KPE 320
Administrative Theory and
Organizational Behavio
In Case Study 1 we are looking to apply some of the concepts we have discussed so far in the course – organizational leadership, personalities, perceptual bias and issues of culture.
Where to start?
Please start by reading over the following case…
Case Study – Tom’s CPR and First Aid Training Company
Tom is the owner of a small company that provides CPR and First Aid training to physiotherapy clinics, dental offices, fitness centers and other health sector businesses whose employees require CPR and FA certification.
Tom has 12 part-time Instructors on staff who go out to the various customers and deliver the courses. He doesn’t do any course delivery himself anymore. He used to when he first started 20 years ago, but the demand for his services has grown too big for him to do everything for his customers on his own. So he hired staff to do the training.
Nowadays he focuses his time on meeting new customers, scheduling training sessions, coordinating the financial aspects of the business and ensuring existing customers are happy.
Most importantly, though, he takes great pride in ensuring his Instructors are all expertly trained and do an excellent job delivering the very best quality CPR and FA courses. Tom has spent a lot of time and money coming up with a very meticulous and precise series of teaching plans. Each module is
oken down into exactly what to teach, how to teach it, how long it should take and even a list of answers to some of the most common questions.
Tom takes enormous pride in the consistent high quality courses his Instructors provided, and the value he provides to his customers.
Over the past month or so, Tom has started to receive some complaints from some of his long-time customers. He has heard that while the Instructors are all very knowledgeable, the training they are providing seems to be a little bit inconsistent. Once customer that owns several fitness centers in town noted that the same 2 Instructors delivered courses at each of his four locations, but that his employees received different information and covered slightly different material at each course.
Tom knew immediately what the customer was refe
ing to. The two Instructors were both new to the company. They were very outgoing and personable, both very knowledgeable about CR and FA, both studying to be nurses, and both quite a bit younger than most of the other Instructors in the company.
He wasn’t at all surprised that they weren’t sticking to the tried-and-true program Tom had laid out. Whenever he had observed them in action he was always surprised at how much time they spent asking course participants what they thought about certain concepts, asking them about their experiences and asking them to think about other ways to deal with certain first aid emergencies.
Tom also recalled when he first hired them and was training them to be Instructors that they were a little uncomfortable using the slide deck and script Tom had prepared. After the first few days of training they asked if Tom had ever heard of Doodle – a poll taking app that they used often in their nursing classes to allow students to interact with the professors.
They also expressed concern that Tom’s teaching plan called for participants to use each other as CPR dummies instead of using actual mannequins. They seemed to think that some people in a CPR class would have a problem with the sorts of physical contact and close proximities needed to properly learn certain techniques.
Tom had seen and heard enough. His company was founded on strict adherence to time-tested guidelines and protocols. That’s what his customers wanted, and he had no doubt that was the best way to teach CPR and First Aid.
In order to prevent these Instructors from further deteriorating his business, Tom made the decision to let them go.
He vowed that from now on, whenever he had a hunch that a new Instructor was not likely to follow his protocols that it was in the company’s best interests not to hire that person, no matter how qualified they were or how desperate he was for help!
What do I do next?
Having read the case study, you are asked to write a 1000-word report analyzing various elements of administrative theory and organizational behavior.
For example, you should consider:
· What type of leadership style(s) and leadership and leadership goal(s) does Tom seem to focus on?
· How does Tom’s approach to leadership positively impact the company? In what ways might it have negatively impacted the company?
· Do you think Tom is more aligned with stakeholder theory, or shareholder theory?
· Do you think the Instructors he fired are well suited to Tom’s leadership style?
· What personality traits do these Instructors seem to exhibit? How about Tom?
· Do you think the fact that Tom is roughly 20 years older than these two Instructors is relevant? In what ways?
Some helpful tips…
Your report should be in the format of an essay. The essay should at a minimum address the above questions, but should also draw on discussions from lecture, from assigned readings and from other scholarly literature that examines any administrative theory and organizational behavior concepts you feel are relevant to the case.
Do NOT simply provide a list of answers to the above questions. They are there to guide your thinking as you structure your report in an essay format…
Your report should be no more than 1000 words and should draw on a minimum of 4 different scholarly sources.
Note that there may not be enough room to discuss everything you feel is relevant – I suggest prioritizing the most important issues and discussing them well, rather than a superficial treatment of everything you can think of!
How do I submit my report?
Under the “Assignments and Exams” tab in Quercus you will find a tab for Case Study 1. When you click on the title of that link you will see a “Submit Assignment” icon at the top right corner. Follow the steps to attach and submit your report.
You will also need to post your report in the Case Study 1 Discussion, and then critique at least 2 other student’s work.
Your report may be in a .doc, .docx or .pdf format.
How will my work be graded?
The following ru
ic should be helpful in understanding how the Case Study will be graded:
Discussion related to leadership styles – /4
Discussion related to personalities - /4
Discussion related to organizational objectives - /2
Discussion related to cultural context - /2
Use of scholarly references - /2
Writing clarity, grammar, etc - /1
Case Study #1