place that pays bonuses of as much as 150 percent of base to employees.
2. Rick Benson, an invest­ment banker with Merrill Lynch, earned $1.4 million in 1998—more than six times his base salary.
3. C. Michael Armstrong, Chairman and CEO of AT&T, saw his annual salary and bonus drop from $4.59 million to $3.26 million in 2000.

B. What Are Variable-Pay Programs?
1. Piece-rate plans, wage incentives, profit sharing, bonuses, and gain sharing are all forms of variable-pay programs.
2. Differ from traditional programs in that a person is paid not only for time on the job or seniority but for some individual or or­ganizational measure of performance or both.
3. Variable pay is not an annuity.
a) With variable pay, earnings fluctuate with the measure of performance.
4. This fluctuation makes these programs at­tractive to management.
a) Part of an organization’s fixed labor costs become a variable cost.
b) In addition, when pay is tied to performance, earnings recognize contribution rather than being a form of entitlement.
5. Four of the more widely used of the variable-pay programs follow.
a) Piece-rate wages have been around for nearly a century.
(1) Popular as a means for compen­sating production workers.
(2) Workers are paid a fixed sum for each unit of production completed.
(3) A system in which an employee gets no base salary and is paid only for what he or she produces is a pure piece-rate plan.
(4) Many organizations use a modified piece-rate plan, in which employees earn a base hourly wage plus a piece-rate differential.
b) Bonuses can be paid exclusively to executives or to all employees.
(1) Increasingly, bonus plans are taking on a larger net within organizations to include lower-ranking employees.
c) Profit-sharing plans are organization-wide programs that distribute compensa­tion based on some established formula designed around a company’s profitability.
(1) These can be direct cash outlays or, particularly in the case of top managers, allo­cated as stock options.
d) The variable-pay program that has gotten the most attention in recent years is undoubtedly gainsharing.
(1) A formula-based group incentive plan. Improve­ments in group productivity—from one period to another—determine the total amount of money to be allocated.
(2) The productivity savings can be split between the company and employees in any number of ways, but 50-50 is pretty typical.
(3) Gainsharing is similar to profit sharing, not the same.
(a) By focusing on productivity gains rather than on profits, gainsharing rewards specific behaviors that are less influenced by external factors than profits are.
(b) Employees in a gainsharing plan can receive incentive awards even when the organization isn’t profitable.
6. Variable-pay programs increase motivation and productiv­ity.
a) Gain sharing has been found to improve productivity in most cases and often has a positive impact on employee at­titudes.

C. Linking Variable-Pay Programs and Expectancy Theory
1. Variable pay is compatible with expectancy theory predictions.
2. Group and organization-wide incentives encourage employees to sublimate personal goals in the best interests of their department or the organization.
3. Group-based performance incentives help build a strong team ethic.

D. Variable-Pay Programs in Practice
1. Variable pay is rapidly replacing the annual cost-of-living raise because of:
a) its motivational power.
b) the cost im­plications.
c) the need to avoid the fixed expense of permanent salary boosts.
2. Pay-for-performance has been important for compensating managers for more than a decade.
3. The new trend has been to expand this practice to nonmanagerial em­ployees.
a) Seventy-two percent of all U.S. companies had some form of variable-pay plan for nonexecutives in the year 2000.
4. Gainsharing’s popularity seems to be restricted to large, unionized manufac­turing companies.

VI. SKILL-BASED PAY PLANS
A. What Are Skill-Based Pay Plans?
1. Skill-based pay is an alternative to job-based pay.
2. Skill-based pay (also called competency-based pay) sets pay levels on the basis of how many skills employees have or how many jobs they can do.
3. The appeal of skill-based pay plans is flexibility.
a) Filling staffing needs is easier when employee skills are interchangeable.
b) It facilitates communication throughout the organization be­cause people gain a better understanding of others’ jobs.
c) It lessens dysfunctional “protection of territory” behavior.
d) Skill-based pay also helps meet the needs of am­bitious employees who confront minimal advancement opportunities. 
4. There are downsides of skill-based pay.
a) People can “top out” relearning all the skills the program calls for them to learn.
b) Skills can also become obsolete.
c) Skill-based plans do not ad­dress level of performance, only whether someone can perform the skill.

