Organizational Behavior Individual Assignment (20 marks)

Read the following questions carefully and write a brief hand-written answer on the spaces
provided. As it is an individual work, identical answers will not be marked.
Na
me:
ID No.

CASE STUDY 1
Syd Gilman read the latest sales figures with a great deal of satisfaction. The vice president of marketing at
Hy Dairies, Inc., a large midwestern milk products manufacturer, was pleased to see that the marketing
campaign to improve sagging sales of Hy’s gourmet ice-cream brand was working. Sales volume and
market share of the product had increased significantly over the past two quarters compared with the
previous year.
The improved sales of Hy’s gourmet ice cream could be credited to Rochelle Beauport, who was assigned
to the gourmet ice-cream brand last year. Beauport had joined Hy less than two years ago as an assistant
brand manager after leaving a similar job at a food products firm. She was one of the few women of color
in marketing management at Hy Dairies and had a promising career with the company. Gilman was pleased
with Beauport’s work and tried to let her know this in the annual performance reviews. He now had an
excellent opportunity to reward her by offering her the recently vacated position of market research
coordinator. Although technically only a lateral transfer with a modest salary increase, the marketing
research coordinator job would give Beauport broader experience in some high-profile work, which would
enhance her career with Hy Dairies. Few people were aware that Gilman’s own career had been boosted by
working as marketing research coordinator at Hy several years earlier.
Rochelle Beauport had also seen the latest sales figures on Hy’s gourmet ice cream and was expecting
Gilman’s call to meet with her that morning. Gilman began the conversation by briefly mentioning the
favorable sales figures and then explained that he wanted Beauport to take the marketing research
coordinator job. Beauport was shocked by the news. She enjoyed brand management and particularly the
challenge involved with controlling a product that directly affected the company’s profitability. Marketing
research coordinator was a technical support position - a “backroom” job - far removed from the
company’s bottom-line activities. Marketing research was not the route to top management in most
organizations, Beauport thought. She had been sidelined.
After a long silence, Beauport managed a weak “Thank you, Mr. Gilman.” She was too bewildered to
protest. She wanted to collect her thoughts and reflect on what she had done wrong. Also, she did not know
her boss well enough to be openly critical. Gilman recognized Beauport’s surprise, which he naturally
assumed was her positive response to hearing of this wonderful career opportunity. He, too, had been
delighted several years earlier about his temporary transfer to marketing research to round out his

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marketing experience. “This move will be good for both you and Hy Dairies,” said Gilman as he escorted
Beauport from his office.
Beauport was preoccupied with several tasks that afternoon, but she was able to consider the day’s events
that evening. She was one of the top women and few minorities in brand management at Hy Dairies and
feared that she was being sidelined because the company didn’t want women or people of color in top
management. Her previous employer had made it quite clear that women “couldn’t take the heat” in
marketing management and tended to place women in technical support positions after a brief term in
lower brand management jobs. Obviously Syd Gilman and Hy Dairies were following the same game plan.
Gilman’s comment that the coordinator job would be good for her was just a nice way of saying that
Beauport couldn’t go any further in brand management at Hy Dairies. Beauport now faced the difficult
decision of whether to confront Gilman and try to change Hy Dairies’ sexist and possibly racist practices or
to leave the company.

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Discussion Questions
1. Apply your knowledge of stereotyping and social identity theory to explain what went wrong here.

2. What other perceptual error is apparent in this case study?

3. What can organizations do to minimize misperceptions in these types of situations?

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 CASE STUDY 2
Louise Damiani’s work is an emotional roller coaster most days. The oncology nurse at CentraState
Healthcare System in Freehold Township, New Jersey, soars with joy as patients beat their cancer into
remission. Then there are the low points when one of her patients is given grim news about his or her
cancer. She also battles with the frustration of office politics.

But even after a long shift, Damiani doesn’t let her negative emotions surface until she gets into her car and
heads home. “You have to learn how to pick and choose and not bring that emotion up,” Damiani advises.
“You say, ‘OK, I can deal with this. I can focus on the priority, and the priority is the patient.’”

