3905 Market Street 215-687-2043
Philadelphia, PA 19104 E-Mail: [email protected]
ObjectiveMarketing internship in the high technology industry.
Education
May 2015, University of Pennsylvania,Philadelphia, PA Master of Business Administration (MBA)
• Concentrations in Marketing, Information Technology and Strategy
• Independent market research project for Nexus Corporation to develop strategy for voice command software application.
• Co-Chair of Graduate Women in Business Network. Planned first annual networking conference.
• Marketing Club webpage development team.
May 2009, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
Bachelor of Science in Industrial and Labor Relations
• GPA: 3.4/4.0, Dean’s List
• Fall Semester at University of Copenhagen, International Business Program, 2008. Studied privatization strategies of Polish and East German organizations.
[15. My initial impressions: One. East Coast. Two. Big company. Three. HR or Manufacturing.
We’re a high tech firm planning to go international. We’re looking for a marketing person.
Someone familiar with intellectual property issues and the application of technology, (i.e., payroll, etc.), who has process and project management experience.]
Employment Decisions: Responses to Recruiting Efforts
Employment decisions are complementary to staffi ng decisions and are made by agents or those who wish to become agents. Examples of employment decisions include a job-seeker’s decision whether to make an application, a job applicant’s decision whether to accept a job offer, and a cur- rent employee’s decision whether to stay with her fi rm.
Agents make employment decisions in order to obtain the best job they can. Principals seek employment decisions from agents or potential agents when they recruit and interview candidates for open positions and when they make counteroffers to their own employees who are recruited by competing fi rms. Documents and presentations principals produce in order to elicit employ- ment decisions from agents include job descriptions , recruiting literature , recruiting presentations , and job advertisements .
Job seekers appreciate job advertisements and other forms of recruiting literature that address their criteria for employment decisions. For example, nursing students evaluating job advertise- ments much prefer the “standard” job ad over testimonial job ads or minimal ads that contain only the job title and the employer’s internet address. 41 Standard job ads address many of the criteria job seekers have including company information, a job description, job requirements, application procedure, salary, and conditions of employment. Although job applicants give most attention to the location of the job and compensation, 42 they rate job advertisements as more effective when the ads also include the size of the organization, 43 the job’s attributes, 44 as well as the organization’s staffi ng policy. 45 Unsurprisingly, experienced job seekers are more affected
Experience
Ingersoll-Rand Company, Davidson, NC
Global manufacturer of industrial equipment and machinery with sales over 12 billion 2010 to 2013 Project Leader
Promoted to position in Human Resources leading teams up to 10 people to restructure processes.
• Achieved 100% increase in reporting and administrative productivity by developing local information system using database and corporate payroll software.
• Generated 30% increase in delivery reliability and 40% decrease in backorders from in-house supplier by implementing order entry process enhancements.
• Led team of marketing managers to redesign departmental structure. Increased customer focus through addition of product training and market analysis functions.
2010 Order Fulfillment Team Member
Cross-functional team member tasked to generate supply chain improvements.
• Achieved 60% decrease in purchase order processing time through EDI implementation.
• Reduced order fulfillment cycle time by 90% and improved ability to reliably meet weekly production schedules by 20% through implementation of new procurement and manufacturing planning processes.
2008 to 2010 Management Development Program Member
One of three selected from 100 candidates for program of project experience and management skills development.
• Evaluated off the shelf product supporting information technology strategy for human resource management functions.
InterestsTravel throughout Europe and Southeast Asia,skiing, soccer, and golf.
by the content in job advertisements than their stylistic features. Their less experienced coun- terparts, however, are more affected by irrelevant cues such as the attractiveness of the people shown in the ads. 46
When it comes to choosing among job offers, a meta-analysis of 232 studies fi nds six decision criteria account for most applicants’ job choice decisions: characteristics of the job, the organization, and the recruitment process, as well as recruiter behaviors, hiring expectancies, and their perceived fi t with the job. 47 The primary criterion applicants use when choosing among job offers is their perceived fi t with the job. Happily, this is also the criterion recruiters weight most heavily when making their staffi ng decisions. 48
The following list of questions subsumes many of the criteria identifi ed previously and provides a starting point for predicting agents’ decision criteria for any particular employment decision. The list can also serve as an outline for documents and presentations principals produce in order to elicit employment decisions from their agents or potential agents.
