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MANAGING PROJECTS

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Projects represent nonroutine business activities that often have long-term strategic ramifications for a firm. In this chapter, we examined how projects differ from routine business activities and discussed the major phases of projects. We noted how environmental changes have resulted in increased attention being paid to projects and project management over the past decade. In the second half of the chapter, we introduced some basic tools that businesses can use when planning for and controlling projects. Both Gantt charts and network diagrams give managers a visual picture of how a project is going. Network diagrams have the added advantage of showing the precedence between activities, as well as the critical path(s). We wrapped up the chapter by showing how these concepts are embedded in inexpensive yet powerful software packages such as Microsoft Project. If you want to learn more about project management, we encourage you to take a look at the Web site for the Proj...
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Motivating Employees

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A six-stage motivational model indicates that individuals behave in certain ways to satisfy their needs. Leaders have three motivational challenges: Motives can only be inferred, needs are dynamic, and there are considerable differences in individuals’ motivations.
Two human needs models of motivation are widely recognized. Maslow proposed that individuals have five types of needs: physiological, security, affiliation, esteem, and self-actualization, and that when a need is satisfied it no longer motivates a person. McClelland believed that individuals have three learned needs (achievement, power, and affiliation) that are rooted in the culture of a society. We focused on the role of the achievement need and indicated the characteristics associated with high achievers, including that they like to set their own moderate goals and perform tasks that give them immediate feedback.
Herzberg claimed that two types of factors affect a person’s motivation: motivator and hygiene factors. Motivators, such as job challenge, lead to job satisfaction but not to job dissatisfaction. Hygiene factors, such as working conditions, prevent job dissatisfaction but can’t lead to job satisfaction. Leaders need to structure jobs that focus on motivators because they lead to high job satisfaction and performance. The job characteristics model focuses on adding five motivators to the job (skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback). Whether an employee responds favorably to an enriched job is dependent on her knowledge and skill, growth-need strength, and contextual factors.
The expectancy model holds that individuals know what they desire from work. They choose activities only after they decide that the activities will satisfy their needs. The primary components of this model are first- and second-level outcomes, expectancy, instrumentality, and valence. An individual must believe that effort expended will lead (expectancy) to some desired level of performance (first-level outcome) and that this level of performance will lead (instrumentality) to desired rewards (second-level outcomes and valences). Otherwise, the individual won’t be motivated to expend the effort necessary to perform at the desired level.
The equity model focuses on the individual’s perception of how fairly he is treated in comparison to others in similar situations. To make this judgment, an individual compares his inputs (experience, age) and outcomes (salary) to those of relevant others. If equity exists, the person isn’t motivated to act. If inequity exists, the person may engage in any one of six behaviors to reduce this inequity. Both procedural justice and organizational citizenship behavior are based on the equity model and have significant implications for employees’ perceptions of equity. Procedural justice examines the impact of the process (rules and procedures) used to make a decision. Organizational citizenship behaviors are employee behaviors that go above and beyond their job requirements

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