KAZIAN GLOBAL SCHOOL OF BUSINESS MANAGEMENT

MARKS: 80 COURSE: EMBA Sem-I

SUBJECT: Organizational behavior(re-exam)

Name: Mahanta Nirakar Pitambar Reference Number: KP00611-20875 Note:- 1) Kindly write case study number question number properly

2) Attached question papers with answer sheets _____________________________________________________________________________

Section A Case –1 -Rosemary Maellaro, University of Dallas Marks-10 Diana Gillen had an uneasy feeling of apprehension as she arrived at the Cobb Street Grille corporate offices. Today she was meeting with her supervisor, Julie Spencer, and regional director, Tom Miner, to learn the outcome of her promotion interview for the district manager position. Diana had been employed by this casual dining restaurant chain for 12 years and had worked her way up from waitress to general manager. Based on her track record, she was the obvious choice for the promotion; and her friends assured her that the interview process was merely a formality. Diana was still anxious, though, and feared that the news might not be positive. She knew she was more than qualified for the job, but that didn’t guarantee anything these days. Nine months ago, when Diana interviewed for the last district manager opening, she thought her selection for the job was inevitable. She was shocked when that didn’t happen. Diana was so upset about not getting promoted then that she initially decided not to apply for the current opening. She eventually changed her mind—after all; the company had just named her “restaurant manager of the year” and trusted her with managing their flagship location. Diana thought her chances had to be really good this time. A multi-unit management position was a desirable move up for any general manager and was a goal to which Diana had aspired since she began working in the industry. When she had not been promoted the last time, Julie, her supervisor, explained that her people skills needed to improve. But Diana knew that explanation had little to do with why she hadn’t gotten the job-the real reason was corporate politics. She heard that the person they hired was some superstar from the outside—a district manager from another restaurant company who supposedly had strong multi- unit management experience and a proven track record of developing restaurant managers. Despite what she was told, she was convinced that Tom, her regional manager, had been unduly pressured to hire this person, who had been referred by the CEO. The decision to hire the outsider may have impressed the CEO, but it enraged Diana. With her successful track record as a store manager for the Cobb Street Grille, she was much more capable, in her opinion, of overseeing multiple units than someone who was new to the operation. Besides, district managers had always been promoted internally from among the store managers, and she was unofficially designated as the next one to move up to a district position. Tom had hired the outside candidate as a political maneuver to put himself in a good light with management, even though it meant overlooking a loyal employee like her in the process. Diana had no patience with people who made business decisions for the wrong reasons. She worked very hard to avoid politics— and it especially irritated her when the political actions of others negatively impacted her.

Diana was ready to be a district manager nine months ago, and she thought she was even more qualified today—provided the decision was based on performance. She ran a tight ship, managing her restaurant completely by the book. She meticulously adhered to policies and procedures and rigorously controlled expenses. Her sales were growing, in spite of new competition in the market, and she received relatively few customer complaints. The only number that was a little out of line was the higher turnover among her staff. Diana was not too concerned about the increasing number of terminations, however; there was a perfectly logical explanation for this. It was because she had high standards for both herself and her employees. Any employee who delivered less than 110 percent at all times would be better off finding a job somewhere else. Diana didn’t think she should bend the rules for anyone, for whatever reason. A few months ago, for example, she had to fire three otherwise good employees who decided to try a new customer service tactic—a so-called innovation they dreamed up—rather than complying with the established process. As the general manager, it was her responsibility to make sure that the restaurant was managed strictly in accordance with the operations manual, and she could not allow deviations. This by-the-book approach to managing had served her well for many years. It got her promoted in the past, and she was not about to jinx that now. Losing a few employees now and then—particularly those who had difficulty following the rules—was simply the cost of doing business. During a recent store visit Julie suggested that Diana might try creating a friendlier work environment because she seemed aloof and interacted with employees somewhat mechanically. Julie even told her that she overheard employees refer to Diana as the “ice maiden” behind her back. Diana was surprised that Julie brought this up because her boss rarely criticized her. They had an unspoken agreement: Because Diana was so technically competent and always met her financial targets; Julie didn’t need to give her much input. Diana was happy to be left alone to run her restaurant without needless advice. At any rate, Diana rarely paid attention to what employees said about her. She wasn’t about to let something as childish as a silly name cause her to modify a successful management strategy. What’s more, even though she had recently lost more than the average number of employees due to “personality differences” or “miscommunications” over her directives, her superiors did not seem to mind when she consistently delivered strong bottom-line results every month. As she waited in the conference room for the others, Diana worried that she was not going to get this promotion. Julie had sounded different in the voicemail message she left to inform her about this meeting, but Diana couldn’t put her finger on exactly what it was. She would be very angry if she was passed over again and wondered what excuse they would have this time. Then her mind wandered to how her employees would respond to her if she did not get the promotion. They all knew how much she wanted the job, and she cringed at how embarrassed she would be if she didn’t get it. Her eyes began to mist over at the sheer thought of having to face them if she was not promoted today. Julie and Tom entered the room then, and the meeting started. They told Diana, as kindly as they could, that she would not be promoted at this time; one of her colleagues would become the new district manager. She was incredulous. The individual who got promoted had been with the company only three years—and Diana had trained her! She tried to comprehend how this happened, but it did not make sense. Before any further explanation could be offered, she burst into tears and left the room. As she tried in vain to regain her composure, Diana was overcome with crushing disappointment.