As well as managing her own emotions, Damiani has mastered the skill of creating positive emotions in
others. She recently received an award in recognition of her extraordinary sensitivity toward patients’ needs
and concerns. For example, one of Damiani’s patients wanted to return to her native Mexico but, with an
advanced stage of cancer, such a journey wasn’t possible. Instead, Damiani brought “Mexico” to the
hospital by transforming a visitors’ lounge into a fiesta-type setting and inviting the patient’s family,
friends, and hospital staff to attend the special event.

Lisa Salvatore, a charge nurse at the recently built Leon S. Peters Burn Center in Fresno, California, also
recognizes that her job involves supporting patients’ emotional needs, not just their physical problems.
“With burns, you don’t just treat something on the outside,” she says. “You treat something on the inside
that you can’t see.” Salvatore also experiences the full range of emotions, including the urgency of getting
burn patients out of emergency within an hour to improve their prospects of recovery. “I like high stress. I
like trauma,” she says. Still, she acknowledges the emotional challenges of treating children with burns. “I
deal with it and then I cry all the way home. I just sob on my way driving home.”

Anil Shandil, a medic from the 328th Combat Support Hospital in Fort Douglas, Utah, has witnessed more
severe burns and injuries than most medical professionals. For two years at the Landstuhl Army Regional
Medical Center in Germany, he aided soldiers who had been wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan. The tour of
duty was extremely emotionally taxing. “You get a lot of severed limbs, a lot of traumatic brain injuries, a
lot of death and dying,” says Shandil. “So the compassion fatigue is rather high.” People who work closely
with victims of trauma often suffer compassion fatigue, also known as secondary traumatic stress disorder.
The main symptom is a decreasing ability to feel compassion for others.

In spite of the risk of compassion fatigue, Shandil has volunteered for an even more challenging
assignment. He and 85 other soldiers in the 328th are now in Iraq providing medical care for Iraqi detainees
being held there by the U.S. military. So, along with managing emotions from constant exposure to trauma
cases, these medics must also show respectful compassion to those who fought against American
comrades. Shandil knows it will be hard. “Yes, these are people who were not kind to us. But as a medic,
it’s our job to care for them, no matter if that is your friend or your enemy.”

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Discussion Questions
1. To what extent do the three people featured in this case study manage their own emotions on the job?
How do they accomplish this? To what extent do you think they effectively manage emotions under
these circumstances?

2. This case study states that nurses and other medical staff need to manage the emotions of their patients.
Why is emotions management important in this job? In what ways do medical staff alter the emotions
of their patients?

3. Stress is mentioned throughout this case study. How does this stress occur? What stress outcomes occur
for people in these types of jobs? How can these people try to minimize high levels of stress?

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 CASE STUDY 3
Bernie Ebbers built WorldCom, Inc. (now part of Verizon, Inc.) into one of the world’s largest
telecommunications firms. Yet he and chief financial officer (CFO) Scott Sullivan have become
better known for creating a massive corporate accounting fraud that led to the largest bankruptcy in
U.S. history. Two investigative reports and subsequent court cases concluded that WorldCom
executives were responsible for billions in fraudulent or unsupported accounting entries. How did
this mammoth accounting scandal occur without anyone raising the alarm? Evidence suggests that
Ebbers and Sullivan held considerable power and influence that prevented accounting staff from
complaining, or even knowing, about the fraud.

Ebbers’s inner circle held tight control over the flow of all financial information. The
geographically dispersed accounting groups were discouraged from sharing information. Ebbers’s
group also restricted distribution of company-level financial reports and prevented sensitive reports
from being prepared at all. Accountants didn’t even have access to the computer files in which
some of the largest fraudulent entries were made. As a result, employees had to rely on Ebbers’s
executive team to justify the accounting entries that were requested.

Another reason why employees complied with questionable accounting practices was that CFO
Scott Sullivan wielded immense personal power. He was considered a “whiz kid” with impeccable
integrity who had won the prestigious “CFO Excellence Award.” Thus, when Sullivan’s office
asked staff to make questionable entries, some accountants assumed Sullivan had found an
innovative - and legal - accounting loophole. If Sullivan’s influence didn’t work, other executives
took a more coercive approach. Employees cited incidents where they were publicly berated for
questioning headquarters’ decisions and intimidated if they asked for more information. When one
employee at a branch refused to alter an accounting entry, WorldCom’s controller threatened to fly
in from WorldCom’s Mississippi headquarters to make the change himself. The employee changed
the entry.