B. Linking Skill-Based Pay Plans to Motivation Theories
1. Skill-based pay plans are consistent with several motivation theories.
2. Because they encourage employees to learn, expand their skills, and grow, they are consistent with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory.
3. Paying people to expand their skill levels is also consistent with research on the achievement need.
a) High achievers have a compelling drive to do things better or more efficiently.
4. There is also a link between reinforcement theory and skill-based pay.
a) Skill-based pay encourages employees to develop their flexibility, to continue to learn, to cross train, to be generalists rather than specialists, and to work cooperatively with others in the organization.
b) To the degree that management wants employees to demonstrate such behaviors, skill-based pay acts as a reinforcer.
5. Skill-based pay may also have equity implications.
a) When employees make their input-outcome comparisons, skills may provide a fairer input criterion for de­termining pay.

C. Skill-Based Pay in Practice
1. The overall conclusion of studies is that the use of skill-based pay is ex­panding and that it generally leads to higher employee performance and satisfac­tion.

VII. IMPLICATIONS FOR MANAGERS
1. Organizations have introduced a number of programs designed to increase em­ployee motivation, productivity, and satisfaction. Importantly, these programs are grounded on basic motivation theories.
2. It is easy to criticize educators and researchers for their focus on building the­ories. Students and practitioners often consider these theories unrealistic or irrele­vant to solving real-life problems. This chapter makes a good rebuttal to those crit­ics. It illustrates how tens of thousands of organizations and millions of managers in countries around the globe are using motivation theories to build practical in­centive programs.
3. The six motivation programs we discussed in this chapter are not applicable to every organization or every manager’s needs. But an understanding of these programs will help you design internal systems that can increase employee produc­tivity and satisfaction.

SUMMARY
Management by objectives (MBO) emphasizes participatively set goals that are tan­gible, verifiable, and measurable. Its appeal is its ability to convert overall organi­zational objectives into specific objectives for organizational units and individual members. MBO works from the bottom up as well as from the top down. There are four ingredients common to MBO programs: goal specificity, participative decision making, an explicit time period, and performance feedback.
MBO and goal-setting theory are complementary. Goal-setting theory demonstrates that hard goals result in a higher level of individ­ual performance and that feedback on one’s performance leads to higher performance. MBO advocates specific goals and feedback. Consistent with goal setting theory, MBO would be most effective when the goals are difficult enough to require the person to do some stretching. MBO and goal-setting the­ory differ in terms of participation; MBO strongly advocates it, while goal-setting theory demonstrates that assigning goals to subordinates frequently works just as well.
The five-step problem-solving model in OB modification model includes identifying performance-related behaviors, measuring the behav­iors, identifying behavioral contingencies, developing and implementing an inter­vention strategy, and evaluating performance improvement. It requires the identification of the behaviors that have a significant impact on the employee’s job performance.
Employee involvement has become a convenient catchall term to cover a variety of techniques: employee partici­pation, or participative management; workplace democracy; empowerment; and employee ownership. Employee involvement is a participative process that uses the entire capacity of employees and is designed to encourage increased commitment to the organization’s success. The underlying logic involves workers in decisions that will affect them and increase their autonomy and control, which will result in higher motivation, greater commitment, more productivity, and more satisfaction.
There are three primary types of employee involvement programs. Participative management involves joint decision making and is often promoted as a panacea for poor morale and low productivity. Representative participation, involves workers being represented by a small group of employees who actually participate. And ESOPs or employee stock ownership plans, company-established benefit plans in which employees acquire stock as part of their benefits.
Employee involvement programs are practiced around the world. Germany, France, the Netherlands, and the Scandinavian countries have firmly es­tablished the principle of industrial democracy in Europe, and other nations, in­cluding Japan and Israel, have traditionally practiced some form of representative participation for decades.
ESOPs can increase employee motivation. They tend to increase employee satisfaction and fre­quently result in higher performance. They are company-established benefit plans in which employees acquire stock as part of their benefits. Employees usually can­not take physical possession of their shares or sell them as long as they’re still em­ployed at the company.
Variable-pay programs are another way to motivate employees through piece-rate plans, wage incentives, profit sharing, bonuses, and gain sharing are all forms of variable-pay programs. These differ from traditional programs in that a person is paid not only for time on the job or seniority but for some individual or or­ganizational measure of performance or both.
Variable pay is compatible with expectancy theory predictions. The evidence supports the importance of this linkage, especially for operative employees working under piece-rate systems. Group and organization-wide incentives encourage employees to sublimate personal goals in the best interests of their department or the organization.
Skill-based pay is an alternative to job-based pay. Its sets pay levels on the basis of how many skills employees have or how many jobs they can do. The appeal of skill-based pay plans is flexibility. There are some downsides however. People can “top out” relearning all the skills the program calls for them to learn, skills can also become obsolete, and so on.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
How does management by objectives work?
Answer - MBO emphasizes participatively set goals that are tan­gible, verifiable, and measurable. Its appeal is in the emphasis on converting overall organi­zational objectives into specific objectives for organizational units and individual members. Exhibit 5-1 shows the process by which objectives cascade down through the organization. MBO works from the bottom up as well as from the top down. The hi­erarchy of objectives link objectives at one level to those at the next level.

