Organizational behavior

Organizational Behavior
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 to the station. They hate to do the paperwork, and
because they dislike it, the job is frequently put off or done inadequately. This lack of attention hurts us
later on when we get to court. We need clear, factual reports. They must be highly detailed and
unambiguous. As soon as one part of a report is shown to be inadequate or incorrect, the rest of the
report is suspect. Poor reporting probably causes us to lose more cases than any other factor.
I just don’t know how to motivate them to do a better job. We’re in a budget crunch, and I have
absolutely no financial rewards at my disposal. In fact, we’ll probably have to lay some people off in
the near future. It’s hard for me to make the job interesting and challenging because it isn’t-it’s boring,
routine paperwork, and there isn’t much you can do about it.
Finally, I can’t say to them that their promotions will hinge on the excellence of their
paperwork. First at all, they know it’s not true. If their performance is adequate, most are more likely
to get promoted just by staying on the force a certain number of years than for some specific
outstanding act. Second, they were trained to do the job they do out in the streets, not to fill out forms.
All through their careers the arrests and interventions are what get noticed.
Some people have suggested a number of things, like using conviction records as a
performance criterion. However, we know that’s not fair—too many other things are involved. Bad
paperwork increases the chance that you lose in court, but good paperwork doesn’t necessarily mean
you’ll win. We tried setting up the team competitions based on the excellence of the reports, but the
officers caught on to that pretty quickly. No one was getting any type of reward for winning the
competition, and they figured why should they bust a gut when there was on payoff.
I just don’t know what to do.
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?
1

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 croaking sound. Nurse Thompson
spoke soothingly, “Just try to relax, Mr. Breckenridge. You had a heart attack and emergency surgery,
but you’re going to be OK.”
Heart attack? How did I get here? As the anesthesia wore off and the pain set in, John began to
recall the events of the past year; and with the memories came another sort of pain – that of
remembering a life where success was measured in hours worked and things accomplished, but which
of late had not measured up.
John recalled his years in college, where getting good grades had been important, but not so
much as his newly developing love for Karen, the girl with auburn hair who got her nursing degree the
same year as he graduated with a degree in software engineering. They married the summer after
graduation and moved from their sleepy university town in Indiana to Aspen, Colorado. There John got
a job with a new software company while Karen worked evenings as a nurse. Although they didn’t see
much of each other during the week, weekends were a special time, and the surrounding mountains and
nature provided a superb quality of life.
Life was good to the Breckenridges. Two years after they were married, Karen gave birth to
Josh and two years later to Linda. Karen reduced her nursing to the minimum hours required to
maintain her license, and concentrated on rearing the kids. John, on the other hand, was busy providing
for the lifestyle they increasingly became used to, which included a house, car, SUV, ski trips, and all
of the things a successful engineering career could bring. The company grew in leaps and bounds, and
John was one of the main reasons it grew fast. Work was fun. The company was growing, his
responsibilities increased, and he and his team were real buddies. With Karen’s help at home, he
juggled work, travel, and evening classes that led to a master’s degree. The master’s degree brought
another promotion—this time to vice president of technology at the young (for this company) age of
39.
The promotion had one drawback: It would require working out of the New York office. Karen
sadly said goodbye to her friends, convinced the kids that the move would be good to them, and left
the ranch house for another one, much more expensive and newer, but smaller and just across the river
in New Jersey from the skyscraper where her husband worked. Newark was not much like Aspen, and
the kids had a hard time making friends, especially Josh, who was now 16. He grew sullen and
withdrawn and began hanging around with a crowd that Karen thought looked very tough. Linda,
always the quiet one, stuck mostly to her room.
John’s new job brought with it money and recognition, as well as added responsibilities. He
now had to not only lead software development but also actively participate in steering the company in
the right direction for the future, tailoring its offerings to market trends. Mergers and acquisitions were
the big things in the software business, and John found a special thrill in picking small companies with
promising software, buying them out, and adding them to the corporate portfolio. Karen had
everything a woman could want and went regularly to a health club. The family lacked for no material
need.
At age 41 John felt he had the world by its tail. Sure, he was a bit overweight, but who
wouldn’t be with the amount of work and entertaining that he did? He drank some, a habit he had
developed early in his career. Karen worried about that, but he reassured her by reminding her that he
2