Ebbers had similar influence over WorldCom’s board of directors. Sources indicate that his
personal charisma and intolerance of dissension produced a passive board that rubber-stamped
most of his recommendations. As one report concluded: “The Board of Directors appears to have
embraced suggestions by Mr. Ebbers without question or dissent, even under circumstances where
its members now readily acknowledge they had significant misgivings regarding his recommended
course of action.”

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Discussion Questions
1. What power bases did Bernie Ebbers and Scott Sullivan rely on to get away with accounting
fraud?

2. What influence tactics did Bernie Ebbers and Scott Sullivan use to control employees and the
company’s board?

3. Did Bernie Ebbers and Scott Sullivan engage in organizational politics? Explain your answer.

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 CASE STUDY 4
Tamarack Industries manufactures motorboats primarily used for waterskiing. During the summer months,
a third production line is normally created to help meet the heavy summer demand. This third line is
usually created by assigning the experienced workers to all three lines and hiring college students who are
home for summer vacation to complete the crews. In the past, however, experienced workers resented
having to break up their teams to form a third line. They also resented having to work with a bunch of
college kids and complained that the kids were slow and arrogant.

The foreman, Dan Jensen, decided to try a different strategy this summer and have all the college students
work on the new line. He asked Mark Allen to supervise the new crew because Mark claimed that he knew
everything about boats and could perform every job “with my eyes closed.” Mark was happy to accept the
new job and participated in selecting his own crew. Mark’s crew was called “the Greek Team” because all
the college students were members of a fraternity or sorority named with Greek letters. Mark spent many
hours in training to get his group running at full production. The college students learned quickly, and by
the end of June their production rate was up to standard, with an error rate that was only slightly above
normal. To simplify the learning process, Dan Jensen assigned the Greek Team long production runs that
generally consisted of 30 to 40 identical units. Thus the training period was shortened and errors were
reduced. Shorter production runs were assigned to the experienced teams.

By the middle of July, a substantial rivalry had been created between the Greek Team and the older
workers. At first, the rivalry was good-natured. But after a few weeks, the older workers became resentful
of the remarks made by the college students. The Greek Team often met its production schedules with time
to spare at the end of the day for goofing around. It wasn’t uncommon for someone from the Greek Team
to go to another line pretending to look for materials just to make demeaning comments. The experienced
workers resented having to perform all the shorter production runs and began to retaliate with sabotage.
They would sneak over during breaks and hide tools, dent materials, install something crooked, and in
other small ways do something that would slow production for the Greek Team.

Dan felt good about his decision to form a separate crew of college students, but when he heard reports of
sabotage and rivalry, he became very concerned. Because of complaints from the experienced workers,
Dan equalized the production so that all of the crews had similar production runs. The rivalry, however, did
not stop. The Greek Team continued to finish early and flaunt their performance in front of the other crews.

One day the Greek Team suspected that one of their assemblies was going to be sabotaged during the lunch
break by one of the experienced crews. By skillful deception, they were able to substitute an assembly from
the other experienced line for theirs. By the end of the lunch period, the Greek Team was laughing wildly
because of their deception, while one experienced crew was very angry with the other one. Dan Jensen
decided that the situation had to be changed and announced that the job assignments between the different
crews would be shuffled. The employees were told that when they appeared for work the next morning, the
names of the workers assigned to each crew would be posted on the bulletin board. The announcement was
not greeted with much enthusiasm, and Mark Allen decided to stay late to try to talk Dan out of his idea.
Mark didn’t believe the rivalry was serious enough for this type of action, and he suspected that many of
the college students would quit if their team was broken up.

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Discussion Questions
1. What are the signs (symptoms) of conflict in this case?

2. Use the conflict model to (a) identify the structural causes of conflict and (b) discuss the
escalation of conflict described in this case.

3. If you were Dan Jensen, what action would you take in this situation?