Describe the characteristics of an effective MBO program.
Answer - There are four common characteristics: goal specificity, par­ticipative decision making, an explicit time period, and performance feedback. The objectives in MBO should be concise statements of expected accomplish­ments. MBO replaces imposed goals with participatively determined goals. Each objective has a specific time period in which it is to be completed. Typi­cally, the time period is three months, six months, or a year. MBO seeks to give continuous feedback on progress toward goals so that individuals can monitor and correct their own actions. Continuous feedback, supplemented by more formal periodic managerial evaluations, takes place at the top of the organi­zation as well as at the bottom.

Design a behavior modification program for training bank tellers in customer service.
Answer - Students answers will vary, but they should cover the basic steps. 1) Identify the behaviors that have a significant impact on the employee’s job performance. 2) Develop baseline perfor­mance information by observing the number of times the identified behavior is occur­ring under present conditions. 3) Perform a functional analysis to identify the behavioral contingencies or consequences of performance. 4) Develop and implement an intervention strategy to strengthen desirable performance be­haviors and weaken undesirable behaviors. 5) The final step in OB Mod is to evaluate performance improvement.

Why might managers want to use employee recognition programs?
Answer – Recognition can be a potent motivator.  The best programs use multiple courses and recognize both individual and group accomplishments.  Consistent with reinforcement theory, rewarding a behavior with recognition immediately following that behavior is likely to encourage its repetition.  In contrast to most other motivators, recognizing an employee’s superior performance often costs little or not money, and is therefore attractive in today’s highly competitive global economy.

Why might managers want to use employee involvement programs?
Answer - Employee involvement is a participative process that uses the entire capacity of employees and is designed to encourage increased commitment to the organization’s success. The underlying logic involves workers in decisions that will affect them and increases their autonomy and control, which will result in higher motivation, greater commitment, more productivity, and more satisfaction. Employee involvement draws on several motivation theories—Theory Y is consistent with participative management, Theory X aligns with the more traditional autocratic style of managing people, and two-factor theory relates to employee involvement programs that provide employ­ees with intrinsic motivation by increasing opportunities for growth, responsibility, and involvement in the work itself.

