Question

Kate Marley’s Story

Kate Marley grew up in Brooklyn, New York the daughter of immigrants. Her father was from Jamaica and her mother from Puerto Rico. While not educated themselves, her parents valued education and Kate had been a diligent student since early childhood. She worked her way through City College of New York and got a full scholarship for law school at Pace University.

When Kate obtained her law degree (JD), she applied for a position with a large and respected corporate law firm. She was among dozens of applicants; but, because of her outstanding academic record and excellent references from her professors she was among the four selected. As a new associate, she worked sixteen hour days and weekends, she accepted routine assignments graciously, and was well liked by colleagues and clients. Her willingness to work extremely hard and her strong desire to achieve excellence in her job were directly tied to her goals of becoming professionally and financially successful.

Recently however, events at work had caused her to develop doubts about whether her achievements would pay off as she hoped. She wanted very much to be recognized for her work in tangible ways with more choice case assignments and an invitation to become a partner in the firm. She had recently learned that 3 of her male colleagues who had joined the firm after she and whose performance levels were inferior to her own, had received larger bonuses than she had received. Further, it appeared they were being groomed for better assignments; and, one among them had already been invited to become partner in the firm.

Kate’s mind kept returning to these cases. She became more and more suspicious that something besides performance was holding her back. It took a long time for her to become bold enough to speak to one of the firm’s partners about her concerns, but she finally took the opportunity that arose one evening during the firm’s Christmas party. She had been chatting alone with the partner in charge of the area in which she presently worked. She hardly was able to give any attention to the conversation because she was thinking about whether she should risk telling him how upset she was.

He noticed her uneasiness and asked if anything was wrong. She poured it all out and couldn’t help but cry as she did. He seemed to listen sympathetically. Then he said that, although he knew he shouldn’t tell her this and he would deny that he ever did, she would have to face the fact that her chances of rising higher in the firm were not good because some of the old partners were not ready to accept a minority woman as a partner in the firm.

She felt her heart pound and her gorge rise. Kate had never felt her whole being flooded with such rage. She said, “Thank you for telling me,” then quietly got up and left. The next day she resigned. The next week she accepted a position in another law firm with a 20% base pay increase.   Three years later she became a partner in that firm.

Answer both of the following questions. Spelling and grammar are 20% of the grade for is exam, 80% for content and demonstration of knowledge of the topics.

1. Apply the concepts we studied in Chapter 4 on Perceptions and Attribution Theory explain all the possible reasons that the senior partners did not perceive Kate’s performance favorably as compared to her fellow male associates in the firm Identify and define the as many of the various concepts we studied that might explain faulty perception of Kate. Simply listing “stereotypes” is not a sufficient response.

2. Using the Equity Theory from Chapter 6, explain why Kate was motivated to leave the firm after hearing why she was being overlooked by the senior partners as for better pay and advancement. Be sure to define the various parts of the theory as you explain Kate’s motivation to depart.

Answer 1

1. Apply the concepts we studied in Chapter 4 on Perceptions and Attribution Theory explain all the possible reasons that the senior partners did not perceive Kate’s performance favorably as compared to her fellow male associates in the firm Identify and define the as many of the various concepts we studied that might explain the faulty perception of Kate. Simply listing “stereotypes” is not a sufficient response.

perception- how we see things around ourselves and interpret information.

attribution(cognitive control) theory- what happens if you take perceived information and result in some hazardous action.

in business or infirm, it shapes personality and how we react as per the situation. the root cause of the perception problems linked to one particular issue. reasons, why a senior partner does not perceive kate's performance favorably, are below-

• kate is a minority woman and based on stereotypes related to cast may lead a reason to not perceive her performance.
• kate is a woman, and to favor woman over man could be a reason.
• in spite of good academic record, she belongs to an economically challenged background.
• man ego and attitude be a reason to stop to raise women up to a man.

2. Using the Equity Theory from Chapter 6, explain why Kate was motivated to leave the firm after hearing why she was being overlooked by the senior partners for better pay and advancement. Be sure to define the various parts of the theory as you explain Kate’s motivation to depart.

equity theory - define whether equality among distribution or not. it is the sense of fairness.

kate was motivated to leave firm because- equity theory of motivation tells that person start motivating by fairness and with kate fairness in respect of pay, promotion or good case is missing because of this she was motivated to depart. as kate perception of equity( fairness) is low so kate is not ready to work for organization positively or motivatedly and this leads to kate depart.