had been really drunk only twice and would never drink and drive. Josh’s friends were a worry, but
nothing had yet come of it.
Not all was well, however. John had been successful in Colorado because he thought fast on his
feet, expressed his opinions, and got people to buy into his decisions. In the New York corporate office
things were different. All of the top brass except the president and John had Ivy League, moneyed
backgrounds. They spoke of strategy but would take only risks that would further their personal
careers. He valued passion, integrity, and action, with little regard for personal advancement. They
resented him, rightly surmising that the only reason he had been promoted was because he was more
like he president than they were, and he was being groomed as heir apparent.
On November 2, 2004, John Breckenridge’s world began to unravel. The company he worked
for, the one he had given so much of his life to build was acquired in a hostile takeover. The president
who had been his friend and mentor was let go, and the backstabbing began in earnest. John found
himself the odd man out in the office as the others jostled to build status in the new firm. Although his
stellar record allowed him to survive the first round of job cuts, that survival only made him more of a
pariah to those around him. Going to work was a chore now, and John had no friends like those he had
left in Aspen.
Karen was little help. John had spent nearly two decades married more to his job than his wife,
and he found she was more of a stranger than a comforter as he struggled in his new role. When he
spoke about changing jobs, she blew up. “Why did I have to give up nursing for your career?” she said.
“Why do we have to move again, just because you can’t get along at work? Can’t you see what the
move did to our kids?”
Seeing the hurt and anger in Karen’s eyes, John stopped sharing and turned to his bottle for
comfort. In time that caused even more tension in the home, and it slowed him down at work when he
really needed to excel. John would often drink himself into oblivion when on business trips rather than
thinking about where his life and career were going. On his last trip he hadn’t slept 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?
3

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 companies, ranging from small fishing fleets to a couple
of the big firms with ships along the East Coast.
About 18 months ago McKay, Sanderson, and Smith Associates became part of a large merger
involving two other accounting firms. These firms have offices in Miami, Seattle, Baton Rouge, and
Los Angeles. Although the other two accounting firms were much larger than McKay, all three firms
agreed to avoid centralizing the business around one office in Los Angeles. Instead the new firm—
called Goldberg, Choo, and McKay Associates—would rely on teams across the country to “leverage
the synergies of our collective knowledge” (an often-cited statement from the managing partner soon
after the merger).
The merger affected me a year ago when my boss (a senior partner and vice president of the
merger) announced that I would be working more closely with three people from the other two firms to
become the firm’s new shipping industry accounting team. The other team members were Elias in
Miami, Susan in Seattle, and Brad in Los Angeles. I had met Elias briefly at a meeting in New York
City during the merger but had never met Susan or Brad, although I knew that they were shipping
accounting professionals at the other firms.
Initially the shipping team activities involved e-mailing each other about new contracts and
prospective clients. Later we were asked to submit joint monthly reports on accounting statements and
issues. Normally I submitted my own monthly reports to summarize activities involving my own
clients. Coordinating the monthly report with three other people took much more time, particularly
because different accounting documentation procedures across the three firms were still being
resolved. It took numerous e-mail messages an a few telephone calls to work out a reasonable monthly
report style.
During this aggravating process it became apparent—to me at least—that this team business was
costing me more time than it was worth. Moreover, Brad in Los Angeles didn’t have a clue about how
to communicate with the rest of us. He rarely replied to e-mail. Instead he often used the telephone tag.
Brad arrived at work at 9:30 a.m. in Los Angeles (and was often late), which is early afternoon in
Boston. I typically have a flexible work schedule from 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. so I can chauffeur my
kids after school to sports and music lessons. So Brad and I have a window of less than three hours to
share information.
The biggest nuisance with the shipping specialist accounting team started two weeks ago when the
firm asked the four of us to develop a new strategy for attracting more shipping firm business. This
new strategic plan is a messy business. Somehow we have to share our thoughts on various
approaches, agree on a new plan, and write a unified submission to the managing partner. Already the
project is taking most of my time just writing and responding to e-mail and talking in conference calls
(which none of us did much before the team formed).
Susan and Brad have already had two or three misunderstandings via e-mail about their different
perspectives on delicate matters in the strategic plan. The worst of these disagreements required a
conference call with all of us to resolve. Except for the most basic matters, it seems that we can’t
understand each other, let alone agree on key issues. I have come to the conclusion that I would never
want Brad to work in my Boston office (thanks goodness he’s on the other side of the country).
Although Elias and I seem to agree on most points, the overall team can’t form a common vision or
4

strategy. I don’t know how Elias, Susan, or Brad feel, but I would 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.
5

