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The Motivators’ Orientations Questionnaires
The Problems at Work Questionnaire (PAW)
On the following pages you will find a series of vignettes. Each one
describes an incident and then lists four ways of responding to the situation.
Please read each vignette and then consider each response in turn. Think
about each response option in terms of how appropriate you consider it
to be as means of dealing with the problem described in the vignette,
and then rate it on the seven point scale. You may find the option to
be "perfect," in other words, "extremely appropriate"
in which case you would rate the option a 7. You may consider the response
highly inappropriate in which case you might rate it a 1. If you find
the option reasonable you would select some number between 1 and 7 as
its rating. So think about each option and rate it on the accompanying
scale. Please rate each of the four options for each vignette. There are
eight vignettes with four options for each, for a total of 32 items.
There are no right or wrong ratings on these items. People's styles differ,
and we are simply interested in what you consider appropriate given your
own style.
In each case, the stories ask about what is the appropriate thing for
the supervisor to do. Some portray you as the supervisor and some ask
what you think is appropriate for another supervisor to do. While some
of these situations may not be ones that would arise in your specific
work, simply imagine what it would be like for you in that situation,
and respond accordingly. In rating each item, please use the following
scale:
| 1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
| very inappropriate |
|
|
moderately appropriate |
|
|
very appropriate |
- Jim, an employee for several years, has generally done work on a par
with others in his branch. However, for the past couple of weeks he
has appeared preoccupied and listless. The work he has done is good
but he has made fewer calls than usual. The most appropriate thing for
Jim's supervisor to do is:
- Impress upon Jim that it is really important to keep up with his
work for his own good.
- Talk to Jim and try to help him work out the cause of his listlessness.
- Warn him that if he continues to work at a slower rate, some negative
action might be taken.
- Let him see how his productivity compares with that of his coworkers
and encourage him to catch up.
- Nancy, one of your employees, has been going to night school working
toward her degree. She has been working hard at it, doing extremely
well and is proud of her accomplishments. However, you are concerned,
because she is very hard to work with whenever the pressure at school
is high. You decide the best thing to do is:
- Ask her to talk out how she plans to handle the situation.
- Tell her that she ought to watch the balance between work and
school and suggest she put more of her energies into her job.
- Point out how other working "students" have handled
the problem and see if that helps her handle the situation better.
- Insist that she cut down on the studying or take fewer courses;
you can't allow it to interfere with work.
- One of the work teams in another branch has been doing more poorly
than the other groups all year. The appropriate way for that manager
to handle the situation would be to:
- Tell them that performance has to improve and offer them tangible
incentives to improve.
- Let them know how the other teams are performing so they will
be motivated to do as well.
- Have some discussions with the team as a whole and facilitate
their devising some solutions for improving output.
- Keep a record of each individual's productivity and emphasize
that it is an important performance index.
- For some time Jack's down times have been at a steady, average level.
You suspect however that he could do better. A useful approach might
be to:
- Encourage Jack to talk about his performance and whether there
are ways to improve.
- Stress to Jack that he should do better, and that he won't get
ahead if he continues at his current level.
- Go over your evaluation with him and point out his relative standing
with others.
- Watch him more closely; praise him for increased output, and point
out whenever he falls behind.
- Recent changes in the operation have resulted in a heavier work load
for all the employees. Barbara, the manager, had hoped the situation
would be temporary, but today she learned that her branch would need
to continue to work with the reduced staff for an indefinite period.
Barbara should:
- Point out that her employees will keep their own jobs only if
they can remain productive at the current rate; and then watch their
output carefully.
- Explain the situation and see if they have suggestions about how
they could meet the current demands.
- Tell all of her employees that they should keep trying because
it is to their advantage to do so.
- Encourage her employees to keep up with the work load by pointing
out that people are doing it adequately in other branches.
- There is one assignment in your territory which is regarded by all
as the worst. It involves a regular visit to an unpleasant building
to work on equipment that is typically abused. It has been given to
the employee with the least seniority. However, Dave, the man currently
assigned to this job has been doing it for sometime, as no one new has
been hired. While he is generally very cooperative and satisfied in
other respects, Dave seems to be increasingly resentful about this job,
in part because it's an object of jokes and chiding from his peers.
Dave's manager might:
- Let him know that the other people at his level also have to put
up with unpleasant aspects of their jobs, and give him a few examples
of these.
- Be clear with him that it is his responsibility and be sure he
continues to do it.
- Talk to him about the job, see if he can work through some of
his feelings about it and the jokes that get directed at him.
- Point out that the job is fairly assigned based upon seniority,
and that such a system works for Dave's own good as well as others'.
- Harry, who manages the parts department, seems to be creating something
of a bottleneck. Important parts are often "on order" and
not in stock, and he often is slow in meeting short notice demands and
"emergency" situations. The best thing for his supervisor
to do is:
- Emphasize how important it is for him to keep up with orders and
emphasize that he should meet ongoing demands.
- Let him know how other people in comparable positions are managing
to keep up, so he can think about it. This might help him figure
out how to better keep up.
- Insist that the orders be done within a specified time limit,
and check to be sure he is meeting the deadlines.
- Find out from Harry what he thinks is wrong and see if you can
help him figure out how to better organize his operation .
- One of the customers has let you know that he is not very satisfied
with the attitude of his service representative. The thing for you to
do might be:
- Raise the matter with your subordinate to see what has been going
on for him in dealing with that customer.
- Point out that customer satisfaction is important and that he
should work on relating better to the customer.
- Show him some ways that others relate to their customers so he
can compare his own style to others.
- Tell him to see to it that the customer is more satisfied and
let him know you will be checking up on him.
Scoring Information.
The procedure for scoring the questionnaire begins by averaging the
eight ratings in each of the four categories. The four categories are
highly controlling (HC), moderately controlling (MC), moderately autonomy
supportive (MA), and highly autonomy supportive (HA). The four subscale
scores (composed of the average of the eight responses for that subscale)
can be used in multi-variate analyses, or they can be combined into one
overall reflection of the "Manager's Orientation Toward Control Versus
Autonomy Support." The procedure for combining the four subscales
into one total scale score, as described in Deci, Connell, and Ryan (1989)
involves weighting the average for the highly controlling responses with
a -2 (minus two); weighting the moderately controlling average with -1
(minus one); weighting the average for the moderately autonomous subscales
with +1; and weighting the average for highly autonomous with +2. The
algebraic sum reflects the manager's orientations toward control versus
autonomy support, with a higher score reflecting a more autonomy supportive
orientation and a lower score or a more negative score reflecting a more
controlling orientation). The items that make up the subscales are as
follows.
HC 3, 8, 9, 16, 17, 22, 27, 32
MC 1, 6, 12, 14, 19, 24, 25, 30
MA 4, 7, 10, 15, 20, 21, 26, 31
HA 2, 5, 11, 13, 18, 23, 28, 29
References
Deci, E. L., Connell, J. P., & Ryan, R. M. (1989). Self-determination
in a work organization. Journal of Applied Psychology, 74, 580-590.
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