Read the following story and answer the questions that follow. I would like you to email me your answers so that I can give you feedback on this material.
Bauxo For Diana DeLuca, the original plan was to take a leave of absence from her job (director of customer relations at Voxcom Security Systems), see some sights and then meet up with her longtime friend and fellow NAIT Business grad, Jeneen Gacek in Bali before returning to life in the corporate fast lane.
But in the searing heat of an exotic land, not everything goes according to plan.
On Oct. 12, 2002, not long before DeLuca was to return to Canada, a series of bombings destroyed two tourist-filled Bali nightclubs in what many called the worst terrorist attack since 9/11. The deaths of more than 200 foreigners put a black mark on Bali's main economic resource, tourism.
"After the bombing, we were all sitting around at our place with a bunch of friends and they were talking about how they were concerned with tourism and how they probably wouldn't be able to make a living ... because there wouldn't be tourists coming back," recalls DeLuca.
"We just kind of discussed bringing some of their stuff back with us and selling it here so that they would have a steady income, and it kind of turned into a business plan."
Then came some serious computer number-crunching "and we were like, 'Wow, this could really work!' "
Gacek and DeLuca enlisted the help of a Javanese designer named Hariyono, who melds traditional Indonesian materials with the world-wind of cultural influences brought to Bali. DeLuca quit her job and remained in Bali for a few more months while the three developed prototypes for merchandise they would sell at home in Canada.
Soon, from the ashes of disaster rose a new kind of accessories company with Gacek and DeLuca at the helm and Hariyono in the designer's seat.
But what would they call it? "We were trying to create the fun, flighty image," says Gacek. In an inspired moment, she jokingly suggested the name of an Indonesian stew sold by streetside vendors all over Bali. "They push these little carts along and yell Bauxo! Bauxo!" Gacek recalls.
"It kind of started as a joke. It was really kind of a silly thing and then we thought, this is fun."
The name stuck -- like stew to the proverbial ribs, one could say -- and DeLuca came back to Canada with an armload of prototypes to sell. Gacek, who had already quit her retail sales job with Hothouse Design, stayed behind to help on the production side and to fan the fires of another unexpected benefit of their trip to Bali: love. She and Hariyono were married in December 2003.
Now, Gacek and DeLuca, both 30, are back in Canada, along with 27- year-old Hariyono, working on Bauxo's business side out of an apartment-turned-office nestled in Edmonton's river valley.
The space was chosen because it was night-and-day from the formality of their career history. "We wanted a place where we could wear flip-flops to work," says the tanned, blond DeLuca.
The three have created a family atmosphere where Gacek's five- month-old son gurgles in a playpen across the room from a stunning display case of Bauxo merchandise -merchandise which is now sold in 30 locations around Alberta alone, as well as across Canada and in parts of the U.S. DeLuca's younger sister Lori worked reception over the summer before jetting off on a backpacking trip of her own.
Back in Bali, the design team has grown to six Indonesians, whom the two Canadians take a great deal of pride in caring for. "We started the business on the principle that we wanted to provide decent working conditions so we produce everything there (in Bali)," says DeLuca. "We provide (the workers in Bali) with a place to live and above-average income."
The jewelry is hand-carved and stamped from traditional Indonesian materials such as Suma wood, cow bone and horn, and a variety of leathers chosen for their durability. "(It's) basically just kind of natural jewelry," says DeLuca. "When you're backpacking you kind of want to wear stuff but you don't want to wear stuff that you'll lose or wreck, so leather is perfect. It's durable and looks nice with wear."
To keep it affordable, everything in their catalogue, from earrings to necklaces to richly dyed leather cuffs, is priced between $21 and $39. The collection initially included a variety of purses but DeLuca and Gacek chose to cut them because they were simply too costly to produce.
Though they find the business sense they developed an asset, neither Gacek nor DeLuca, who still travel regularly between Edmonton and Bali, misses the rigors of their former corporate world. Moreover, they realize that the time they spent backpacking around an exotic paradise has formed the linchpin of their current outlook towards life and business.
"I think it would have been (scary) if I hadn't had the transition of backpacking for six months, if I'd just decided to startup a business," says Gacek, of abandoning the rat race. "But I think backpacking let me see how simple life can be without all that material stuff- it made leaving the traditional work world much easier."
Source: Edmonton Journal, September 14, 2004.
