Case Study

BUDDY’S SNACK COMPANY

Buddy’s Snack Company is a family-owned company located in the Rocky Mountains. Buddy Forest started
the business in 1951 by selling homemade potato chips out of the back of his pickup truck. Nowadays Buddy’s
is a $36 million snack food company that is struggling to regain market share lost to Frito-Lay and other fierce
competitors. In the early eighties Buddy passed the business to his son, Buddy Jr., who is currently grooming
his son, Mark, to succeed himself as head of the company.
Six months ago Mark joined Buddy’s Snacks as a salesperson, and after four months he was quickly
promoted to sales manager. Mark recently graduated from a local university with an MBA in marketing, and
Buddy Jr. was hoping that Mark would be able to implement strategies that could help turn the company
around. One of Mark’s initial strategies was to introduce a new sales performance management system. As
part of this approach, any salesperson who receives a below-average performance rating would be required
to attend a mandatory coaching session with his or her supervisor. Mark Forest is hoping that these coaching
sessions will motivate employees to increase their sales. This case describes the reaction of three
salespeople who have been required to attend a coaching session because of their low performance over
the previous quarter.
Lynda Lewis is a hard worker who takes pride in her work ethic. She has spent a lot of time reading the
training material and learning selling techniques, viewing training videos on her own time, and accompanying
top salespeople on their calls. Lynda has no problem asking for advice and doing whatever needs to be done
to learn the business. Everyone agrees that Lynda has a cheery attitude and is a real “team player,” giving
the company 150 percent at all times. It has been a tough quarter for Lynda due to the downturn in the
economy, but she is doing her best to make sales for the company. Lynda feels that failure to make quota
during this past quarter is due not to lack of effort, but just bad luck in the economy. She is hopeful that things
will turn around in the next quarter.
Lynda is upset with Mark about having to attend the coaching session because this is the first time in three
years that her sales quota has not been met. Although Lynda is willing to do whatever it takes to be
successful, she is concerned that the coaching sessions will be held on a Saturday. Doesn’t Mark realize that
Lynda has to raise three boys by herself and that weekends are an important time for her family? Because
Lynda is a dedicated employee, she will somehow manage to rearrange the family’s schedule.
Lynda is now very concerned about how her efforts are being perceived by Mark. After all, she exceeded the
sales quota for the previous quarter, yet she did not receive thanks or congratulations for those efforts. The
entire experience has left Lynda unmotivated and questioning her future with the company.
Michael Benjamin is happy to have his job at Buddy’s Snack Company, although he really doesn’t like sales
work that much. Michael accepted this position because he felt that he wouldn’t have to work hard and
would have a lot of free time during the day. Michael was sent to coaching mainly because his customer
satisfaction reports were low; in fact, they were the lowest in the company. Michael tends to give canned
presentations and does not listen closely to the customer’s needs. Consequently, Michael makes numerous
errors in new sales orders, which delay shipments and lose business and goodwill for Buddy’s Snack
Company. Michael doesn’t really care because most of his customers do not spend much money, and he
doesn’t think it is worth his while.
The company commission structure, so instead of selling to the warehouse stores and possibly earning a
high commission, Michael is now forced to sell to lower-volume convenience stores. In other words, he will
have to sell twice as much product to earn the same amount of money. Michael does not think this change
in commission is fair, and he feels that the coaching session will be a waste of time. He believes that the
other members of the sales team are getting all of the good leads, and that is why they are so successful.
Michael doesn’t socialize with others in the office and attributes others’ success and promotions to “whom
they know” in the company rather than the fact that they are hard workers. He thinks that no matter how much
effort is put into the job, he will never be adequately rewarded.
Kyle Sherbo. For three of the last five years Kyle was the number one salesperson in the division and had
hopes of being promoted to sales manager. When Mark joined the company, Kyle worked closely with Buddy
Jr. to help Mark learn all facets of the business. Kyle thought this close relationship with Buddy Jr. would
assure his upcoming promotion to the coveted position of sales manager, and he was devastated to learn
that Mark received the promotion that he thought was his.
During the past quarter there was a noticeable change in Kyle’s work habits. It has become commonplace
for Kyle to be late for appointments or miss them entirely, not return phone calls, and not follow up on leads.
His sales performance declined dramatically, which resulted in a drastic loss of income. Although Kyle had
been dedicated and fiercely loyal to Buddy Jr. and the company for many years, he is now looking for other
employment. Buddy’s Snacks is located in a rural community, which leaves Kyle with limited job opportunities.
He was, however, offered a position as a sales manager with a competing company in a larger town, but
Kyle’s wife refuses to leave the area because of her strong family ties. Kyle is bitter and resentful of his
current situation and now faces a mandatory coaching session that will be conducted by Mark.
Discussion Questions:
Wad-asen, Kate R.
MD0015351

