Organizational Behavior

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Analysis of Cases

Date: 13 December, 2013
Case#1
Treetop Forest Products
Problem Statement
The primary focus problem at treetops appears be lack of focus by management on packaging
department; the packaging team at Treetop Forest is experiencing many problems. Their output
was shrinking and affecting the rest of the departments adversely. The unproven employees were
slacking off, not gelled together and were adopting norms that were not fitted with the
company. Inventory costs and the risk of damaged stocks were also increasing. The quality of the
finished products is also decreasing, resulting in a loss in the market share in the industry, hence
being unable to compete with other companies. Because market was quite competitive.
Cause of the problem
As a result of there being no full time manager assigned to the packaging department the
management at Treetop appears to have broken their psychological contract with the packaging
department employees. Supervisor of other departments were bound to supervise packaging
department as well, in addition to their normal duties. Social loafing was causing the decrease in
productivity in the packaging team. The inclination to suppress physical or intellectual effort
when performing a group task represents the slacking behaviours of the employees in that
department. The lack of supervision is also one of the main causes of most of the problems
stated. The groups cohesiveness is causing them to behave in similar manners, as additive tasks,
even though the behaviours adopted are not in line with the norms of the rest of the company
(taking longer breaks etc). this packaging department has been separated from others and was far
from others which made it impossible for supervisors to go in the afternoon, the employees feel
isolated and excluded from the company, causing lack of motivation. The groups poor
performance is causing an overstock which results in high inventory costs and risk of damaged
stocks since they have to be stored outside ultimately causing the poor appearance of the finished
product which affects the buyers decision. It can be assumed that it is a larger group due to the
tasks that need to be performed, which affects the group in many ways. In larger groups,
friendships develop, participation decreases and disengagement increases resulting in process
loss: a group performance difficulty stemming from the problems of motivation and coordination
in larger groups.
Solutions and Consequences
1. To deal with the gazillions of issues company should start from the social loafing:
Increase feelings of indispensability. Doing this within the group would motivate the
employees. Increase performance feedback, so that employees will know how to improve
themselves as well as knowing what they did well. Reward group performance.
Positive Consequence:
They will be highly motivated whatever they do.
They will feel as part of the organization since they would know what the companys
goals are.
2. To have a more structured environment, Treetop should hire and train a new supervisor
only for the packaging department.
Positive Consequence:
This solution will decrease inventory costs and increase the production and quality of the
finished products.
Effective communication between the other departments to balance the productivity
levels
Negative Consequence:
Hiring the new employee will increase the companys costs.
3. To reduce the overtime costs, limits should be put on the amount of overtime hours an
employee is allowed to use, along with a deadline for a specific amount of products.
Positive Consequence:
This would decrease the overtime salary costs
This would increase productivity due to the fixed goals.
This would decrease the extended break and lunch times.
Because these goals are imposed, the employees may be reluctant to achieve them. To avoid this
situation, the goals could be discussed therefore increasing the probability of their achievement.
Recommended Solution
It would be recommended to implant supervision since it is the main cause of all the
problems, The group needs structure and a supervisor would therefore help resolve most
problems.
Implemented Solution
Communication should be improved between the departments to stop the unbalanced
productivity. This would resolve part of the inventory costs problems. Upper management should
also put someone in charge of the packaging team. If costs of hiring a new supervisor are too
high, an existing supervisor could be given more shifts. Although hiring and training costs are
high, the company will benefit from this addition in the long-term. The new supervisor would
counteract the social loafing the company is experiencing. The supervisor could be trained to
focus on the motivation of his group (rewarding good performances etc). This supervisor is also
the one who should limit the employees to a certain amount of overtime hours they are allowed
to. The supervisor would reinforce the companys norms, eventually eliminating the self-
imposed ones in the group (longer break) The supervisor would also promote group cohesiveness
and a pleasant working environment. In the short term, upper management could host a meeting
or assembly between all departments to make them feel interrelated and important to the
company. This could be a great motivation for the employees. In the long term, group
evaluations could be necessary to measure the groups performance and to see if the actions
taken are resolving the problems.
Question
1. Based on team dynamics, why the packaging is less productive than others?
2. How should they change non-productive norms than exist in the packaging?
3. Structural and other changes -> improve long term!
Answer :
1.
Process losses -> need resources (time and energy) extended











Case#2
Perfect Pizzeria
About Company:
Perfect pizzeria is in southville, in deep southern Illinois, is second largest franchise of
the chain in United States.
Head Quarter is in Phoenix, Arizona.
Business is prospering but it is facing problem of employees and management.

