Management Paper

In an environment of publicly owned companies, SAS was in a unique position in the software industry as a privately owned company. In terms of the congruence model, if Goodnight started off with the Microsoft code, SAS would essentially have a different output. Rather than creating statistical analysis software for corporate use, SAS would have a code for an operating system geared toward more individual and widespread use. In order to capture a large portion of the market quickly with this product, SAS would have to change its input of being private to being public.

As a public company, Goodnight needs to consider his shareholders’ expectations when making decisions. One thing that would change is the “digging holes” notion. Since there is risk involved with this process, the number of “holes” would be reduced since shareholders would be cautious of spending money on uncertain products. In addition, shareholders would expect higher short term sales and quarterly earnings so Goodnight would have to develop software quickly, requiring more testers to check for bugs.

SAS Institute’s licensing business model would be modified for the larger user base. Instead of licensing to individual end-users, SAS would have to sell their software to computer manufacturers such as IBM. SAS would be able to continue their consumer-driven development process by using the same methods of sampling and customer feedback from user groups to gauge what consumers need. Overall, Microsoft code developed by SAS would be more user-friendly and bug-free because of Goodnight’s dedication to customers.

Word Count: 250

Question 2

Though the world of SAS would change slightly by the Microsoft code, Goodnight’s approach to motivation would not have to change significantly. As a research based business, it is crucial for SAS to attract the best talent and have low turnover rates. Goodnight’s approach accomplishes that and motivates employees to not only stay with the company but become very involved and dedicated to it. Goodnight’s approach to motivation stems in developing a strong culture and encouraging intrinsic motivation. SAS has a culture of being family-like, which allows employees to feel free rather than “managed to death.” This gives them a sense of responsibility and autonomy that intrinsically motivates them, resulting in high reciprocity and low turnover rates. Though the product would be different with the Microsoft code, Goodnight would still want to maintain that level of motivation from his employees. Thus, his first two people principles would still be implemented: to treat everyone fairly and equally and to emphasize intrinsic motivation and trusting people. Because of such emphasis on intrinsic motivation, there would be little change to extrinsic motivations, since increasing extrinsic motivation would undermine intrinsic motivation.

As for the other two principles of thinking long-term and using bottom-up decision making, these policies would be amended