A-Level Business: Motivation and Leadership Theories

This material trains the motivation and leadership theories that A level Business expects students to apply to a case. For example, AQA A-level Business names Taylor, Maslow and Herzberg as theories of motivation, financial methods such as piece rate, commission and performance-related pay (section 3.6.4), Hackman and Oldham's job characteristics model (section 3.6.3), and the Tannenbaum-Schmidt continuum and the Blake Mouton grid for leadership (section 3.2.1). Pearson Edexcel topic 1.4.4 names Taylor, Mayo, Maslow and Herzberg with financial and non-financial methods, and topic 1.4.5 the autocratic, paternalistic, democratic and laissez-faire leadership styles. Herzberg is covered in another material in this category, so he appears here only for comparison.

Each quiz question places a theory in an invented workplace: a warehouse run by stopwatch and piece rate, a trial room where output rises whichever way the lights are changed, care workers on insecure contracts offered an award, a production line where nobody sees the finished appliance, engineers receiving customer scores, commission at a car dealership, checkout staff given extra tasks, a paternalistic bakery owner, a team that has outgrown being told what to do, and a well-liked manager whose deadlines slip.

The material offers four formats. The quiz has twelve questions with full explanations. The flashcards hold each theory, the five core job characteristics, the pay and job-design methods and the leadership models. The written work has eight longer tasks: compare Taylor and Mayo in a call centre, apply Maslow to high staff turnover, redesign a customer-service job with Hackman and Oldham, evaluate a move to commission, compare enlargement, enrichment and rotation, choose a leadership style after a factory fire, and explain and evaluate the Tannenbaum-Schmidt continuum and the Blake Mouton grid. In the oral exam an examiner describes invented workplaces one at a time, asks you to apply the theories and recommend a course of action, then gives brief feedback.

All businesses are invented. The material is practice written by Zestly and is independent of any exam board.

• Apply Taylor's scientific management and Mayo's human relations theory to a workplace
• Use Maslow's hierarchy to explain why a motivational measure will or will not work
• Identify and improve Hackman and Oldham's core job characteristics
• Evaluate financial methods of motivation and distinguish job enlargement, enrichment and rotation
• Recognise autocratic, paternalistic, democratic and laissez-faire leadership and judge when each fits
• Apply the Tannenbaum-Schmidt continuum and the Blake Mouton grid

Practice material written by Zestly, based on the A level Business specifications, for example AQA A-level Business (7132) sections 3.2.1, 3.6.3 and 3.6.4 and Pearson Edexcel A level Business (9BS0) topics 1.4.4 and 1.4.5.