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 chamber where four Russian cosmonauts had already
completed half of their 240 days of isolation. This was the first time an international crew was
involved in the studies. None of the participants spoke English as their first language, yet they
communicated throughout their stay in English at varying levels of proficiency.
Judith Lapierre, a French-Canadian, was the only female in the experiment. Along with obtaining a
PhD in public health and social medicine, Lapierre had studied space sociology at the International
Space University in France and conducted isolation research in the Antarctic. This was her fourth trip
to Russia, where she had learned the language. The mission was supposed to have a second female
participant from the Japanese space program, but she was not selected by IBMP.
The Japanese and Austrian participants viewed the participation of a woman as a favorable factor,
says Lapierre. For example, to make the surroundings more comfortable, they rearranged the furniture,
hung posters on the walls, and put a tablecloth on the kitchen table. “We adapted our environment,
whereas Russians just viewed it as something to be endured,” she explains. “We decorated for
Christmas because I’m the kind of person who likes to host people.”
New Year’s Eve Turmoil
Ironically, it was at one of those social events, the New Year’s Eve party, that events took a turn
for the worse. After drinking vodka (allowed by the Russian space agency), two of the Russian
cosmonauts got into a fistfight that left blood splattered on the chamber walls. At one point a colleague
hid the knives in the station’s kitchen because of fears that the two Russians were about to stab each
other. The two cosmonauts, who generally did not get along, had to be restrained by other men. Soon
after that brawl, the Russian commander grabbed Lapierre, dragged her out of view of the television
monitoring cameras, and kissed her aggressively—twice. Lapierre fought him off, but the message
didn’t register. He tried to kiss her again the next morning.
The next day the international crew complained to IBMP about the behavior of the Russian
cosmonauts. The Russian institute apparently took no against the aggressors. Instead the institute’s
psychologists replied that the incidents were part of the experiment. They wanted crew members to
solve their personal problems with mature discussion without asking for outside help. “You have to
understand that Mir is an autonomous object, far away from anything,” Vadim Gushin, the IBMP
psychologist in charge of project, explained after the experiment had ended in March. “If the crew
can’t solve problems among themselves, they can’t work together.”
Following IBMP’s response, the international crew wrote a scathing letter to the Russian institute
and the space agencies involved in the experiment. “We had never expected such events to take place
in a highly controlled scientific experiment where individuals go through a multistep selection
process,” they wrote. “If we had known… we would not have joined it as subjects.” The letter also
complained about IBMP’s response to their concerns.
Informed about the New Year’s Eve incident, the Japanese space program convened an emergency
meeting on January 2 to address the incidents. Soon after the Japanese team member quit, apparently
6

shocked by IBMP’s inaction. He was replaced with a Russian researcher on the international team. Ten
days after the fight—a little over the month the international team began the mission—the doors
between the Russian and international crews’ chambers were barred at the request of the international
research team. Lapierre later emphasized that this action was taken because of concerns about
violence, not the incident involving her.
A Stolen Kiss or Sexual Harassment
By the end of experiment in March, news of the fistfight between the cosmonauts and the
commander’s attempts to kiss Lapierre had reached the public. Russian scientists attempted to play
down the kissing incident by saying that it was one fleeting kiss, a clash of cultures, and a female
participant who was too emotional.
“In the West, some kinds of kissing are regarded as sexual harassment. In our culture it’s nothing,”
said Russian scientist Vadim Gushin in one interview. In another interview he explained, “The
problem of sexual harassment is given a lot of attention in North America but less in Europe. In Russia
it is even less of an issue, not because we are more or less moral than the rest of the world; we just
have different priorities.”
Judith Lapierre says the kissing incident was tolerable compared to this reaction from the Russian
scientists who conducted the experiment. “They don’t get it at all,” she complains. “They don’t think
anything is wrong. I’m more frustrated than ever. The worst thing is that they don’t realize it was
wrong.”
Norbert Kraft, the Austrian scientist on the international team, also disagreed 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?
7

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, community services, and the like) tended to have less
seniority, and their departments were given less priority.
As commuter and road systems developed, Hillton attracted more upwardly mobile professionals to
the community. Some infrastructure demands continued, but now these suburban dwellers wanted
more “soft” services, such as libraries, social activities, and community services. They also began
complaining about how the municipality was being run. The population had more than doubled
between the 1970s and 1990s, and it was increasingly apparent that the city organization needed more
corporate planning, information systems, organization development, and cost control systems. Resident
voiced their concerns in various ways that the municipality was not providing the quality of
management that they would expect from a city of its size.
In 1996 a new mayor and council replaced most of the previous incumbents, mainly on the
platform of improving the municipality’s management structure. The new council gave the city
manager, along with two other senior managers, an early retirement buyout package. Rather than
promoting form the lower ranks, council decided to fill all three positions with qualified candidates
from large municipal corporations in the region. The following year several long-term managers left
Hillton, and at least half of those positions were filled by people from outside the organization.
In less than two years Hillton had eight senior or departmental managers hired from other
municipalities who played a key role in changing the organization’s value system. These eight
managers became known (often with negative connotations) as the “professionals.” They worked
closely with each other to change the way middle and lower-level managers had operated for many
years. They brought in a new computer system and emphasized cost controls where managers
previously had complete autonomy. Promotions were increasingly based more on merit than seniority.
These managers frequently announced in meetings and newsletters that municipal employees must
provide superlative customer service, and that Hillton would become one of the most customer-
8

friendly places for citizens and those doing business with the municipality. To this end these managers
were quick to support the public’s increasing demand for more soft services, including expanded
library services and recreational activities. And when population growth flattened for a few years, the
city manager and the other professionals gained council support to lay off a few outside workers due to
lack of demand for hard services.
One of the most significant changes was that the outside departments no longer held dominant
positions in city management. Most of the professional managers had worked exclusively in
administrative and related inside jobs. Two had Master of Business Administration degrees. This led to
some tension between the professional managers and the older outside managers.
Even before the layoffs, managers of outside departments resisted the changes more than others.
These managers complained that their employees with the highest seniority were turned down for
promotions. They argued for more budget and warned that infrastructure problems would cause
liability problems. Informally these outside managers were supported by the labor union representing
outside workers. The union leaders tried to bargain for more job 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.
9

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