Alderfer's Observable Boundaries In The Workplace

Indeed, the Sunray organization was certainly an organization that attempted unique methods to motivate their employees. As stated by the author, members of leadership strongly believed that the the activities which they planned for their workers was a good attempt to create a “fun” work environment. However, once the research was conducted, the true mindset of some of the employees being subjected this organizational culture was revealed. It is my intent to utilize the concepts of boundaries and authority from the BART model to describe how management made a mistake by taking the idea of “fun” too far.

Boundaries

Observable boundaries are defined by Alderfer as the physical, spatial, and temporal divisions that differentiate a group from other groups (McCollom, 1995). The following quote illustrates an observable boundary: “For example, teams have dress-up days where employees must come dressed as a
This would help replace the inappropriate subject and objective boundaries mentioned earlier with more appropriate boundaries (such as appropriate job titles). Also, the interdependent model of authority states that employees would be both dependent on authority without feeling suppressed because there is also a feeling of independence (Kahn and Kram, 1994). Making the changes above could potentially help employees to feel interdependent because they depend on the hierarchy but they would no longer have to perceive it as too much of a necessity (by liking the fact that managers are seen as parents and school teachers) or be resistant to the suppression (by not showing up to work). Typically fun activities such as going out to dinner, happy hours, can still occur on a rare basis (such as only on holidays and should be family friendly for the most