Motivation - McGraw-Hill Introduction to Business

Hotel Housekeepers Frequently Miss Out on Tips

November 2, 2017

For those who enjoy a full-service experience when they travel, staying at a hotel can turn into an expensive enterprise. Paying for gratuity alone can become costly if someone takes advantage of amenities like room service or bellhops. But while guests are quick to tip waiters and baggage carriers without a second thought, this same courtesy does not often extend to housekeeping staff. According to the American Hotel and Lodging Association, fewer than a third of guests leave gratuity for Continue reading →

Tipping, Hotels, Marriott, Motivation, Ethics, Compensation

Chapter 1: Taking Risks and Making Profits, Chapter 4: Ethics and Social Responsibility, Chapter 10: Motivation, Chapter 11: Human Resource Management

Big Companies Start to Leave the Suburbs

August 3, 2017

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Over the course of four decades, more than 80,000 people have learned how to become McDonald’s managers on the the leafy grounds of Hamburger University. The company long considered this 86-acre Oak Brook, Illinois, institution to be the perfect place to train employees while also attracting top-level executives. Then last year McDonald’s surprised staff by announcing the company would move its headquarters out of the suburbs and into the West Loop of Chicago.

Located near an “L” train stop and Continue reading →

McDonald’s, Hiring, Management, Illinois, Motivation, Headquarters, Caterpillar, Innovation

Chapter 1: Taking Risks and Making Profits, Chapter 4: Ethics and Social Responsibility, Chapter 7: Management & Leadership, Chapter 10: Motivation, Chapter 11: Human Resource Management, Bonus Chapter B: Technology and New Media

Summer Jobs Become Increasingly Difficult to Fill

July 28, 2017

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With the fall semester right around the corner, there’s only a few more weeks of freedom left for those lucky students who didn’t have to spend their break in class. Of course, those who managed to avoid summer school may have been working at one of the many seasonal jobs that pop up at this time of year. According to employers, however, these jobs have become increasingly difficult to fill recently. For instance, in the spring business owners located along Continue reading →

Motivation, New Jersey, Education, Hiring, Skills, Summer jobs, Internships

Chapter 1: Taking Risks and Making Profits, Chapter 7: Management & Leadership, Chapter 10: Motivation, Chapter 11: Human Resource Management, Chapter 12: Labor Management and Unions

Silicon Valley’s Culture Has a Big Influence on Chinese Companies

April 25, 2017

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For years tech giants like Facebook and Google have tried to set up shop in China only to see their efforts blocked by the country’s restrictive government. In place of these global brands, domestic companies like the search engine Baidu and the social network Weibo have flourished among China’s enormous Internet community. And in an ironic twist, this growing tech sector owes much of its success to the structure and culture of Silicon Valley’s biggest names.

Many Chinese companies are Continue reading →

Management, Motivation, Global, Innovation, Silicon Valley, China, Google, Facebook, Company Culture

Chapter 1: Taking Risks and Making Profits, Chapter 3: Globalization, Chapter 6: Entrepreneurship, Chapter 7: Management & Leadership, Chapter 8: Organizational Culture and Structure, Chapter 10: Motivation, Chapter 11: Human Resource Management, Bonus Chapter B: Technology and New Media

[VIDEO] Inside the Pantone Color Factory

March 14, 2017

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While identifying colors might seem like a simple preschool task to some, it’s a serious job at the Pantone color factory. This company creates color guides that act sort of like dictionaries for artists and designers. In order to create consistent colors every time, Pantone depends on eagle-eyed employees to check for flaws. Along with these dedicated staffers, this video also shows some of the machines used by Pantone to create such vivid hues.

