September Seminar Outline

KEY DETAILS FROM THE INFORMATION LETTER

International Syndicate Groups will be set up consisting of 8-10 people with different background. We are members of VSG Internationale.

In order to try and help with these concerns, on the first evening of the Seminar (Saturday), there will be an “Icebreaker” session which is intended to help people get to know each other.

Accomodation

Room keys may be collected from 3pm until midnight on Friday 31 August from the reception desk in the Rootes Social Building (no 31 on the location plan).

The nearest shops (for anything essential we may have forgotten) are located at Cannon Park (about 10–15 minutes walk away). A large Tesco supermarket is open 24 hours from Monday 8.00am until Saturday 8.00pm, and 10.00am until 4.00pm on Sunday.
There is also a smaller supermarket on the campus itself, open from 8.00am until 8.00pm Monday to Saturday, 10.00am until 4.00pm on Sunday.

Registration/collection of seminar information pack for all students (residents and non-residents) will take place on Friday 31 August between 2.00pm–9.00pm (DLMBA Reception desk, Rootes Social building) or immediately prior to the introductory session on Saturday 1 September from 8.15–9.00am in the Foyer of the Maths Building (no 23 on the location plan).

Elective Choices

At the end of the Seminar we shall be asked to submit a form letting tutors know which electives we want to take in Parts B and C, and also which form of study mode (eg. Distance Learning, one-week module, online).

COMPUTER ACCESS

Take Wi-Fi adapter with my laptop

For full details and faqs regarding wireless hotspots (the link doesn't work!)

CAMPUS MAP

Either print it out or forget it and ask pretty female students for the direction all the time:)

OB TMA D

Egan and Doyle Publishing

Is a successful publisher and distributor of a wide range of college and university textbooks, journal and periodicals.

Brian Gray is the CEO.

Directors were allowed a degree of responsible autonomy and developed own ways of running things.

Strategic Management Meetings (SMT) were held regularly.

In view of development of IT and to keep advantage E&D employed IT Director (Jane Morgan) to run IT division.

IT division became extremely successful and boosted the business.

Gray was happy about the new Information System.
Gray started asking many questions and division heads spent much more time explaining things to Gray (this also undermined the responsible autonomy).

This created considerable unease among subordinates.

SMT were not held now.

Divisional heads were not informed about what is happenning in the company since Gray spoke to them only individually now (when he had all information available in his PC).

...

Guidelines to OB Cases Analysis

NB! The principal teaching objectives in the Organisational Behaviour module focus more on skill development than on the communication of knowledge per se.

read first time
read 2nd time (take notes to filter out the most important)

1. Problem Identification

• What are the symptoms of the 'illness' afflicting the organisation? In other words, what is the evidence that the organisation described in the case is 'unhealthy'?
• It is vital not to attempt to identify the underlying illness that has caused these symptoms to appear.
• Like a doctor, note the symptoms as the basis for the next step in the procedure.

2. Analysis (diagnosis)

• !! Use SOGI framework for analysis
• Analyse the situation that has led to the problems (symptoms) you have identified.
• It is at this stage that you need to integrate the theoretical concepts introduced in the course notes and texts to the case study
  You must identify the underlying 'illness' afflicting the organisation
  

3. Alternatives

• Based upon identification of this underlying 'illness', it should now be possible to identify a variety of alternative courses of action (or treatments) that can be taken
• It is useful to identify at least four separate alternatives.
• Each of these alternatives should be evaluated in terms of its advantages and disadvantages, as well as the relative risks involved in implementation.
  

4. Recommendation

After outlining the alternatives, you must now make a clear recommendation, for example, regarding which of the alternatives you prefer and why
Your recommendation should follow logically from your evaluation of the costs and benefits of each alternative course of action.

Plan of Action (not very detailed, however, consider how your recommended course of action may be implemented):

• How long will implementation take?
• What levels of the organisation are likely to be affected?
• How are any side-effects to be dealt with?
• Is any resistance likely to occur and how will this be tackled?

