| Course | LDR 731 Contemporary Issues in Leadership (LDR/731) |
|---|---|
| Week | 3 |
| Paper type | Doctoral performance measurement analysis |
| Length | about 1,170 words, 4 double-spaced pages plus title page and references |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | University of Phoenix |
| Program | DBA |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for LDR 731 Week 3
Rewarding Growth While Hoping for Reliability: Performance Expectations and a Balanced Scorecard for a Global Glass Company
[Student Name]
University of Phoenix
LDR/731: Contemporary Issues in Leadership
Week 3 Assignment
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
Maumee Glass Group, its measures and its incentives are composites written for a model paper.
The invented Maumee company has already shown two gaps: a top team whose backgrounds steer it away from its furnaces and values that reached some plants and not others. A third gap concerns performance expectations. In speeches, Brandt emphasizes reliability for customers, safety and long-term growth. Yet the new executive incentive plan pays 85 percent of bonuses on annual revenue growth and 15 percent on operating margin. Plant managers' bonuses follow the same formula, adjusted for plant revenue. In the year since the plan began, maintenance spending fell 12 percent, late deliveries rose from 4 to 7 percent of orders and a furnace at the Gliwice plant suffered a refractory failure that forced a nine-day shutdown. Vice president of global operations Daniel Okafor believes the incentives are working exactly as designed, on the wrong things. This paper examines performance expectations and measures.
Rewarding One Thing, Hoping for Another
Kerr (1975) pointed to a common mistake: organizations frequently reward behaviors they do not want while hoping for behaviors they do not reward. Examples included rewarding quantity while hoping for quality and rewarding short-term results while hoping for long-term growth. People respond to what is rewarded, especially when it is measurable, and stated hopes carry little weight against incentives.
Nonfinancial Measures as Leading Indicators
Ittner and Larcker (1998) studied customer satisfaction measures in businesses and found that customer satisfaction was a leading indicator of financial performance, related to future revenue and customer retention, though relationships were not linear in every case. They noted that financial results reflect past performance, while some nonfinancial measures signal future results.
Twenty Years of the Balanced Scorecard
Hoque (2014) surveyed twenty years of work on the scorecard approach, which groups measures into money, customers, how work gets done and how people and capabilities grow. Studies found mixed results, with benefits more likely when scorecards were linked to strategy, cascaded through the organization and used in management discussions rather than treated as reporting tools. Problems arose when scorecards included too many measures or were not tied to rewards and decisions.
What the Current Plan Rewards
The plan rewards revenue growth almost exclusively. Revenue can grow through the new branded line and price increases while maintenance is deferred, since maintenance costs reduce margin only slightly in the short term and do not affect revenue at all. The plan says nothing about safety, delivery reliability, customer satisfaction, employee development or energy use.
What People Did
Plant managers cut maintenance to protect margins while pushing volume. Two delayed planned furnace inspections. Sales teams offered discounts to hit year-end revenue targets. Behavior followed rewards precisely, as Kerr (1975) would predict.
Nobody at Maumee decided to let a furnace fail; the bonus plan made that decision for them, one deferred inspection at a time.
The Cost of Misalignment
The Gliwice shutdown cost about $6 million in lost production, emergency repairs and penalties to an automotive customer, more than the plant's entire annual maintenance savings. Late deliveries prompted one appliance maker to shift 15 percent of its orders to a competitor.
How the Plan Was Designed
The incentive plan was designed quickly by the chief financial officer and an outside compensation consultant, using a template from the private equity investor's other portfolio companies, most of which were software and consumer businesses with few physical assets. No one from operations reviewed it. The design process explains the plan's blind spot: in businesses without furnaces, revenue growth is a reasonable primary measure, while in heavy manufacturing it can encourage neglect of the assets that make growth possible.
What Executives Say They Want
Interviews with top team members confirmed that all of them value reliability and safety; several were surprised to learn that maintenance spending had fallen. The gap is not in values but in the system that translates values into rewards. This is precisely Kerr's point: hopes do not compete well with incentives.
Leading and Lagging Indicators
Revenue and margin are lagging indicators: they report what has already happened. Furnace availability, planned maintenance completion and on-time delivery are leading indicators of future revenue and customer retention. A plan built only on lagging measures sees problems only after they become expensive.
A Balanced Scorecard for Maumee
The proposed scorecard links measures to Maumee's strategy of profitable growth built on reliable glassmaking. Financial: revenue growth and operating margin. Customer: on-time delivery and customer satisfaction scores from key accounts. Internal process: furnace availability, planned maintenance completion and safety incidents. Learning and growth: technical training completed and retention of skilled glassmakers. Energy intensity per ton of glass reflects both cost and environmental goals.
Weighting and Incentives
The executive bonus will split two-fifths to financial results, a quarter each to customer and operating measures and the remaining tenth to people development. A safety gate will reduce bonuses if serious incidents occur, regardless of other results.
A Plant Manager's View
The Gliwice plant manager described the pressure he felt. His bonus depended on revenue, which he could influence only by running lines faster, and on margin, which he could protect only by cutting costs. Maintenance was the largest controllable cost. He knew the furnace inspection was overdue but believed he would be judged on this year's numbers, not on a failure that might come later. His account shows how a reasonable person responds to an unbalanced plan.
Cascading to Plants
Plant managers' scorecards will emphasize the measures they control: furnace availability, maintenance completion, safety, delivery and plant cost, with revenue weighted less, since revenue depends mostly on sales and pricing decided elsewhere.