1. You have met three employees of Buddy’s Snacks. Explain how each employee’s situation relates to equity
theory.
Equity theory states that people are motivated by fairness, they compare their situations with other
people to evaluate the fairness of their situation. Our first case is Lynda Lewis, she has been doing her best
for the past 3 years and it is only during the last quarter that she failed to meet her quota. Due to this she
must attend the coaching session during Saturdays, and this made her frustrated with Mark because she has
to take care of 3 boys during those times but now, she has to make adjustments. Lynda might be feeling
injustice since she exceeded her quota last quarter without getting any recognition from her boss, why not
just waive this unmet quota for the extra sales she made last quarter. Because of this, even though Lynda
did adjust her schedule to accommodate the coaching, she is now questioning her future with the company.
Here we see that Lynda recognizes the situation as unfair due to the lack of recognition and consideration
from Mark about her performance during the recent quarter and the quarter wherein she made extra sales,
and even the past 3 years where she always meets her quota for sales.
Secondly, Michael Benjamin who thinks working in sales wouldn’t be so hard. He is told to attend the
coaching because of a low costumer satisfaction. Michael thinks that the success of his colleagues is based
on who they know. And since his main costumers are low-volume convenience stores, who according to him
does not spend so much so he does not care if they buy or not, instead of large warehouse stores he must
exert twice the effort his colleagues do. Here we see Michael demotivated to exert more effort to his job
mainly because of his misguided belief that it is not hard work that earns you success in sales it is the people
you know.
Lastly, we have Kyle Sherbo who has been the top performing sales person in the company for five
years. Along with Buddy Jr. they trained Mark, Buddy’s son, to succeed leadership of the company. He is
expecting to be promoted to sales manager, but the position was given to Mark after just six months in the
company. He was furious at this and started missing appointments, ignoring calls, and not following up on
leads. A sales manager position was offered to him by another company, but his wife does not want to leave
the area. All this resulted in the decline of sales from Kyle. We see him unmotivated to do his usual best and
be the top of the sales team since he thinks that hard work is not being rewarded properly in this company
and so why exert more effort than usual.

2. Describe the three needs identified by McClelland. How are they related to worker behavior in each
situation?
The three needs theory by McClelland states that all the desires of humans can be classified in three
categories; the need for achievement, the need for affiliation, and the need for power. The need for
achievement is those actions taken by people who wants to surely accomplish something. They avoid low-
risk of high-risk situations to increase their chance of gaining something. The need for affiliation pertains to
the desire of people to create a harmonious relationship with other people and to be accepted by them.
Finally, the need for power, mainly perceived as unethical since this need can mean personal want to direct
or command others. But it can also be perceived as one’s efforts to organize the efforts of others to pursue
the goals of the organization.
Among the three employees, Lynda exhibit a strong need for affiliation as described by her
colleagues that she’s highly a ‘team player’. Kyle shows a need for power as he desires to become the sales
manager which would be reasonable to aim since he’s been the top salesperson for five years. As for Michael,
he does not seem to show any desire for any of the three categories. He does not have the need to achieve,
he just accepts his failures and blames it on his costumers for not investing much on their product. And
strongly not wanting affiliation, as he isolates himself from his colleagues and holds a grudge on his
colleagues who have, according to him, ‘connections’.
3. Compare and contrast the three relationships of expectancy theory. To which employee situation does
each apply?
The first component of the expectancy theory of motivation is effect-performance relationship; this is
where an employee believes that by exerting the effort on the job it will lead to better performance. This type
of expectancy theory is negatively portrayed by Michael, he believes that no matter how much you exert in
sales it would not matter since it will always depend on the people you know to get high sales. Second
component is performance-reward relationship; were the employee believes by performing at a certain level
would lead to a good outcome. This applies obviously with Kyle, being the tope salesperson for five years
makes him hopeful for a promotion to sales manager. Finally, the third component is reward-personal goal
relationship; here is where the employer rewards the employee for doing a great job. Lynda exhibits this type
of category since she has been faithfully performing well since she begun at the company. She also believes
that it was not her performance that lead to the decline of her sales, but it was just bad luck. Even though
she has problems about attending the coaching she still maintains proper employee attitude and followed
what the top management requires of her