Maximizing - Satisficing

1. Running head: GREENE’S GROCERIES 1
Greene’s Groceries Cashiers
Samuel E. Dunham
Valdosta State University
November 29, 2014

2. GREENE’S GROCERIES 2
The purpose of Greene’s Groceries is to sell food and grocery items (e.g., medicine) to
their consumers and provide excellent service. The grocery store is a small, local grocery store
with 15 cashiers and 5 managers (among other employees). The store’s goal towards their
cashiers is to create an environment where the cashiers are productive and efficient, while also
showing them their value to the store. The store’s objective for management is to have
productive managers who create high quality leader-member exchanges with the employees in
order to encourage better job performance (Graves & Luciano, 2013). These objectives will be
reached by providing competitive employee wages and healthcare insurance to the cashiers.
Those placed into management positions will be selected based on their performance record,
motivational skills, and leadership. The expectations of the cashiers are that they will be cordial
to customers, work diligently, and give to their communities. The expectations of managers are
that they will listen to the concerns of the employees, look for innovative ways to run the
business successfully, and lead effectively through procedural and motivational tactics.
Performance for the cashiers will be evaluated by measuring how many items per hour
they scan while also considering customer service surveys. Cashier critical incidents will also be
examined. Shift attendance rates will also be used to assess cashier performance. The
performance of management will be determined by the turnover rates of the store cashiers. A
high rate of turnover would indicate poor management performance and low turnover rates
would indicate good performance. Management will also be assessed by cashier completed
surveys to determine how they interact with the cashiers.
On major challenge for Greene’s is the economic climate. The success of the store and
their ability to meet the needs of their employees depends on the amount of groceries sold to
their customers. When the economic prospects fall, consumers typically react by saving more

3. GREENE’S GROCERIES 3
and buying less (Flatters & Willmott, 2009). This could lead to hard decisions being made in
terms of employee termination and use of resources. One solution is is to lower prices because
people need groceries and also an incentive to shop at the store. The lower prices would hurt the
amount of revenue gained per item, but would return a greater profit because more items would
be sold. Another possible issue for Greene’s is an increase in wages given to employees at
competitor stores. Those prices would force Greene’s to either increase the wages of the current
employees, which may be an expensive venture, or tell the employees that their wages will
remain the same and risk losing them to their competitors. One way to solve this potential would
be to either increase the wages of the employees or increase certain employee benefits (e.g.,
more vacation days offered).
There are two approaches that can be used by Greene’s: satisficing and maximizing
(Simon, 1956). Satisficing has a few major advantages. For one, it requires less time and effort
from the store. It allows them to find an option that works “well enough.” By satisficing, the
grocery store can making decisions efficiently. This approach works best with less consequential
decisions. Maximizing works in the opposite way. It requires more time and effort to make
decisions, but it allows the person to find the absolute best option available for the situation
(Schwartz, Ward, Monterosso, Lyubomirsky, White, & Lehman, 2002). Maximizing tends to
work well with decisions that have higher consequences. The best strategy really depends on the
importance and magnitude of the decision. If the consequences are not major for making a bad
choice, then satisficing is the better option. However, if the decision has major consequences for
an error, then maximizing would be the wiser strategy to use. In other words, neither approach
lends itself as a better approach to all situations, but there are instances where one approach
works better than the other.

4. GREENE’S GROCERIES 4
In terms of organizational activities, there are benefits and drawbacks to maximizing and
satisficing. In personnel selection decisions, maximizing allows the store to select the best
cashiers for the job. However, it requires so many resources and organizational energy that it
may not be feasible (Roets, Schwartz, & Guan, 2012). By satisficing, Greene’s can find someone
who can handle the job, though maybe not be the best fit. This means that the store increases
their chance of making a selection mistake, which would be costly for them.
Maximizing management’s objectives would likely produce the best policies for the
store, but may not be feasible because no set of objectives can cover everything. By choosing to
satisfice, the store can produce a set of objectives that are generally focused with their mission
and vision, even if it is not exactly the best set of objectives. However, the objectives may not
cover the most important objectives which would hinder the company from walking in the
direction it is supposed to.
By aiming to have task performance that maximizes, the store may be able to get the best
possible performance out of the cashiers (Iyengar, Wells, and Schwartz, 2006). The problem is
that the expectation that the cashiers produce a maximum effort at all times is not feasible. This
would lead to employee burnout, leading to increased absenteeism. These would lead to more
financial loss for Greene’s. If the store looks to satisfice, then cashier performance will likely be
much more consistent. However, the cashiers may not have the motivation to perform their tasks
to the best of their abilities. This would lead to less than maximum performance from the
cashiers. Along those lines, evaluating performance with a maximizing perspective would allow
the store to look at optimal employee performance. Unfortunately, this would either lead to low
ratings of performance or inconsistent ratings because the cashiers probably will not perform
every task with their maximum effort. On the other hand, if the evaluations of performance are

5. GREENE’S GROCERIES 5
done with a satisficing perspective, then ratings would be much more lenient to the cashiers.
However, this would likely lead to less motivation from cashiers to perform because they can
obtain good ratings without any extra effort. It is also likely that cashiers would see other
coworkers who do not work as hard and get good ratings, which would decrease the motivation
to work hard for the cashiers who already do.
Finally, maximizing and satisficing could both likely decrease worker motivation and
morale. Maximizing could do so because the cashiers may be held to a standard that they cannot
likely reach (Schwartz et al., 2002). However, there could be an increase because the cashiers
may feel that the store exhibits procedural justice. Satisficing could lead to decreases in these
factors because some employees would feel like they invest more in their jobs than their
coworkers do. This approach could also lead to more cashier work motivation because their
performance ratings would likely be constantly high.
Because the store is in an industry that experiences moderate turnover, it would be best to
take a satisficing approach in personnel selection. I would suggest that the store not invest
substantial resources in hiring because of the expected turnover rates. Finding individuals who fit
the organization should be the primary focus (McCulloch & Turban, 2007). Management
objectives should be as specific and relevant to the mission as possible so that it can be identified
when Greene’s is making process. A maximizing approach should be used for both task
performance and performance evaluation. This can be done by having honest evaluations that are
rigorous so that the cashiers are motivated to work diligently and know that good performance is
not lost by management. In order to work with worker motivation and morale, the store should
look to be fair in all of its decisions and communicate constantly with the cashiers.

6. GREENE’S GROCERIES 6
References
Flatters, P., & Willmott, M. (2009). Understanding the post-recession consumer. Harvard
Business Review, 87(7-8), 106-12.
Graves, L., & Luciano, M. (2013). Self-determination at work: Understanding the role of leader-
member exchange. Motivation & Emotion, 37(3), 518-536.
Iyengar, S. S., Wells, R. E., & Schwartz, B. (2006). Doing better but feeling worse: Looking for
the "best" job undermines satisfaction. Psychological Science, 17, 143-150.
McCulloch, M. C., & Turban, D. B. (2007). Using person–organization fit to select employees
for high‐turnover jobs. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 15(1), 63-71.
Roets, A., Schwartz, B., & Guan, Y. (2012). The tyranny of choice: A cross-cultural
investigation of maximizing-satisficing effects on well-being. Judgment and Decision
Making, 7(6), 689-704.
Schwartz, B., Ward, A., Monterosso, J., Lyubomirsky, S., White, K., & Lehman, D. R. (2002).
Maximizing versus satisficing: Happiness is a matter of choice. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 1178-1197.
Simon, H. A. (1956). Rational choice and the structure of the environment. Psychological
Review, 63, 129-138.