Madm701 Organizational Behavior Case Study

MADM701: Case Study Week 2

Case 1: Chapter 3

Summary of key OB issues

         An organizational behavioral, OB issue at Anderson Corporation evident in the case is organizational challenges with an example as reduced quality and productivity. Another OB issue refers to a management challenge introduced only by the human subconscious biases is the gender factor. In a conventional society, women used to hold traditional careers such as secretaries, teachers or nurses, however, in the case, a new director expected to improve the corporate performance of the company is a woman. The issue of women in leadership is still a significant issue in management even today.

Link Key issues to course Material

According to chapter three of the course materials, one of the steps an organization takes to maintain a culture through the steps of socialization is recognition and promotion. While the appointment of the new director, Mary Hartmann is based entirely on merit, the conventional social structure treats it as an isolated situation. Women in corporate leadership are not only a few, but also earn relatively less than earn their male counterparts in major economies (Gabaldon et al., 2016). The chapter determines that recognition and promotion is the final step of the criteria to maintain the organizational culture, relating to people who have excelled and can serve as role models to others. The new director attains this recognition subject to her role in another company, one of the largest consumer products firm. While in the chapter, recognition, and promotion of employees as in-house, having recognized a leader from a senior position of another firm is a recipe for competitive advantage, subject to new ideas that the new leader might bring to the table for the success of the firm.  

Organizational issues such as quality and productivity are critical issues of Organizational behavior, which requires addressing as soon as they occur with the relevant people. The primary objective of the new director is to improve the quality of production towards the required industry standards. According to the course reading chapter three, one of the guiding principles for change is setting realistic goals that impact the bottom line. The bottom line of Anderson Cooper is to stay competitive even with the uncertain socio-economic and external environmental issues or as the chapter puts it, complexity, resistance, or barriers to change.

Recommendation for handling OB Issues

This discussion examines the issue of gender subject to the human’s unconscious biases of gender. Therefore, the only way to handle the OB management issue of gender is to face unconscious biases in organizations (Bian, Leslie, & Cimpian, 2017). Critical aspects of competitiveness are productivity and quality. The best way to improve quality and productivity is to combine quality management systems with the best achievable people’s management skills. Developing performance measures, analyzing and aligning business processes relative to market competition or strategies of the competitors, the building of quality tests criterion, determining business strategies that improve quality management, and focusing on product quality feedback constitute a set of recommendation hub for improving quality and productivity.

Strategic or Executive level Intervention

An organizational level intervention to product quality is through strategic planning of goals and action plan. This strategy encompasses establishing improvement goals, identifying possible strategies, preparation of a written plan of action, and selection of specific interventions for implementation. This strategic intervention offers a clear guideline as well as a timeline to implement change strategies that target quality improvement.

Case 2: Chapter 4

Summary of key OB issues

One of the key OB issues, in this case, is the hiring of new staff and retaining them. Velma Company has good sales and ready market, however hiring and retaining employees is a significant challenge, especially designers of the company products. The other OB issue is an issue of equality among employees. The company considers designers as holding premium position; however, this consideration and lucrative favor and pay it attracts constitute employee inequality. A case of inequality emanates from the offering of designers premium benefits while the other employees enjoy less, relative to insurance cover and annual income contribution towards employee annual income.