Issued faced:
The company faced following issued:
There was no criterion for becoming a manager or manager trainee.
No formalized training period for managers.
No college education was required.
No formalized training period for managers.
Only mangers were getting bonuses.
No structural policies and procedures were present in company.
No motivational efforts from organizations were present especially for employees at
lower level.
There were some unethical activities were also going on behalf of employees.
There was no reward system for employees performing better.
There were no punishment systems for those employees which were involved in unethical
values.
Personal goals and organizational does not match with each other as every manager was
in a try to get bonus instead of increasing companys performance.



Theories applied:
Expectancy theory of motivation:
Expectancy theory could be applied here as the employees will work better if they expect
some reward. They will work for the achieving the company goals instead of trying to
attain personal goals.
Expectancy theory proposes that an individual will decide to behave or act in a certain
way because they are motivated to select a specific behaviour over other behaviors due to
what they expect the result of that selected behaviour will be. In essence, the motivation
of the behaviour selection is determined by the desirability of the outcome. So this theory
definitely applies here as the employee are not expecting any rewards so they are not
working well.
Five factors of Personality model
This model could also help the company to understand each individual personality. This
model will help us understand the different personalities of individuals which will
ultimately help the company to improve their managers and employees performance.

Alternative Plans:
There must be a clear policy of rewards and punishment for employees if they do
something wrong. The reward system will help the employees to improve their
performance which punishment system will help the employees to reduce the unethical
activities by employees which will ultimately result in more performance and less cost.
There must be clear and sound policies for employees which will help them align their
personal and organizational goals. This will definitely have positive consequences on the
employees performance.
Company must also work for the training of its managers and some sort of orientation for
employees as the employees are not permanent so company must not involve in training
of employees instead it should give an 2 to 3 days orientation to its employees.


Plan of Action
According to available solutions we should make a sound policy and before we make it we have
to resolve the problem between management and employees as employees or mangers are not
even properly aware of the policies of the company. Along with the clear goals and policy the
company must also look for the reward and punishment for the employees which will help the
employees to achieve their targets.



















Case#3
Conflict Management
Critical Issue and Problem:
The initial cause of conflict is misbehaving. Gentlemen do not try to understand or at least to
respect each others point of view. Problem is creating hype without any apparent reason, it
seems to be a personality clash more than a management conflict, companys two key managers
of technical development and product Engineering, playing blame games. Problems lies at
both ends, on one hand Mr. George have Neuroticism personality model whereas on other
hand Mr. Ralph has conscientiousness characteristics in his personality. There is no doubt that
Mr. George was misusing his authority. He is fond of authoritative leadership style and seems to
be charismatic leader. Although he had no authority to interfere in other departments but his
charisma is influencing others worker to work for him and people leave their department to join
him.
Mr. Ralph had his own issues; He has lack of leadership qualities, he preferred small groups to
large, complex ones and that was the reason he could not adjust himself in a new job position. He
was not good in interpersonal relations with John and with other coworkers, which became a root
cause of moral ebb, employee apathy, more lateness and absence in his division. Instead of
improving himself he thought that George was playing games with his department by stealing his
key people.
Mr. Henry is extraversion who also thought, George had tried to lure some of his better talent
away during recent past. Mr. Jones position as area manger could be a question mark because he
had a responsibility for smooth functioning.
Theories applications:
In our case conflict management strategies could help us to resolve the issue. The five possible
strategies are: withdrawal, suppression, integration, compromise and authority.
Under the circumstances Suppression or Diffusion strategy would be applicable here
because a cooling down period is needed, The issue is unimportant and relationship is
important but we should aware of intensity of issue.
We could also apply Compromise strategy because power is equal here, recourses are
limited and a win-win settlement is desired. But we may need a third party for
negotiation.
There could be another strategy named Mediation could use to resolve the conflict; It has
become a central focus of the policy debate surrounding workplace dispute resolution.
There is significant scope for encouraging parties to resolve workplace disputes at the
earliest opportunity. There is evidence to show that where a problem has arisen that could
not be resolved by discussion between the parties (and that should always be the first
step), inviting a mediator an independent and impartial third party to work with the
two people involved can bring about a swift resolution of the issue. (BIS, 2011:19)
There is another theory of leadership styles which helped us to understand George
behavior as follows: Authoritative leadership style: Georges personality is authoritative,
as mentioned in the case that he is hard nosed manager.
Five factors of Personality model has also helped us to understand each individual
involved in presented case.
Expectancy theory of Motivation also remain useful to understand the George character
as it explains: E-to- P: George wanted to put specific effort level that will result in
specific level of performance.

