The theory of equity is to motivate people to seek social equity in the rewards they receive for their performance. This relates to The Parlor in several different ways. The Parlor was developed as a restaurant aimed at providing service and atmosphere from the roaring twenties. The service aspect of the restaurant consisted of accents from the twenties like an old time piano mechanically driven to play music. They specialized in old time fountain sodas and ice cream sundaes. Overall they had a high quality of food and service.
Owned and managed by Richard Purvis in San Francisco, The Parlor has grown steadily during the last seven years. With such an incline in business, Purvis decided to hire a manager. Purvis also wanted to try to devote more time to developing additional business ideas.
With new business ideas in mind, Purvis went through a month of recruitment and interviewing. After careful selection he chose Paul McCarthy, an experienced supervisor at a local establishment. A downfall to the hiring process was that Purvis decided to complete this function without any of the employees knowing. On McCarthy’s first day, Purvis was out of town. McCarthy entered the establishment and introduced himself to the employees as their new boss.
The arrangement between Purvis and McCarthy consisted of being paid a straight salary along with a percentage of the amount he saves the business per month. This percentage of savings is based off of the previous month’s operating expenses. McCarthy was the only employee of The Parlor that was paid in addition to the hourly rate.
The first few weeks that McCarthy was on the job he became very efficient and showed sincere evidence of supervision. After a month this had all changed. McCarthy decided to initiate a cost savings program with hopes of decreasing the companies overhead and increasing his savings bonus. Changes were made such as changing the wholesale meat supplier, decreasing the portion size of meals, decreasing the hours worked by higher rate employees, and increasing the hours worked by minimum wage employees.
Over time more and more began to decline, such as meal credits for employees working over five hours per day and the twenty percent employee discount. Soon customers began to notice the decrease in appearance in employees and began to complain about the level of service.
Equity theory is used as a motivation tool, when employees are treated fairly and equitably there is a high moral and a high motivation. Employees feel that if they work hard as part of a team and each member is getting the same rewards, the motivation level will remain high to keep striving for the reward. The issue comes into play when rewards begin to shift towards one individual, this will translate into a decreased amount of motivation from the employees.
All of the changes made by McCarthy have affected employees by decreasing motivation. Most employees feel overworked and underappreciated. By having so many changes so quickly without the input of the employees has made them feel underappreciated causing a lack of motivation. By decreasing social equity and rewarding only one employee this has also caused a major decrease in motivation.
With review of The Parlor’s situation, I feel that several recommendations can be made to help restore the decreased moral within the restaurant. Using the equity theory as my basis for this recommendation, delivering a more equal work environment will dissolve the lack of moral within the restaurant.
By hiring a new employee to take over the restaurant caused a major shift in the amount of employee morale. The Parlor theme was based in the roaring twenties, this era of business consisted of a high level of customer service along with a great value. The twenties consisted of low income where the dollar had to be stretched. Keeping with the theme of the twenties the management needs to provide top notch customer service along with a great value. The hiring of McCarthy was a good idea to allow expansion of new business ideas. My first recommendation would be to eliminate the cost savings bonus. By having one employee that makes changes based on financial gain for themselves can cause a problem. Financial gain can be an extreme motivator for a manager to take drastic measures to cut out cost and streamline, this can be done in a negative fashion causing a severe loss in moral. By incorporating empowerment into the business this will boast moral. Instead of having just one person making the changes and seeing the rewards, the power should be dispersed . There should be a tier within each job function. This would consist of a supervisor type roll within each job. An example would be having a supervising cook, the responsibility would consist of scheduling, and cost analysis. A good cook would be able to decide if they could provide the same type of meal using products from a different supplier. At the end of the month any savings from the previous month would be considered a productivity bonus. By having several different supervisor positions this would eliminate one person trying to make so many changes to benefit themselves.
My next recommendation would be to keep the hours equal. Each employee has a specific function, by removing hours because of a higher function and higher pay leads to poor service and overall failure. Within a business there is always cost, customer service is a major part of any service based industry. By not regulating hours due to pay scale this will prevent the minimum wage employees becoming overworked and increase performance and outcomes.
In conclusion, I feel that equity is an important part of any workforce. Next in importance is customer service. You will not have a highly motivated staff if the boss is the only one reaping the rewards of the hard working staff. By treating the staff equal and not making too many drastic changes in the workflow, this will lead to a continued high level of motivation and success leading to an overall excellent customer satisfaction.

Part B

Six years ago Cub Scout Pack 81 was on the verge of disbanding. There was hardly enough boys active in the pack to stay operational. On a continuous basis the pack had been losing members left and right. The cub master had made several efforts to pass the torch onto any parent to try to make a solid recovery. Cub Scout Pack 81 was sponsored by the local volunteer fire department, with such a decline in interest the fire department was looking at dropping its sponsorship.
The turning point was about five years ago when after a bit of preparation the Cub Scout Pack 81 all came together and took fourth place at the Scout Expo. This was the turning point for the pack. The scout members all worked together along with the parents to produce success.
Currently, Cub Scout Pack 81 has about 60 members. This is one of the largest memberships in Lancaster/Lebanon County. The success of the pack has snowballed into the development of its own Boy Scout Troop. The troop has been so successful it has received a presidential citation for its antidrug program.
Reviewing the expectancy theory in relationship to Cub Scout Pack 81, the experiences in the past were poor. There was little effort and support put into the program which led to a low level of performance. By having a low level of member involvement, along with a decline in members, led to a low level of moral. The moral was so low at one point the sponsoring facility wanted to withdraw. This was a combination of lack of interest and support that led to such a poor level of effort and a negative moral within Cub Scout Pack 81.
Past expectancies:
1.) Verge of disbanding
a. E >P expectancy, A low effort was performed from the support of the parents that lead to a low level of performance of the Cub Scouts.
2.) Fire department withdrawing community support
a. Valence, The massive loss of participation in the community reflected poorly on the sponsoring fire department.

The expectancies currently are strong within Cub Scout Pack 81. There are a large number of supporters from the community along with a high number of children participating in the orginization. The pack has established a secondary branch of a Boy Scout Troop because of such high support. The main level of success came from the Cub Master Mike Murphy boosting the moral between the parents of the Cub Scout members to rally to become a successful organization.

Current expectancies:
1.) Winning in community scouting events
a. P>O expectancy, there is a high level of participation within the group, showing such support leads to winning awards.
2.) Enrollment at an all time high
a. E>P expectancy, the high level of support from the community translates to a high level of performance by the Cub Scout members.
In conclusion, Cub Scout Pack 81 experienced a turning point that led to their success. Six years ago they had low moral along with low participation from the parents and community, which led to a low effort being put forth by the members. The turning point was when the scout leader asked for the parents to help with the development of the organization and developed a well supported troop. It took the support of the parents and community for the children to win at a local scouting event. This win led to the boost in moral that translated into outstanding community respect and support. The successful troop has become so popular it developed a Boy Scout troop and has a record number of participants.

Daft, R. L. (2008). The Leadership Experience, (4th ed.). Mason, Ohio: Thomson South-Western. Pages 225-255