Impact of accounting data on people and organizations W. T. Grant used to be a discount department store which, in terms of its perceived place in the marketplace, fell somewhere between a K-Mart and a Ben Franklin store. Top management of W.T. Grant decided that they would try to motivate their employees by establishing a program called Steak and Beans which had negative incentives. These negative incentives would be meted out at the end of a work week where, after store hours, employees and managers would be assembled and the offending managers singled out. Managers committed offenses by not being able to meet budgeted credit sales quotas for the week. The targeted and actual credit sales figures were meticulously calcu- lated and used by top management every week.

During these meetings regional managers would dole out the negative incentives to the offending managers. The form of negative incentives varied. Some managers were fired or were not promoted to better stores. Sometimes, the manager's tie would be cut in half by the district manager. Other times the manager would get a custard pie in the face for failing to meet budgeted credit sales or was asked to run around the store, backwards. A manager whose store failed to meet targeted credit sales figures was asked to push a peanut on the floor, with his nose. There were also unconfirmed reports of an offending manager being forced to parade around a hotel lobby dressed in nothing but a giant diaper. (Adapted from "Grant Managers Risked Pie-in-Face for a Failure", The Wall Street Journal, December 4,1977.)

REQUIRED

a. Imagine that this is your first job as a store manager and you were "motivated" in one of the ways described above. What would you do?

b. Now imagine that it is almost impossible for you to resign because you were just promoted after a hard struggle and that there are no other similar jobs available in your community. In addition, your spouse just got a very attractive job and both of you celebrated by buying a better house with a bigger mortgage and a new car. What would do you now? How would you make sure that you will not be singled out again?