Linking Short and Long Term
Some measures, such as planned maintenance completion and skilled worker retention, protect long-term performance at short-term cost. Including them counters the short-term bias in the current plan.
Communicating the New Plan
The new scorecard will be explained to all managers in person, with examples of how the old plan encouraged deferred maintenance and how the new plan rewards reliability. Managers will see their own scorecards and how their decisions move each measure.
Guarding Against Gaming
Paired measures will reduce gaming: maintenance completion will be paired with furnace availability to prevent box-ticking, and revenue with margin to discourage unprofitable discounting. Measures will be reviewed annually.
Using the Scorecard in Management
Following Hoque's finding that scorecards work when used in decisions, monthly leadership meetings will review the scorecard, not just financial results, and plant reviews will begin with safety and reliability.
Limits
Scorecards can become complex and bureaucratic. Maumee will limit measures to about a dozen at the executive level.
Conclusion
Research shows that organizations get what they reward, that nonfinancial measures can lead financial performance and that balanced scorecards help when linked to strategy and used in decisions. Maumee's growth-only incentives produced deferred maintenance, late deliveries and a costly furnace failure. A balanced scorecard with weighted incentives, a safety gate, cascaded plant measures and paired metrics can align what the company rewards with what its leaders say they want.
References
Hoque, Z. (2014). 20 years of studies on the balanced scorecard: Trends, accomplishments, gaps and opportunities for future research. The British Accounting Review, 46(1), 33-59. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bar.2013.10.003
Ittner, C. D., & Larcker, D. F. (1998). Are nonfinancial measures leading indicators of financial performance? An analysis of customer satisfaction. Journal of Accounting Research, 36, 1-35. https://doi.org/10.2307/2491304
Kerr, S. (1975). On the folly of rewarding A, while hoping for B. Academy of Management Journal, 18(4), 769-783. https://doi.org/10.5465/255378
What the LDR 731 Week 3 instructions ask
In Week 3, LDR 731 students are often asked to analyze how senior leaders set and deploy performance expectations and measure organizational performance. Expect to discuss short- and long-term goals, financial and nonfinancial measures, the balanced scorecard and similar frameworks, alignment between measures, incentives and strategy and unintended consequences of poorly designed incentives. A strong doctoral paper uses research on performance measurement and incentives, analyzes an organization's actual measures and rewards, identifies misalignments with specific evidence and proposes a balanced system linking measures to strategy and stakeholders. Instructors also look for a plan to cascade expectations from executives to sites. Support the analysis with peer-reviewed research in APA style.
How this LDR 731 Week 3 example is built
Maumee's new chief executive told employees that reliability, safety and customer satisfaction matter, yet the executive bonus plan pays 85 percent on revenue growth and 15 percent on profit margin. Plant managers' bonuses follow the same formula. The paper examines what this teaches people. A classic analysis shows how organizations reward one behavior while hoping for another. Research on customer satisfaction finds that nonfinancial measures can predict future financial results. A review of 20 years of balanced scorecard studies finds mixed but often positive effects when the scorecard links measures to strategy. Evidence of deferred maintenance, rising late deliveries and a near miss at a furnace shows the effects of the current incentives, and the paper proposes a balanced scorecard with expectations cascaded to plants.
LDR 731 Week 3 grading rubric: where the points go
Reviewers of performance measurement papers look for close reasoning about what each measure rewards and for alignment between measures, incentives and stated strategy. They also notice whether the proposal shows what plant managers, not just executives, will be paid for. Strong work uses research on incentives and nonfinancial measures, identifies specific misalignments between stated goals and what is measured and rewarded, supports claims with organizational evidence and proposes a balanced system linked to strategy. Graders reward attention to time horizons, to leading and lagging indicators and to how expectations cascade to sites. Honest discussion of the scorecard's limitations and of gaming risks shows mature judgment, and specific weights and targets make the proposal concrete.
LDR 731 Week 3 help: mistakes to avoid
Students often recommend adding more measures without asking what behavior each will reward. Measures and incentives shape behavior, sometimes in unintended ways. Analyze effects. Another common gap is treating the balanced scorecard as a list of perspectives rather than a set of linked measures that express strategy. Show the links. Some papers ignore evidence that nonfinancial measures can lead financial results, which justifies including them. Use it. Others propose a scorecard for executives without showing how plant managers' expectations change. Cascade it. Finally, consider gaming: people will find ways to hit targets that do not serve the goal, so pair measures and review them.
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LDR 731 Week 3 questions, answered
What does LDR 731 Week 3 usually cover?
It usually covers how senior leaders set and deploy performance expectations, including financial and nonfinancial measures, balanced scorecards, incentives and alignment with strategy.
Where can I find a free LDR 731 Week 3 sample paper?
The Week 3 doctoral paper on performance expectations and a balanced scorecard for a composite glass manufacturer is shown above.
What did Kerr mean about rewards and hopes?
Kerr's phrase for paying people for one thing, usually something easy to count, while wishing they would do something else that earns them nothing, and then being surprised by the results.
Do nonfinancial measures predict financial performance?
Research on customer satisfaction found that it can be a leading indicator of future financial performance, though the relationship varies and has limits.
Does the balanced scorecard work?
A 20-year review found mixed but often positive effects, especially when the scorecard links measures to strategy and is used in management processes rather than as a reporting tool.
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