Questions:- 1. Within the framework of the emotional intelligence domains of self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management, discuss the various factors that might have led to Diana’s failure to be promoted. 2. What competencies does Diana need to develop to be promotable in the future? What can the company do to support her developmental efforts?

Case-02-SABEER BHATIA: AN ICON OF CREATIVITY Marks-10

Sabeer Bhatia, the co-founder of Hotmail is the recipient of the “TR 100” award presented by MIT to 100 young innovators who are expected to have the greatest impact on technology in the next few years. He has won several laurels— ‘Elite 100’ list of top trendsetters in the New Economy by Upside Magazine, ‘People to watch’ in International Business by TIME (2002), ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’ by a venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson (1997), and one of the ten most successful entrepreneurs by San Jose Mercury News and POV magazine (1998). One needs to know what has gone into making him a highly creative person. Born in Chandigarh, India, he completed his early schooling at Bangalore, in schools with ethical values. His parents were both professionals; father, Baldev, a senior officer in Ministry of Defense, and mother, Daman, a senior official in the Central Bank of India, who attached great value to education. He has been a brilliant student who would solve problems on the blackboard. He was a perfectionist and would feel miserable if he was unable to write everything he knew in his answer book during an exam, due to limited time. He has also been entrepreneurial during his school days and once opened a sandwich shop. He joined the Birla Institute of Technology, which he left to study at California Institute of Technology after winning full scholarship. He completed his masters from Stanford University and joined Apple, where he worked for nine months. He had an urge to do something unique using the net, and he came up with java soft— a method of using the web to create a personal database, where people could preserve their personal things. He shared his plan with his colleague Jack Smith, who suggested e-mailing to java soft. Bhatia worked the whole night to develop the business plan. The two tried various options and came up with ‘Hotmail’ as their final choice, and a brand was launched in 1995. After a year, Microsoft approached them, and Hotmail was sold to Microsoft for $400 million. Bhatia worked with Microsoft for a year, and has launched two more products: Arzoo and Blog Everywhere. From the above account it is obvious that Sabeer Bhatia is brilliant, persistent, and innovative, and has scientific and technical knowledge. His friends find him “persistent, focused and disciplined”. To top it all, he is a perfectionist and entrepreneurial at heart. He has an unquenching desire to create new ventures, and bubbles with new ideas. He feels that the Indian IT companies can be more creative. Creativity seems to be his motivation in life; he is still single. Questions:- 1. What competencies are needed to be creative? 2. Identify methods through which creativity can be nurtured.

Case -03-TREET0P FOREST PRODUCTS Marks-15

Treetop Forest Products Ltd. is a sawmill operation in Oregon that is owned by a major forest products company but operates independently of headquarters. It was built 30 years ago and was completely updated with new machinery five years ago. Treetop receives raw logs from the area for cutting and planning into building-grade lumber, mostly 2-by-4 and 2-by-6 pieces of standard lengths. Higher-grade logs leave Treetop’s sawmill department in finished form and are sent the Kansas rectly to the packaging department. The remaining 40 percent of sawmill output are cuts from lower-grade logs, requiring further work by the planning department. Treetop has one general manager, 16 supervisors and support staff, and 180 unionized employees. The unionized employees are paid an hourly rate specified in the collective agreement, whereas management and support staff are paid monthly salaries. The mill is divided into six operating departments: boom, sawmill, planer, packaging, shipping, and maintenance. The sawmill, boom, and packaging departments operate a morning shift starting at 6 a.m. and an afternoon shift starting at 2 p.m. Employees in these departments rotate shifts every two weeks. The planer and shipping departments operate only morning shifts. Maintenance employees work the night shift (starting at 10 p.m.). Each department, except for packaging, has a supervisor on every work shift. The planer supervisor is responsible for the packaging department on the morning shift, and the sawmill supervisor is responsible for the packaging department on the afternoon shift. However, the packaging operation is housed in a separate building from the other departments, so supervisors seldom visit the packaging department. This is particularly true for the afternoon shift because the sawmill supervisor is farthest from the packaging building. Packaging Quality Ninety percent of Treetop’s product is sold on the international market through West board Co., a large marketing agency. West board represents all forest products mills owned by Treetop’s parent company as well as several other clients in the region. The market for building-grade lumber is very price competitive because there are numerous mills selling a relatively undifferentiated product. However, some differentiation does occur in product packaging and presentation. Buyers look closely at the packaging when deciding whether to buy from Treetop or another mill. To encourage its clients to package their products better, West board sponsors a monthly package quality award. The marketing agency samples and rates its clients’ packages daily, and the sawmill with the highest score at the end of the month is awarded a plaque. Package quality is a combination of how the lumber is piled (such as defects turned in), where the bands and dunnage are placed, how neatly the stencil and seal are applied, the stencil’s accuracy, and how neatly and tightly the plastic wrap is attached.

