Organisational Behaviour
ASSIGNMENT 1
Where to start?
The following text describes the working life of five successful individuals with high levels of job satisfaction. You are asked to read this text and then discuss five questions presented in a table immediately after. You will find each of the assignment questions that you need to address on the left column, and the instructions to answer each question on the right column. READ this very carefully as these instructions give clear guidelines about what it is expected to be discussed in each question.
In order to answer these questions, you will need to draw on the material we work through in Term 1: job attitudes, personality and organizational context.
TESTIMONIALS: DOES THIS SOUND LIKE A SATISFYING JOB?
1) John Bishop, 31, is an investment banker who works for Citigroup’s global energy team in New York. A recent workday for Bishop consisted of heading to the office for a conference call at 6:00 pm. He left the office at 1:30 am and had to be on a plane that same morning for a 9:00 am presentation in Houston. Following the presentation, Bishop returned to New York the same day, and by 7 pm he was back in the office to work an additional three hours. Says Bishop “I might be a little skewed to a workaholic, but realistically, expecting 90 to 100 hours a week is not unusual”.
2) Irene Tse, 34, heads the government bond-trading division at Goldman Sachs. For ten years, she has seen the stock market go from all-time high to recessionlevels. Such fluctuations can mean millions of dollars in either profits or losses. “There are days when you can make a lot, and other days when you lose so much you are just stunned by what you’ve done”, says Tse. She also states that she hasn’t completely slept completely through the nights in many yearsand frequently wakes up several times during the night to check the global market status. Her average workweek? Eighty hours. “I’ve done this for 10 years, and I can count on the fingers ofone hand the number of days in my career when I didn’t want to come to work. Every day I wake up I can’t wait to come here.
3) Tony Kurtz, 33, is a managing director at Capital Alliance Partners and raises funds for real-estate investments. However, these are not your average properties. He often travels to exotic locations like Costa Rica and Hawai, wooing prospective clients. He travels more than 300.000miles a year, often sleeping on planes and dealing with yet lag.Kurz is not only one he knows with such a hectic work schedule. His girlfriend, Avery Baker, logs around 400,000 miles a year, working as the senior vice president of marketing for Tommy Hilfiger. “It’s not easy to maintain a relationship like this. But do they like their jobs? You bet
4) David Clark, 35, is the vice president of global marketing for MTV. His job often consists of travelling around the globe to promote the channel as well as to keep up with the global music scene. If he is not travelling (Clark typically logs 200,000 miles per year) a typical day consists of waking at 6:30 am and immediately responding to numerous messages that have been accumulated throughout the course of the night. He then goes to his office. Where throughout the day he will respond to another 500 messages or so from clients around the world. If he’s lucky he gets to spend an hour a day with his son, but then is back to work until he finally goes to bed around midnight. Says Clark “there are lot of people who would love this job. They are knocking on the door all the time. So that’s motivating.
Many individuals would balk at the prospects of a 60-hour or more workweek with constant travelling and little time for anything else. However, some individuals are exhilarated by such professions. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2004, about 17% of managers worked more than 60 hours per week. But the demands for such jobs are not for everyone. Many quit with turnovers around 55% for consultants and 30% for investment bankers. However, it is clear that such jobs which are time consuming and often stressful, can be satisfying for some individuals.
Case Study extracted from Robbins and Judge (2007, p. 98)