What we can note about the case study is the fact that it involves activities and issues which are faced by an organization within a given societal setup. In this case, the organization which is of attention is the daycare organization which is involving in offering accommodation to the young kids. But in the process of executing its, activities, it’s evident that the daycare organization is being faced by some issues which include the lateness of the parents from picking their kids from the organization. As from the stipulated rules, parents have the responsibility of dropping their kids and picking them later from the organization. In regards to this, the organization have realised that there is a tendency of some parents coming late to pick their loved ones and this has lead to the creation of policies that may be seen as an approach to curb the challenge.
From an economic point of view, it’s evident that the critical issues which are being faced by the organization are those which touch on the time value and the cost of hiring extra teachers to see the organization through. This is because, for the firm to remain loyal to its goals and objectives, then there is a need for them to come up with some policies which will see them impose on their clients while trying to curb on the issues reacted with lateness at the pickup time. In regards to this, what comes out clearly from the case study is the introduction of a policy whereby, parents have been given an option of adhering to the pickup time which is at exactly 4 pm and failure to that, there is an imposed fine which is $3 for anyone who comes to pick their kids after a during close to more than 10 minutes.
As it may be thought that, with the introduction of fine to the organization may help to reduce the number of lateness, then that was not the case because this led to an increase in the number of those who came late to pick their kids. What is noted about this from an economic perspective is the effects which are related to incentives, whereby incentives may tend to create a negative or positive response. About this, it’s clear that any policy that is being made within an organization of a daycare nature has to comply with the set structures on the firm. Whereby, there are steps in which policies should be taken through before the organization adopts them (Cullen, etl.). Majorly, those who are tasked to carry out in the decision-making process when it comes to the new policies are the top management of the firm who have the upper thoughts and are responsible in running the activities of the organization. As a result of this, a decision may not be implemented without considering the existing resources which are essential in ensuring that any policy which is brought on board is executed excellently. For this case, with the introduction of fine policy and increase in the number of those who are late, then it’s clear that there was a need to increase the number of teachers to help the effective running of the daycare organization.
Research Problem
The research can be tagged along with the study of social and monetary rewards in economic decision making and behavioural aspects with human beings. This is a discussion which have been in the public domains. What we tend to answer in such a research problem is a question which ponders many with the intention of trying to find out as to what human being holds to specific behaviours. This can be narrowed to issues which are related to decision making and incentives (Deere, etl.). In regards to this, it’s clear that human behaviours are associated with economics, social and morals which may be derived from the incentives. This means that for any decision making there must be an influence of the incentives which are attached to; therefore the human behaviours are guided by the expectation of positive or negative outcomes. Thus, whenever a reward is available, it is assumed that we behave a particular way to receive it. As a matter of importance, research has been carried out on neuroeconomics and behavioural economics, and it has been found out that decision-making is evaluated on the changes in incentives within any organization.
The key drivers of any decision-making are vested on monetary and social rewards, and this means that an organization plays a role by ensuring that it has a set of authority structures, processes, and rules in place that govern how decisions get made, resources get allocated, and priorities get set. Based on this, the top management has a responsibility to question how they run their activities within the firm. Some of the questions which may be put into consideration in the process of decision making may entail the subject of the governance models and how it works. It may not be simply adopted, but the responsible parties should be in a position to map out all the necessary concepts for any decision-making. This will help to reduce a lot of misconception and misinformation within the organizational structures (Mark, etl.pg1594-1605). While considering the governance roles, it’s evident that the organizational environment too plays a crucial part in decision making. This can be associated with the positioning and trends of the firm in its operation to see that all that is being executed are done within the organization goals and objectives. But also, the flexibility of the firm to embrace any new policies within its environment is always of important because if the firm has no room to adopt any new change within its environment them any form of decision-making may not be realised.
Conceptual Background
From the basis of how the case study has depicted operations within Daycare organization, it’s evident that there is a complementary relationship between decision-making, incentives and behavioural character of individuals transacting with the firm. Based on this, it was noted that as the management was contemplating on curbing issues to do with the lateness of parents by introducing a $3 fine. People tend to respond inversely to the policy because it saw the firm records an increase in the number of those who came late. On the other hand, this saw the management employ extra teachers to merge on their needs. Therefore, an interrelationship between incentives and behaviour can be seen because of the increase in the number of lateness, demonstrates some motivational aspect to the human action.
Reflection
What can be deduced from the case study touches is how decision-making and incentives have had some influence to the human behaviours. This can be seen from the basis that, within the daycare organization there could have been some lateness, but it was not high. But with the introduction of policies as a result of decision making, its evident that the organisation start to register an increase in the number of parents who were coming late. Therefore, as much as we may have an understanding of the influence of incentives, which is the urge for an individual to do more good than bad? It’s clear that from this case that the parents may have had a different expectation based on how they responded to the situation. In regards to this, incentives and human behaviour have depicted a sense of complementary relationship based on how conditions have been demonstrated. Therefore, incentives primarily have shown how they can be a motivating aspect. In this case, when the management of Daycare organization made the decisions was not with an intention to motivate the parents to come late to pick their kids continually but from what could be noted from the case study is that, the introduction of a fine may have motivated the parents, and this saw a number of those coming late increase. This is an inverse motivating aspect of incentives because the introduction of a fine was with the intention of an issue but this lead to creating an environment for the vice to increase by double digits.
Though, we may have gotten some concepts on what daycare organization is offering regarding its services and on the other hand how the organization is running its activities. The analysis of the case study may not be to the full detail because the contents which may have been availed could not be in particular to see that the fully furnished material is avail. But I will not cry fall that my analysis is not to the standard, but the little we found was enough to justify the problem statement with decision-making, incentive and human behaviours( Rafael, etl.). Thus, from my analysis, it’s evident that incentives are some of the aspects which have psychological triggers to how human beings behave concerning their morals, social and economics. In regards to this, economists have had their time to correlate between economics and psychology.
References
Contreras, Russell, “Inquiry Uncovers Possible Cheating on GRE in Asia,” Associated Press August 7, 2002.
Cullen, Julie Berry, and Randall Reback, “Tinkering Toward Accolades: School Gaming under a Performance Accountability System.” Working paper, University of Michigan, 2002.
Deere, Donald, and Wayne Strayer, “Putting Schools to the Test: School Accountability, Incentives and Behavior,” Working Paper, Texas A"M University, 2002.
DiTella, Rafael, and Ernesto Schargrodsky, “The Role of Wages and Auditing during a Crackdown on Corruption in the City of Buenos Aires,” unpublished manuscript, Harvard Business School, 2001.
Duggan, Mark, and Steven Levitt, “Winning Isn’t Everything: Corruption in Sumo Wrestling,” American Economic Review, XCII (2002), 1594 –1605
Acknowledgement
My tutors partially supported this case study analysis. I thank my colleagues from the Business school who provided me with insight and expertise that greatly assisted the investigation, although they may not agree with all of the interpretations/conclusions of this paper.
