Note: Solve any 4 Cases Study’s
CASE: I Pushing Paper Can Be Fun
A large city government was putting on a number of seminars for managers of various departments throughout the city. At one of these sessions the topic discussed was motivation—how to motivate public servants to do a good job. The plight of a police captain became the central focus of the discussion:
I’ve got a real problem with my officers. They come on the force as young, inexperienced rookies, and we send them out on the street, either in cars or on a beat. They seem to like the contact they have with the public, the action involved in crime prevention, and the apprehension of criminals. They also like helping people out at fires, accidents, and other emergencies.
The problem occurs when they get back …
Question:
1. What performance problems is the captain trying to correct?
2. Use the MARS model of individual behavior and performance to diagnose the possible causes of the unacceptable behavior.
3. Has the captain considered all possible solutions to the problem? If not, what else might be done?
CASE: II How Did I Get Here?
Something was not right. John Breckenridge opened his eyes, saw the nurse’s face, and closed them once more. Cobwebs slowly cleared from his brain as he woke up from his brain as he woke up from the operation. He felt a hard tube in his nostril, and tried to lift his hand to pull it out, but it was strapped down to the bed. John tried to speak but could make only a …
much and had worked far too hard. Midmorning he had been felled by a massive heart attack.
All of this history passed through John Breckenridge’s mind as he woke after the operation. It was time for a change.
Question:
1. Identify the stressors in John Breckenridge’s life. Which ones could he have prevented?
2. What were the results of the stress? Would you consider these to be typical to stress situations and lifestyle choices John made, or was John Breckenridge unlucky?
3. Assume you are a career coach retained by John Breckenridge to guide him through his next decisions. How would you recommend that John modify his lifestyle and behavior to reduce stress? Should he change jobs? Do you believe he is capable of reducing his stress alone? If not, where should he seek help?
CASE: III The Shipping Industry Accounting Team
For the past five years I have been working at McKay, Sanderson, and Smith Associates, a mid-sized accounting firm in Boston that specializes in commercial accounting and audits. My particular specialty in accounting practices for shipping …
ould be quite happy to work somewhere that did not require any of these long-distance team headaches.
Question:
1. What type of team was formed here? Was it necessary, in your opinion?
2. Use the team effectiveness model in Chapter 9 and related information in this chapter to identify the strengths and weaknesses of this team’s environment, design, and processes.
3. Assuming that these four people must continue to work as a team, recommend ways to improve the team’s effectiveness.
CASE: IV Conflict In Close Quarters
A team of psychologists at Moscow’s Institute for Biomedical Problems (IBMP) wanted to learn more about the dynamics of long-term isolation in space. This knowledge would be applied to the International Space Station, a joint project of several countries that would send people into space for more than six months. It would eventually include a trip to Mars taking up to three years.
IBMP set up a replica of the Mir space station in Moscow. They then arranged for three international researchers from Japan, Canada, and Austria 110 days isolated in a chamber the size of a train car. This chamber joined a smaller …
with the Russian interpretation of events. “They’re trying to protect themselves,” he says. “They’re trying to put the fault on others. But this is not a cultural issue. If a woman doesn’t want to be kissed, it is not acceptable.”
Question:
1. Identify the different conflict episodes that exist in this case. Who was in conflict with whom?
2. What are the sources of conflict for these conflict incidents?
3. What conflict management style(s) did Lapierre, the international team, and Gushin use to resolve these conflicts? What style(s) would have worked best in the situation?
CASE: V Hillton’s Transformation
Twenty years ago Hillton was a small city (about 70,000 residents) that served as an outer to a large Midwest metropolitan area. The city treated employees like family and gave them a great deal of autonomy in their work. Everyone in the organization (including the two labor unions representing employees) implicitly agreed that the leaders and supervisors of the organization should rise through the ranks based on their experience. Few people were ever hired from the outside into middle or senior positions. The rule of employment at Hillton was to learn the job skills, maintain a reasonably good work record, and wait your turn for promotion.
Hillton had grown rapidly since the mid-1970s. As the population grew, so did the municipality’s workforce to keep pace with the increasing demand for municipal services. This meant that employees were promoted fairly quickly and were almost guaranteed employment. In fact, until recently Hillton had never laid off any employee. The organization’s culture could be described as one of entitlement and comfort. Neither the elected city council members nor the city manager bothered the department managers about their work. There were few costs controls because rapid growth forced emphasis on keeping up with the population expansion. The public became somewhat more critical of the city’s poor services, including road construction at inconvenient times and the apparent lack of respect some employees showed towards taxpayers.
During these expansion years Hillton put most of its money into “outside” (also called “hard”) municipal services such as road building, utility construction and maintenance, fire and police protection, recreational facilities, and land use control. This emphasis occurred because an expanding population demanded more of these services, and most of Hillton’s senior people came from the outside services group. For example, Hillton’s city manager for many years was a road development engineer. The “inside” workers (taxation, …
guarantees, whereas the union representing inside workers focused more on improving wages and benefits. Leaders of the outside union made several statements in the local media that the city had “lost its heart” and that the public would suffer from the actions of the new professionals.
Question:
1. Contrast Hillton’s earlier corporate culture with the emerging set of cultural values.
2. Considering the difficulty in changing organizational culture, why did Hillton’s management seem to be successful at this transformation?
3. Identify two other strategies that the city might consider to reinforce the new set of corporate values.
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