Treetop Forest Products won West board’s packaging quality award several times over the past five years and received high ratings in the months that it didn’t win. However, the mill’s ratings have started to decline over the past year or two, and several clients have complained about the appearance of the finished product. A few large customers switched to competitors’ lumber, saying that the decision was based on the substandard appearance of Treetop’s packaging when it arrived in their lumberyards. Bottleneck in Packaging The planning and sawmilling departments have significantly increased productivity over the past couple of years. The sawmill operation recently set a new productivity record for a single day. The planer operation has increased productivity to the point where last year it reduced operations to just one (rather than two) shifts per day. These productivity improvements are due to better operator training, fewer machine breakdowns, and better selection of raw logs. (Sawmill cuts from high-quality logs usually do not require planning work.) Productivity levels in the boom, shipping, and maintenance departments have remained constant.

However, the packaging department has recorded decreasing productivity over the past couple of years, with the result that a large backlog of finished product is typically stockpiled outside the packaging building. The morning shift of the packaging department is unable to keep up with the combined production of the sawmill and planer departments, so the unpackaged output is left for the afternoon shift. Unfortunately the afternoon shift packages even less product than the morning shift, so the backlog continues to build. The back log adds to Treetop’s inventory costs and increases the risk of damaged stock. Treetop has added Saturday overtime shifts as well as extra hours before and after the regular shifts for the packaging department employees to process this backlog. Last month the packaging department employed 10 percent of the work force but accounted for 85 percent of the overtime. This is frustrating to Treetop’s management because time and motion studies recently confirmed that the packaging department is capable of processing all of the daily sawmill and planer production without overtime. Moreover, with employees earning one and a half or two times their regular pay on overtime, Treetop’s cost competitiveness suffers. Employees and supervisors at Treetop are aware that people in the packaging department tend to extend lunch by 10 minutes and coffee breaks by 5 minutes. They also typically leave work a few minutes before the end of shift. This abuse has worsened recently, particularly on the afternoon shift. Employees who are temporarily assigned to the packaging department also seem to participate in this time loss pattern after a few days. Although they are punctual and productive in other departments, these temporary employees soon adopt the packaging crew’s informal schedule when assigned to that department. Questions:- 1. Based on your knowledge of team dynamics, explain why the packaging department is less productive than other teams at Treetop. 2. How should Treetop change the nonproductive norms that exist in the packaging group? 3. What structural and other changes would you recommend that may improve this situation in the long term)

Case -4-BRIDGING THE TWO WORLDS-THE ORGANIZATIONAL DILEMMA Marks-10 William Todorovic, Purdue University

I had been hired by Aluminum Elements Corp. (AEC), and it was my first day of work. I was 26 years old, and I was now the manager of AEC’s customer service group, which looked after customers, logistics, and some of the raw material purchasing. My superior, George, was the vice president of the company. AEC manufactured most of its products, a majority of which were destined for the construction industry, from aluminum. As I walked around the shop floor, the employees appeared to be concentrating on their jobs, barely noticing me. Management held daily meetings in which various production issues were discussed. No one from the shop floor was invited to these meetings unless there was a specific problem. Later I also learned that management had separate washrooms and separate lunchrooms, as well as other perks that floor employees did not have. Most of the floor employees felt that management, although polite on the surface, did not really feel they had anything to learn from the floor employees.