• How does the job fit with my education, experience, and career goals?
• What are the job’s responsibilities and status?
• What are the job’s working conditions and the firm’s culture?
• What is the job location’s cost of living and quality of life?
• What is the size and reputation of the employer?
• What is the job’s compensation and benefits package?
In addition to employers’ answers to the previous questions, job seekers may also require bench- mark information about salaries, benefi ts, and working conditions at competing fi rms and at fi rms in the same geographical locale. Job seekers may also seek comparative ratings of regional educational and cultural resources, as well as comparative information on job scarcity in differ- ent locales. 49
Exonerative Decisions: Responses to Requests for Pardon
Audiences, usually acting as principals, make exonerative decisions when they decide whether to exonerate an agent from blame. For example, customers make exonerative decisions when deciding whether to continue to patronize a business that has provided poor service, jurors make exonerative decisions when deciding whether to convict a business executive accused of fraud, supervisors make exonerative decisions when deciding whether to allow a routinely late employee to keep her job.
Principals make exonerative decisions in order to ensure fair outcomes for all concerned and to avoid setting a bad precedent. Agents seek exonerative decisions from principals when they want to be, or when they want others to be, exonerated from blame. Documents and presentations agents produce in order to elicit exonerative decisions from principals include crisis press releases, media interviews , responses to customer complaints , rate hike notices , and defense arguments, as well as the more commonplace excuses , denials , and apologies .
Failure to elicit a favorable exonerative decision can be costly to an individual or an organiza- tion. When society decides a business is to blame for an unfortunate incident, the business can have a hard time attracting new customers, investors, and employees. 50 A fi rm’s inappropriate behavior can also lead to lawsuits, sales declines, increases in the cost of capital, market share deterioration, and network partner loss. 51
How the audience perceives an organization’s response to a crisis is critical to retaining organiza- tional legitimacy and to maintaining employee morale. 52 Nondefensive crisis responses, as opposed to defensive ones, give audience members signifi cantly better impressions of the organization and lead to greater levels of trust. 53 When individuals or organizations face a crisis for which they truly are to blame, accepting responsibility and expressing regret affects audience perceptions of them positively and decreases the anger audience members feel. 54
Ironically, the more a business attempts to deny responsibility for a crisis, the more the audi- ence will judge it to be responsible. 55 Audience members are also more likely to assign blame when they can identify a particular person (for instance, a fi rm’s CEO) as being responsible, when they believe the person should have foreseen and prevented the event, when they believe the person’s actions were not justifi ed by the situation, and when they believe the person was free to choose another course of action. 56
Audiences are more likely to exonerate the responsible party from blame if the responsible party offers an explanation for the incident and offers help or compensation to the victims. 57 The victims themselves generally have more favorable impressions of the responsible party, experience more positive affect, and are more likely to refrain from seeking revenge when the responsible party apologizes to them for the wrongdoing. 58 From the audience’s perspective, an effective apology includes expressions of remorse, acknowledgements of responsibility, promises of forbearance, and offers of reparation. However, audiences do not require all four components to be present for the apology to be effective, nor do they limit apology components to these four. 59
The following list of questions subsumes many of the criteria identifi ed previously and provides a starting point for predicting a principal’s decision criteria for any particular exonerative decision.
The list can also serve as an outline for documents and presentations agents produce in order to elicit exonerative decisions from principals.
• Who is responsible for the incident?
• What is the reason for the incident?
• Could it have been prevented?
• What has been done to relieve the victims?
• How much compensation is the responsible party prepared to offer?
