KCS CASE STUDY

KCS Case Study

KCS Case Study

Introduction

This paper is based on a case study that involves, Ann, a female employee (such as Ann in this case) of Kiwi Cleaning Services. Ann has been working there for six months. According to the case study, she is desperate to know about her performance appraisal, but the absence of both the directors, namely John and Stewart has created a communication gap between Ann and her employers. Margaret, who is an integral part of the organization (such as KCS in this case) and looks after management side of the business, is at the helm of affairs. The main problem presented here is the case of employee (such as Ann in this case)'s (Ann's) lack of motivation for work.

Discussion

Leaders have been expected to play a particularly important role in creating a supportive ethical environment in the work organizations they lead, creating the tone at the top. But we are just beginning to learn more about how they do so. Among other things, leaders can influence followers by role modeling ethical behavior, communicating a set of ethical values, and holding employees accountable.

In fact, research has found that executive leaders can influence perceptions of the ethical climate of the organizations they lead if they have high levels of cognitive moral development and their actions are consistent with these levels, meaning that the leaders are behaving to their moral development capacity and thus are more likely to role model ethical behavior. This appears to be especially true in younger firms.

Management theorists such as Douglas McGregor, Frederick Herzberg, and W. Edwards Deming have long recommended the use of organizational structures and leader behaviors that are expected to promote what SDT refers to as autonomous motivation. Central to these approaches have been concepts such as participation, empowerment, and job enrichment. These concepts advocate allowing employees to set goals, make decisions, plan, and solve problems, although management theorists Victor Vroom and Art Jago have emphasized that some situations warrant the use of participative decision making whereas others do not. Such empowering strategies recognize that all leader functions—from decision making to implementation, from goal setting to performance evaluations—can be done in ways that are consistent with either a relatively autonomy-supportive approach or a relatively controlling approach. Autonomysupportive leaders seek inputs from group members, encouraging them to feel ownership of the decisions and activities, whereas controlling leaders impose their own visions on their followers, allowing little initiative or choice.

A useful starting point for thinking about leaders' concerns is to focus on how they create interpersonal climates that support the satisfaction of their employees' needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness, because only if these needs are satisfied will employees be optimally engaged, persistent, and effective at work-related activities, particularly ones requiring creativity, cognitive flexibility, and conceptual understanding. In a 2001 study conducted in Bulgaria and the United States, Deci and his colleagues assessed the satisfaction of employees' needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness at work and found direct positive relations in both countries ...