John, who worked on the aluminum slitter, a crucial operation required before any other operations could commence, had suffered a number of unpleasant encounters with George. As a result George usually sent written memos to the floor to avoid a direct confrontation with John. Because the directions in the memos were complex, these memos were often more than two pages in length. One morning as I was walking around, I not iced that John was very upset. Feeling that perhaps there was something I could do, I approached John and asked him if I could help. He indicated that everything was just fine. From the looks of the situation and John’s body language, I felt that he was willing to talk, but John knew that this was not the way things were done at AEC. Tony, who worked at the machine next to John’s, then cursed and said that the office guys cared only about schedules, not about the people down on the floor. I just looked at him, and then said that I began working here only last week, and I thought that I could address some of their issues. Tony gave me a strange look, shook his head, and went back to his machine. I could hear him still swearing as I left. Later I realized that most of the office staff was also offended by Tony’s language. On the way back to my office Lesley, a recently hired engineer from Russia, approached me and pointed out that the employees were not accustomed to managers talking to them. Manage only issued orders and made demands. As we discussed the different perceptions between office and floor staff, we were interrupted by a loud lunch bell, which startled me. I was happy to join Lesley for lunch, but she asked me why I was not eating in the office lunchroom. I replied that if I was going to understand how AEC worked, I had to get to know all the people better. In addition, I realized that this was not how things were done, and I wondered about the nature of this apparent division between the managers and the floor workers. In the lunchroom the other workers were amazed to see me there, commenting that I was just new and had not learned the ropes yet. After lunch, when I asked George, my supervisor, about his recent confrontation with John, George was surprised that John got upset, and exclaimed, “I just wanted John to know that he did a great job, and as a result, we will be able to ship on time one large order to the West Coast. In fact, I thought I was complimenting him.” Earlier, Lesley had indicated that certain behavior was expected from managers and therefore from me. I reasoned that I do not think that this behavior works, and besides it is not what I believe or how I care to behave. For the next couple of months I simply walked around the floor and took every opportunity to talk to the shop floor employees. Often when the employees related specific information about their workplaces, I felt that it went over my head. Frequently I had to write down the information and revisit it later. I made a point of listening to them, identifying where they were coming from, and trying to understand them. I needed to keep my mind open to new ideas. Because the shop employees expected me to make requests and demands, I made a point of not doing any of that. Soon enough the employees became friendly and started to accept me as one of their own, or at least as a different type of management person. During my third month of work the employees showed me how to improve the scheduling of jobs, especially those on the aluminum slitter. In fact, the greatest contribution was made by John, who demonstrated better ways to combine the most common slitting sizes and reduce waste by retaining some of the “common-sized” material for new orders. Seeing the opportunity, I programmed a

spreadsheet to calculate and track inventory. This, in addition to better planning and forecasting, allowed us to reduce our new order tuma rounds from four to five weeks to one or two days. By the time I was employed for four months, I realized that members from other departments came to me and asked me to relay messages to the shop employees. When I asked why they were delegating this task to me, they stated that I spoke the same language as the shop employees. Increasingly I became the messenger for the office-to-floor shop communication. One morning George called me into his office and complimented me on the levels of customer service and the improvements that had been achieved. As we talked, I mentioned that we could not have done it without John’s help. “He really knows his stuff, and he is good,” I said. I suggested that we consider him for some type of promotion. Also, I hoped that this would be a positive gesture that would improve the communication between the office and shop floor. George turned and pulled a flyer out of his desk: “Here is a management skills seminar. Do you think we should send John to it?” “That is a great idea,” I exclaimed. “Perhaps it would be good if he were to receive the news from you directly, George.” George agreed, and after discussing some other issues, we parted company. That afternoon John came into my office, upset and ready to quit. “After all my effort and work, you guys are sending me for training seminars. So am I not good enough for you?”

Questions:- 1. What barriers to effective communication existed in Aluminum Elements Corp? How did the author deal with these? What would you do differently? 2. Identify and discuss why John was upset at the end of the case. What should the writer do at this time?

Section-B Attempt all question, each question carried 7 Marks:- 1) You have been put in charge of a cross-functional task force that will develop enhanced Internet banking services for retail customers. The team includes representatives from marketing, information services, customer service, and accounting, all of whom will move to the same location at headquarters for three months. Describe the behaviors you might observe during each stage of the team’s development.

2) Informal groups exist in almost every form of social organization. What types of informal groups exist in your classroom? Why are students motivated to belong to these informal groups? 3) You have been assigned to a class project with five other students, none of whom you have met before. To what extent would team cohesiveness improve your team’s performance on this project? What actions would you recommend to build team cohesiveness among student team members in this situation? 4) The late management guru Peter Drucker said, “The now-fashionable team in which everybody works with everybody on everything from the be inning rapidly is becoming a disappointment.” Discuss three problems associated with teams. 5) You have been asked to lead a complex software project over the next year that requires the full- time involvement of approximately 100 people with diverse skills and backgrounds. Using your knowledge of team size, how can you develop an effective team under these conditions?