• What guarantee is there that the incident will not be repeated?
In addition to agents’ answers to the previous questions, principals may also require benchmark information about the individual’s or the organization’s prior responses to similar situations, others’ responses, possible alternative responses, as well as industry best practices in similar situations.
Occasionally principals seek, or should seek, what amounts to an exonerative decision from their agents. On the following page is a notice of organizational downsizing from a manager in a health care network as well as think-aloud comments made by one of the employees, or agents, who actually received the notice (note: the dates, names of the fi rms, and names of the employees have been changed). The employee’s comments are numbered and inserted into the notice in bold and brackets. The comments about the notice are quite negative, even hostile. What is missing from the notice are clear-cut answers to the employee’s decision criteria. The employee needed answers to questions such as “Who is responsible for the decision to downsize?” (see comment 5),
“What was the reason?” (see comments 5 and 7), “Could the downsizing have been prevented?”
(see comment 7), “How will the affected staff be assisted?” (see comment 12), and “What guar- antee is there that more staff will not be affected or even laid off?” (see comment 13). Because the notice does not address those questions, the employee is left demoralized and resentful of those responsible.
DOWNSIZING NOTICE WITH AN EMPLOYEE’S COMMENTS
M
Memo
[1. (Shouting) If I don’t know anything else I know this is a memo.]T o : Alliance Health Plus Staff
RE Staff[2. Is it safe to assume all us “staff” know who we are? Do the secretaries belong to the “staff”?]
F r o m : Bob Ruston[3. He should initial or sign a memo of this type.]
D a te : 11/03/14
R e : Organization Changes
The purpose of this memo is to announce an organization change. [4. Redundant I already know this.] A decision has been made [5. Who made it? Why? What was the impetus? Conversely, as a recipient who has/had no input, do I care?]to consolidate the medical management activities provided by Reliance Enterprises with the medical management provided by Medi-Serve. Both groups have been working with physicians in our networks to improve clinical performance and the outcomes for our members. [6. The truth is, these groups don’t really know what the other does.] By consolidating the expertise and resources of two teams, we believe that we can serve our providers more effectively. [7. What was ineffective? Redundant service?
Overlapping duties? Internal lost productivity? Again, why are we doing this?]
The combined unit will be under the leadership of Joyce O’Brien, Director of Medi- Serve. [8. Why Joyce? Will this new team therefore be part of M-S?] The new team will be in place by December 1stwith most transition activities complete by the end of the year. The team will include staff [9. If you mention staff along with activities in paragraph one you don’t need this sentence.] from both RE and M-S and provide medical management services to the entire network. Once the team is in place, a communication [10. This is a very formal and stilted way of saying this. “Memo” would have sufficed. What will this communication tell us? Once the team is in place it’s a little late to tell people that they are on the team. A meeting to explain new duties would be more appropriate than a memo. The only useful purpose this could be is a general informational announcement to the rest of Alliance and to outside providers to inform them of a procedure change.] will be issued. If you have any questions, please call Joyce at 699-3769.
The consolidation will result in the displacement [11. Ah, now the real reason for the whole memo: job elimination. Displacement and elimination mean two different things.
When will these people find out who they are, in the aforementioned “communication”?]of several staff from RE and M-S. ALLIANCE HEALTH PLUS’s practice is to work
72 Understanding Rational Decision Making
Rallying Decisions: Responses to Attempts to Inspire and Lead
Audience members, acting as agents or followers and often as a group, make rallying decisions when others try to inspire or lead them. Examples of rallying decisions include the decision of exhausted employees to work harder, the decision of a disenchanted voting block to throw its weight behind a political candidate, and the decision of a losing sports team to go out and “win just one for the Gipper.”
Agents make rallying decisions in order to determine if supporting a leader and her vision for the group’s future is worthwhile. Principals, acting as leaders, seek rallying decisions from agents when they try to garner support for themselves, a project, or a mission by boosting fol- lower morale. The show of support may take many forms—a donation, 60 a sacrifi ce of some sort, or simply a vote of confi dence. Documents and presentations principals produce in order to elicit rallying decisions include introductions of new employees, participants, and speakers.