1. Refer to McClelland's Acquired Needs Theory and explain how McClelland would explain Gacek and Deluca's motivation profile that allowed them to start up and run Bauxo. Complete the chart below.
|
McClelland's Needs |
Level of Need |
Explanation |
|
n-ach |
High/Moderate/Low |
Need for achievement. The drive to excel, to achieve in relation to a set of standards, to strive to succeed. Gacek and Deluca have shown a high level of need for achievement. Knowing the markets and measuring the business possibility, they have set goals that were challenging but realistic. Both have a need for a sense of accomplishment, but tending to avoid both low-risk and high risk situations. In addition, they prefer to work with other high achievers and this characteristic looks to have played an important role in the development of the business together. This team work has satisfied their need for feedback as to achievement and progress, and a need for a sense of accomplishment. They have spent some time analyzing the business in Bali previous to move to Canada evaluating the business and its risks, and they have had the vision of seeing the outcome as one of chance rather that one’s own effort. |
|
n-aff |
High/Moderate/Low |
This is the need for friendly relationships and human interaction. Gacek and Deluca have shown a high level of need of affiliation. This adventure has started after the bombing attack and the impact in the touristic industry in Indonesia. The first idea was to develop a business that allows to people in Bali to diminish the impact of the potential decreasing of the touristic industry. This shows a need for affiliation and commitment with the Indonesian society. They felt tourist but they were saying we want to be part of the solution, accept our initiative for that. Other characteristic stressing the need of affiliation is the work in a team. They always have thought and worked the business as a team with an initial idea close to a co-operative environment. Nevertheless, this needs of affiliation looks to have evolving over the years and basically diminishing the degree of these needs. This also is in agreement with the n-aff characteristics according to McClelland because a strong need for affiliation will interfere with a manager’s objectivity. The “need to be liked” will affect a manager’s decisions, prompting them to make decisions to increase their popularity rather than furthering the interests of the organization. The change in the business, with centralization in Canada, growth, etc, show that this needs of affiliation has changed for both Gacek and Deluca. |
|
n-pow |
High/Moderate/Low |
This is the need to lead others
and make an impact. A person's need for power can be one of two types -
personal and institutional. Both Gacek and Deluca have not shown a personal
need for power but a high need for institutional power. They have shown this
need for institutional power when have organized the efforts of others to
further the goals of the organization and to direct the efforts of their
team, to further the objectives. They had a strong need to lead and for their
ideas to prevail. |
2. Using Herzberg's Motivator-Hygiene Theory, identify each factor as either a hygiene factor or a motivator factor for Gacek and Deluca as owners of Bauxo.
|
Factor |
Motivator Factor |
Hygiene Factor |
|
Responsibility to employees |
|
Gacek, Deluca |
|
Challenge of building a company |
Gacek, Deluca |
|
|
No income initially |
Gacek, Deluca |
|
|
Working with friends |
Gacek, Deluca |
|
|
Responsibility to develop sales in North America and worldwide |
Gacek, Deluca |
|
|
No benefits or pension plan |
|
Gacek, Deluca |
|
Hiring production artisans |
Gacek, Deluca |
|
|
Casual office atmosphere (wear flip-flops) |
|
Gacek, Deluca |
3. Would Herzberg see Gacek and Deluca's jobs as owner/managers having high satisfaction or low satisfaction? Explain.
I think that at the beginning of the business and mainly when they saw that they could reach their achievement, they had a huge satisfaction. Then, when the period of business growth enters in a maturation period, this satisfaction starts to decrease. If we see the exhibit 4.2 in our book, we see that achievement, recognition, growth, responsibility and advancement are extreme satisfaction factors and they are most related at the beginning of the project. Then, the growth, recognition, etc start to decay and as consequence the satisfaction level.
4. Herzberg would say the artisans of Bauxo are not motivated by high wages and free housing; he would say that just leaves them with low dissatisfaction? Do you agree or disagree with Herzberg? Explain.
According to our book, one of the critics to Herzberg's theory is that it does not really produce a theory of motivation; Herzberg's theory focus in satisfaction and non-dissatisfaction feelings. Saying that the artisans are not motivated by high wages under Herzberg's theory could conduct to a mistake because there is not a direct and clear relationship between motivation and satisfaction. What Herzberg's theory states about salary it that it contributes to have low dissatisfaction.
For the point of view of motivation and dissatisfaction, I think there is a substantial difference between salary (amount per year, Herzberg) and wage (amount per hour, example here). Under motivation definition we have some key words such as "intensity", "persistence of effort", "reaching a goal". I tend to think that these attitudes could be boosted in a short and medium periods of time by higher wages. In the same way, I tend to think that higher salaries do not significant boost the motivation, and if it does it, only it will be in a short period of time.
For the point of view of satisfaction, I tend to agree with Herzberg’s theory about its contribution with low dissatisfaction for both waged and salaried people.
In the case of free housing, I tend to think that it contributes with low dissatisfaction for both waged and salaried people, but not with motivation. Nevertheless some exception could exist; for example, if artisans of Bauxo come to Canada from Indonesia and they do not feel confident in the city or place where they work/live, free housing could contribute in a short/medium period to motivation. But when they win in confidence, this factor decreases in intensity till disappear.
19/05/11