If a manager decided to implement an employee involvement program what choices would he or she have? Why would he use one rather than another?
Answer – Use participative management. Characteristic of all participative manage­ment programs is joint decision making. Use representative participation. Workers are represented by a small group of employees who actually participate. It is the most widely legislated form of employee involvement around the world. The goal of representative participation is to redistribute power within an or­ganization. The two most common forms that representative participation takes are works councils and board representatives. Employee stock ownership plans are company-established benefit plans in which employees acquire stock as part of their benefits.

Explain how ESOPs can increase employee motivation.
Answer - Employee stock ownership plans are company-established benefit plans in which employees acquire stock as part of their benefits. In the typical ESOP an employee stock ownership trust is created. Compa­nies contribute either stock or cash to buy stock for the trust and allocate the stock to employees. Employees usually can­not take physical possession of their shares or sell them as long as they’re still em­ployed at the company. ESOPs increase employee satisfaction and fre­quently result in higher performance.

What is the differene between gain sharing and profit sharing as a variable-pay program?
Answer – They are similar but not the same.  By focusing on productivity gains rather than on profits, gain sharing rewards specific behaviors that are less influenced by external factors than profits are.  Employees in a gain sharing plan can receive incentive awards even when the organization isn’t profitable. 

What is the relationship between skill-based pay plans and motivation theories?
Answer - Skill-based pay plans are consistent with several motivation theories. Because they encourage employees to learn, expand their skills, and grow, they are consistent with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory. Paying people to expand their skill levels is also consistent with research on the achievement need. High achievers have a compelling drive to do things better or more efficiently. There is also a link between reinforcement theory and skill-based pay. Skill-based pay encourages employees to develop their flexibility, to continue to learn, to cross train, to be generalists rather than specialists, and to work cooperatively with others in the organization. Skill-based pay may also have equity implications. When employees make their input-outcome comparisons, skills may provide a fairer input criterion for de­termining pay.

EXERCISES
A. An Application of Motivation—MBO
The goal here is to help students apply MBO as they will most likely have to deal with it in their first jobs. The emphasis should be on creating measurable realistic objectives. We will apply the MBO process to the classroom. Consider using this as an exercise to organize students’ effort for the semester. You can use this as part of your grading for the course by holding the students accountable for their objectives at the end of the semester.
Review the principles of MBO with the class.
Assign them the task of individually creating five MBOs for themselves for this class for the semester.
By now the students have been in class long enough to have a sense of course content, your style, and so on.
Students should have a clear idea of your objectives for the class.
Students should have a syllabus or an idea of the assignments or projects that will be due.
Have students write one MBO in class.
Ask volunteers to share their objective.
You will get a number of, “Get an A in the course.” Be gentle as you point out why this is not an effective objective.
Critique the objective stressing both the principles of an effective objective and how well it relates to the course objectives.
Have students complete their assignment and bring written objectives into the next class.
Place students in pairs or small groups of five or fewer and have them share their objectives with each other.
Have each group share the three to five best objectives with the class either orally or by copying them on the board.
Discuss the objectives, collect the written copies.

B. An Application of Motivation—ESOP

The goal is to help students better understand Employee Stock Ownership Plans, as many of them will be employed (currently or in the future) by organization which use ESOPs as a motivational tool.  In fact, many organizations even use the ESOP as a recruitment tool, and students need to understand how this benefit/program can work for them, and if this is a plan has enough value to them to be considered in the job choosing/accepting phase of being employed.

1. Review the principles of ESOPs with the class.
2. Have students, using various research methods (Internet, primary research, library research) identify several organizations, a minimum of three, which utilize an ESOP.  Have students gather as much detailed information as possible about the particulars of each ESOP.
3. Have each student which a brief synopsis, or summary, or the three ESOPs they researched, and bring these synopses to class.
4. In class have the students share details about their research either as a whole class, or in small groups, with these small groups reporting the most interesting facts to the whole class.
5. If the local area supports enough organizations, the students could be encouraged/required to contact only local organizations for ESOP information.  However, the exercise could be expanded to include any type of organization or industry.  A comparison ESOPs across industries would be an interesting option also.