They also include commencement speeches , elegies , farewells , campaign speeches , motivational speeches , mission statements , vision statements , and pep talks . It should come as no surprise that coaches’ pep talks have been shown to lift the spirits of collegiate football players and to inspire them to perform at higher levels. 61
Followers’ schemata for one type of rallying decision—the decision that groups make when choosing their leaders—has generated much research interest. 62 A group will often choose as its leader the member who best fi ts the schema of the group, in other words the member who is most representative of it. 63 A group will also tend to rate that member as more likable, infl uential, and charismatic than other group members. 64 The decision criteria groups use to choose leaders from among their members also include that member’s endorsement of the group’s norms, goals, and aspirations, as well as the member’s preferential treatment of other group members.
Followers’ schemata for a second type of rallying decision—the decision they make when evalu- ating a leaders’ charisma (i.e., the leader’s ability to rally and inspire them) has also generated much research interest. 65 Charisma is an important attribute for leaders to possess. Compared to leaders who are not charismatic, charismatic leaders get higher performance ratings from their follow- ers, 66 attract more new followers, promote greater follower identifi cation with the group, and more effectively regulate followers’ emotions and reactions to crises. 67 Charismatic leaders also motivate followers to perform better and help them feel greater job satisfaction. 68 The decision criteria followers rely on most when evaluating a leader’s charisma include the leader’s sensitivity to the followers’ needs, the leader’s sensitivity to constraints on the followers, the personal risk the leader takes on the followers’ behalf, and the leader’s vision for the group’s future, a vision which must embody the followers’ ideals and aspirations.
The following list of questions expands on the criteria identifi ed previously and provides a start- ing point for predicting agents’ decision criteria for any particular rallying decision. The list can
Memo
T o :
F r o m : D a t e : R e :
p
with displaced staff to try to locate other comparable positions within the company.
Every effort will be made to assist those individuals who have been impacted by this decision.[12. Who will “assist” these people?]
[13. So, effective 12/1/14 the medical management activities and staff of RE and M-S will be combined and some of us may be looking for another job.]
also serve as an outline for the documents and presentations principals produce in order to elicit rallying decisions from their agents.
• Does the leader endorse the values our group holds dear?
• Does the leader understand the significance of the occasion to our group?
• Does the leader appreciate the sacrifices our group has already made?
• Is the leader ready to do his or her part?
• Does the leader acknowledge the difficulty of the task that lies ahead?
• What is the leader’s vision for our future?
In addition to the leader’s answers to these questions, followers may also require benchmark in- formation about the group’s responses to comparable challenges in the past as well as information about competing visions for their future.
Getting followers to make favorable rallying decisions requires more than rational arguments, doing so requires artistry, emotion, conviction, and a sense of history. The leader’s spoken deliv- ery of her vision can have as great an impact as the content of her vision on how effective her followers perceive her to be. 69 Not surprisingly, speeches that elicit rallying decisions—Abra- ham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech, John F.
Kennedy’s inaugural address, George Washington’s farewell to the troops—are among the most memorable speeches ever made. Notice how Lincoln’s speech evokes deep emotion as it addresses each of the six key criteria listed previously for rallying decisions. As we will see in Chapter 7 , the audiences’ emotions tend to infl uence their decisions any time a leader speaks to the values they hold dear.
LINCOLN’S GETTYSBURG ADDRESS With the Six Criteria for Rallying Decisions Lincoln Addressed in Brackets
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. [Criterion 1. Our values: Liberty and equality.]
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedi- cated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. [Criterion 2. The significance of the occasion: To commemorate our brave soldiers.]
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground.
The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. [Criterion 3. The sacrifices already made: Our soldiers paid the ultimate price.] It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. [Criterion 4. The president is ready to do his part to win the war.] It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us–that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of