Questions:

Why does Pantone require Continue reading →

Production, Pantone, Design, Motivation, Operations Management, Product Development

Chapter 9: Production and Operations Management, Chapter 10: Motivation, Chapter 14: Product and Price, Videos

Investment Bank UBS Switches to Open Offices

March 10, 2017

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Over the years, Silicon Valley startups have become famous for developing open work spaces free of personalized desks or big corner offices. The idea is to allow employees to gather together and collaborate rather than leave them enclosed in their cubicles. While other companies avoided this unconventional approach at first, more firms have switched to open offices as the concept has become more popular. Still, these companies have tended to be smaller operations as many big businesses remained skeptical that Continue reading →

Switzerland, Finance, Motivation, Open Offices, Global, UBS, Human Resources, Work Environment

Chapter 1: Taking Risks and Making Profits, Chapter 3: Globalization, Chapter 7: Management & Leadership, Chapter 9: Production and Operations Management, Chapter 10: Motivation, Chapter 11: Human Resource Management

The Swedish Software Company That Thrives with No CEO

March 9, 2017

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Three years ago, the staff of the Swedish software consulting firm Crisp felt it was time for a change in leadership. The company had been recently experimenting with its upper management structure, going from a standard CEO model to one that replaced the top executive annually through a staff vote. Then, a radical idea took root in the minds of Crisp’s employees. “We said, ‘what if we had nobody as our next CEO – what would that look like?’” said Continue reading →

Crisp, Motivation, Sweden, Global, Human Resources, Leadership structure, Management

Chapter 1: Taking Risks and Making Profits, Chapter 7: Management & Leadership, Chapter 8: Organizational Culture and Structure, Chapter 9: Production and Operations Management, Chapter 10: Motivation, Chapter 11: Human Resource Management

Finland Experiments with Basic Income for the Unemployed

January 26, 2017

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To people familiar with sunny Silicon Valley, Finland may seem like a questionable tech hub. But thanks to the telecommunications giant Nokia, for years the snowy Scandinavian nation served as one of the central destinations in Europe for tech workers. Once Nokia began to collapse, however, the fortunes of many Finnish engineers declined as well.

These formerly prominent staffers then signed up for unemployment benefits in the hopes that the tech industry would turn around. When jobs largely failed to Continue reading →

Motivation, Global, Finland, Ethics, Nokia, Labor Relations, Basic Income, Unemployment

Chapter 1: Taking Risks and Making Profits, Chapter 3: Globalization, Chapter 4: Ethics and Social Responsibility, Chapter 10: Motivation, Chapter 11: Human Resource Management, Chapter 12: Labor Management and Unions, Bonus Chapter B: Technology and New Media

Portland Institutes Tax on Companies with High CEO Salaries

December 15, 2016

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In 2010 the median salary for the 200 highest-earning executives in the U.S. topped out at nearly $10 million. Just five years later, though, that number doubled to almost $20 million. Meanwhile, researchers at the Economic Policy Institute found that CEOs in 2013 earned more than 300 times the salary of average workers. For comparison, in 1965 chief executives brought in just 20 times more pay than their average employees.

To combat this increasing inequality, last week government administrators in Continue reading →

Executive Compensation, Regulation, Management, Taxes, Motivation, Leadership, Ethics, Portland, Compensation

Chapter 1: Taking Risks and Making Profits, Chapter 4: Ethics and Social Responsibility, Chapter 7: Management & Leadership, Chapter 10: Motivation, Bonus Chapter A: Business Law

Companies Blame Poor Performance on Presidential Election Interest

November 8, 2016

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No matter which candidate you support, it’s safe to say that the 2016 presidential election has been absorbing to watch. According to many executives, however, that’s been a bad thing for business. In a recent study conducted by Bloomberg, more than 500 corporations blamed their poor performances on the presidential race or some form of “political uncertainty.”

In fact, even the NFL claims that obsession with the election has led to a drop in viewership. Ratings for Monday Night Continue reading →

2016 Election, Management, Performance, Motivation, NFL, Politics

Chapter 1: Taking Risks and Making Profits, Chapter 4: Ethics and Social Responsibility, Chapter 7: Management & Leadership, Chapter 10: Motivation, Chapter 14: Product and Price, Chapter 15: Distribution