10-1. According to a 2010 study by economists Angus Deaton and Nobel Prize winner and psychologist Daniel Kahnerman, “High incomes don’t bring you happiness. . . . [T]he further a person’s household income falls below $75,000, the unhappier he or she is. But no matter how much more than $75,000 people make, it doesn’t bring them any more joy.”82 How do you explain these results? Do you agree with their conclusion or with the conclusion in the You Manage It! feature titled “Money Doesn’t Buy ­Happiness. Well, on Second Thought . . . ”? Explain.

10-2. In a feisty response to critics who accuse Wal-Mart of providing poverty-level wages (around $9.68 an hour, on average) and few benefits, Wal-Mart chief executive H. Lee Scott, Jr., said Wal-Mart offered good, stable jobs, noting that when it opens a store, more than 3,000 people often apply for 300 jobs. “It doesn’t make sense,” Mr. Scott said, “that people would line up for jobs that are worse than they could get elsewhere, with fewer benefits and less opportunities.”83 Based on what you learned in this chapter, do you agree with Mr. Scott’s assessment? Explain.

10-3. Go to any of the salary survey sources listed in the Manager’s Notebook, “How Much Is a Position Worth in the Marketplace?” and research the salary ranges of four to five positions of your choice. Assume that you are planning to recruit five individuals into each of those positions. How would you use the salary survey data to arrive at a specific offer? Explain.

10-4. In a recent article by professors Hannah Riley Bowless from Harvard and Linda Babcock from Carnegie Mellon, the authors argue that “policy makers, academics, and media reports suggest that women could shrink the gender pay gap by negotiating more effectively for higher compensation. Yet women entering compensation negotiations face a dilemma: They have to weigh the benefits of negotiating against the social consequences of having negotiated. Research shows that women are penalized socially more than men for negotiating higher pay.” Do you agree or disagree? Explain.

10-5. As noted in the Manager’s Notebook, “Compensation Entitlements Are Going out the Window,” fixed or secure pay is becoming rare. What impact do you think this has on employees’ outlook? What, if any, are the negative and positive aspects of this trend? Explain.

10-6. According to a recent report by the Society for Human Resource Management “many job evaluation methods are subjective. Evaluators’ decisions about which jobs are worth more can be personal and emotional. If the evaluation team knows the job incumbents, they may consider employees’ personal qualities as job factors.” ( http://www.shrm.org . [2013] Performing job evaluations.) Based on what you have learned in this chapter, how can job evaluation be made more objective? Explain.

10-7. Some people believe that the recent trend towards giving employees non-monetary rewards is simply a way to save money by using a cheaper way to retain, attract, and motivate employees. Do you agree? Do you think this is fair? Explain.

10-8. Some people argue that it is wrong for CEOs to earn multimillion-dollar salaries while some of their employees are earning the minimum wage or being laid off. Some suggest that a firm’s top earner should earn no more than 20 times what the lowest-ranked employee earns. What do you think? Explain your answer.