Week 12 Discussion — A Raise, or a Bigger Job? — Traditional alternative (no AI)

Instructors: publish this instead of the adaptive version if you prefer, and unpublish or delete the adaptive one.

Hook

The coffee cart's helper is paid fairly and works in a clean, safe cart, yet does the same counter work every shift and never gets a say in anything. This week you met the motivation theories in the order they were published, from Taylor's scientific management and the Hawthorne studies to Maslow, Herzberg, McGregor, and the contemporary theories, and the job-design tools that put them to work. None of those theories makes the owner's choice for you.

Your discussion question — choose Option A or Option B; they carry the same weight and the same rubric, and you say which you picked.

Option A: The illustrative coffee cart's helper earns 16 dollars an hour for 20 hours a week over 50 weeks, which is 16,000 dollars a year, and each extra dollar an hour would cost the cart 1,000 dollars a year. The owner can afford one change this season: a raise of 1 dollar an hour, or enriching the job so the helper chooses the weekly special and trains the new hire. Which should the owner choose? Take a side, use Herzberg's hygiene factors and motivators (and Maslow's needs if they help), name who gains and who gives something up, and state the strongest case for the other choice.

Option B: When the second cart opens, the owner must decide how to manage its new part-time baristas. One approach checks their work all shift and keeps every decision with the owner; the other shares the cart's goals, such as the 48-drink daily break-even pace, and lets the baristas decide how to run the counter. Which approach should the owner take? Take a side, name the set of assumptions behind each approach (Theory X or Theory Y), link your choice to a leadership style from Week 10, name who gains and who gives something up, and state the strongest case for the other approach.

There is no single right answer. Two people can agree on every fact in the case and still choose differently, because the choice rests on how they judge people and how they weigh the owner, the helper, the baristas, and the customers. The pay figures are facts about an illustrative case; what the owner should do is a judgment, and nothing here is advice about any real workplace. Pick the option you actually care about, and make your case.

Expectations

Activity format: one initial post followed by two substantive peer replies. Plan on about 45 minutes across the two deadlines; your instructor sets both due dates in Canvas.

Your initial post — by the first due date (early in the module week):

• Say which option you chose.
• For Option A, say whether the owner should give the 1-dollar raise or enrich the helper's job, and sort the helper's situation into hygiene factors and motivators to explain why; for Option B, say which approach the owner should take with the new baristas, name the assumptions behind it (Theory X or Theory Y), and link it to a leadership style. For either option, name who gains and who gives something up.
• Use at least two of this week's terms (hygiene factor, motivator, motivator gap, job enrichment, Theory X, Theory Y, empowerment) correctly.
• State the strongest case for a view you do not hold, in one or two sentences.
• Length: roughly 150–250 words if written. You may instead record your post as audio or video (about two minutes) and attach a transcript; both forms are scored by the same rubric.

Your replies — by the second due date (the end of the module week):

• Reply substantively to at least two classmates.
• A substantive reply does more than agree: name a person the poster left out, show where a post files pay as a motivator or calls a worker a Theory X worker, point out where a post treats one theory as proven for every workplace, or make the strongest fair case for the choice the poster rejected. "Good post!" on its own does not count.

What a strong post looks like:

I chose Option A and think the owner should enrich the job first. The helper is paid 16 dollars an hour in a clean, safe cart, so pay and working conditions, both hygiene factors, are already met. What is missing is responsibility and recognition, which are motivators, so this is a motivator gap. A raise of a dollar an hour would cost 1,000 dollars a year and still leave the helper with no say. The helper gains a bigger job; the owner gives up some control over the weekly special. The strongest case against me is that a raise shows respect too, and if the helper were short of money, pay would not really be met. That is a judgment about what the helper needs, not a disagreement about the pay figures.

Notice how it uses the case's facts, sorts them with Herzberg's two factors, names the people affected, and states a fair case for the other side without calling it wrong. That is the bar.

Participation rubric

This discussion is worth 10 points. The three criteria below look at your initial post and your peer replies.

Post early if you can — the best threads happen when people have time to reply before the second due date.

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