Goal: To understand how the different levels of motivation plays a role in maintaining employees’ morale.

Procedure: After reviewing the chapter on Motivation at Work, provide educated responses to the questions for the Case study below:

Case Summary: Bigfoot’s Motivation

Bigfoot Entertainment, distributor of such diverse films as Midnight Movie (a horror flick) and 3 Needles (about the worldwide AIDS crisis), was founded by German serial entrepreneur Michael Gleissner. As head of Bigfoot, Gleissner served as executive producer on Midnight Movie and 3 Needles, as well as on Irreversi, his second effort at writing and directing, and on Shanghai Kiss, in which he also tried his hand at acting.

Bigfoot maintains offices in Los Angeles and a small production facility in Venice, California, but the centerpiece of its operations is Bigfoot Studios, which opened in 2004 on the island of Mactan, in Cebu, home to the second-largest city in the Philippines. Bigfoot Entertainment finds a film suitable for financing and development, the deal usually requires the director to do some production work at the Cebu facility. By the time the studio opened, the Philippines was already an attractive location for animators looking for cheap post-production help, but the pool of talent available for work on live-action films was quite limited. He founded the International Academy of Film and Television (IAFT), not only to staff Bigfoot Studios but to train what executive director Keith Sensing calls “the next generation of global filmmakers.” Gleissner not only co-wrote and directed Deep Gold but drew on his experience as an underwater photographer to shoot key scenes in Bigfoot’s specially designed, 170,000-gallon Underwater Studio. In order to bolster its ability to get its films into theaters (most of the company’s features have gone straight to DVD or were sold to cable TV), Bigfoot has also become the largest shareholder in Carmike Cinemas, the fourth-largest theater chain in the United States.

Case Questions

1. Identify two theories that are applicable to this case study and discuss how these theories can be used to motivate employees in the organizations discussed.

2. What two factors motivate Michael Gleissner?

3. Discuss at least three factors that motivate people to seek employment at Bigfoot or to enroll in IAFT?

4. Discuss two ways in which Bigfoot Studios and IAFT motivate people.