OB TMA C

Study Case from J. Martin Corbett 'Critical Cases in Organizational Behaviour'

Managing change at Cox Container Company (CCC), a brief summary of thecase

CCC is a large manufacturer of various types of containers with over 380 employees.

It is a family busniess owned by a respected person named Harold Cox.

Two thirds of employees work in the production department and large majority of jobs is held by ethnic minorities. Half of them worked in the company for 10 years and more.

Nearly all senior positions were promotions of shopfloor employees (Abdul Aziz as a manager).

Production employees are autonomous in their work and like it.

In view of fierce competition and decreased profitability H. Cox assigns Erica Wilson a task to conduct a review of the company's operations.

Wilson concluded that the company lacks operational and cost controls, rapid growth created a vacuum in financial and management accounting.

A new Administration department was created. John Straw (a charted accountant) appointed as its manager. His first job is to review accounting procedures and find ways to tighten cost controls.

Wilson planned to develop Administration department in two futher phases:
1. Implement an appropriate budgeting system (to replace the rather informal system in operation)
2. Involve a systematic review of CCC's operational procedures and implement comapny-wide information system

Two more external people were employed:
1. Eric Long, budgeting section manager (assigned to develop budget control system)
2. Simon Pedder, supposed to use his analytical experience in full review of CCC's operational procedures

A meeting was organized (with all department heads) to explain the new set up (A.Aziz didn't attend).
No objections were raised,but managers didn't really understand how the system would affect the working practices.

A steering group was decided to set upto oversee implementation of the budget control system.

John Straw received repeated complaints from Long and Pedder re lack of cooperation from Aziz.

Straw confronted Aziz face-to-face and failed to get his (Aziz's) cooperation. Aziz beleieved that Straw isbuilding his ownlittle empire (Straw thought the same about Aziz:).

Straw was angry at Aziz's outburst and decided to enlist GM (Wilson) for help in running the new Administration department.


Case resolution:

Outline and analyse the problems confronting CCC in the short and long term and offer recommendations for their resolution.

Wordcount limit is 3 000 words

JAPANESE WORK CULTURE

Readings from J. Martin Corbett (Critical Cases in Organizational Behaviour):

Nissan's plant at Zama(near Tokyo) has an automatic production line with no human interference (except for maintanance).

The basis for their HRM techniques is interesting and generic for all Japanese culture.

Ruth Benedict (1946) describes the Japanese as possessed of a 'shame culture'' in which each worker has a fundamental duty (giri) not only to do good work, but also to match exactly the contribution made by other members of the work group.

Hence failure to make the requisite number of suggestions (and the subsequent danger of failing to repay giri) is likely to induce profound feelings of shame in letting one's colleagues down.

Japanese people can be unhappy with the company they work for and yet not complain or dissent. This is partly to do with giri and gaman (a resigned acceptance and endurance of hardship without complaint) and partly to do with the fact that Japanese culture demands less consistency between an individual's attitudes and behaviour.

In the UK, for instance, if a person who knows you are a vegeterian sees you eating beef in a restaurant, they are likely to regard you as incosistent, weak-willed, or even untrustworthy.

In Japanese culture such incosistency of thought and deed is far less problematic. The notions of omote (meaning 'front') and ura (meaning 'back') help explain this. Omote is presented to the public as a socially acceptable aspect of self, whereas ura is an aspect of the self hidden from public view. Both are recognized socially and the appropriate use of them is highly valued.

Nissan workers (at Zama plant) are obliged to give suggestions on improvement of quality and efficiency (of the work carried out by each worker). This is reflected on a huge screen with indication of a worker's name whose idea is directed to the supervisor.


Nissan beleive this is the best way to help workers keep their minds on their work.


Facts about Japanese economy:

GDP (PPP)	$4.22 trillion (2006 est.)
GDP ranking	3rd by volume; 16th per capita