Generate Alternative Plans
A sound policy should be made that so no one can interfere in other departments. As a
positive consequence future problems and issues can be avoided. And as a negative
consequence people may feel detached from other departments

Information should be flowed through proper channel and a proper record should be
maintained. As a positive consequence indirect employee exploitation would be avoided.
And as a negative consequence, it is time consuming.


Being reserved by nature would not help Ralph, he should try to adopt interpersonal
skills. As a positive consequence he may become well recognized about his employees
circumstances, thus gaining more department support. And as a negative consequence,
the employees may become more relaxed because of his friendly attitude.

Select Plan of Action
According to available solutions we should make a sound policy and before we make it we have
to resolve the conflict by adopting conflict management strategies discussed above. There might
be some hurdles or pressure could come across from certain departments, but once we took the
initiative the future conflict can be avoided.















Case#4




















Case#5
Chandlers Restaurant
Critical Issues and Problems:
A restaurant is a combination of production and service unit. Success requires a delicate
adjustment of supply to demand and skilful co-ordination of production with service. The
production and service tie-up not only makes for difficult human problems of co-coordinating
action but adds a new dimension to the structure of the organization: the customer-employee
relationship. The problems of co-ordination and customer relations are relatively simple in the
small restaurant, but they become much more difficult as the organization grows. This expansion
process magnifies old problems and gives rise to new ones as was the case in Chandlers
Restaurant. There was lack of coordination between the cooks, runners and the pantry
supervisors. The main cause of this was the stereotypes and prejudices that the cooks had
developed against the runners and pantry supervisors. They thought themselves to be superior
and could not bear to be ordered by the runners although the runners were just carrying out their
task by merely updating the cooks on the orders. The second problem was the lack of
communication and coordination between floors. The runners had no coordination among
themselves and therefore the same order would be conveyed to the cooks by two runners.
Moreover due to lack of time management, once the order reached the pantry, it was no longer
demanded by the customer. The cooks thought that this as a trick used by the runners to hoard
food items and they stopped paying much attention to the orders brought in by the runners.

Solutions:

A sound policy should be made so that no one can interfere in others work. As a positive
consequence future problems and issues can be avoided. And as a negative consequence
people may feel detached from other departments of the restaurant.

Information should be communicated through a proper channel. As a positive
consequence the misunderstandings among the cooks and the runners can be eliminated.
And as a negative consequence, it is time consuming as the people working in
restaurants do not have much time on hand.


The workers can be given a training in which they can learn how to coordinate
and communicate effectively with one another. It would help maintain
coordination among the workers but would require sufficient time.

Policies should be formulated against stereotyping and prejudices. It would help
maintain good relations among the workers. But monitoring the results of such
policies would be difficult and it would be difficult to check if the rules are being
followed by everyone.


The rank of the runners should be increased and their wages should be increased
as well.

Plan of Action:
There should be a proper channel for the flow of information. All the workers need to coordinate
with one another in order to benefit the organization. Training of the employees would greatly
help them to coordinate and communicate with each other effectively and would help reduce all
the stereotypes and prejudices.

Theories and Models:
Five factors of Personality model has also helped us to understand each individual
involved in presented case.

Traditional Cognitive models of Attitudes can also be useful.